There are many studies that examine the influence of nature on human mental health.
True, most of them were conducted under normal blue skies - few scientific minds thought about how people react to the daily rhythms of the sun.
This oversight was decided to be corrected by employees of the University of Exeter in the UK.
They organized an experiment in which they asked participants (by the way, there were more than 2,500 of them) to look at urban and rural landscapes at different times of day.
If the scenes shown included sunrises or sunsets, the subjects rated them as much more beautiful, compared to scenes in sunny weather and at any other time of day.
That's not all that was discovered: it turned out that the phenomena we've already mentioned, namely sunrise and sunset, make people feel awe and delight. Researchers have found that such emotions, which are difficult to evoke artificially, can improve mood and enhance positive feelings.
According to an article in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, encouraging observation of the rising and setting of the sun can be used as part of "green" recipes, where nature plays a key role in restoring mental health.
According to Alex Smalley, a research fellow at the University of Exeter and the study's lead author, it pays to get up early or go for a walk at sunset.
The “wow” factor associated with sunrise and sunset creates small but significant bursts of feelings of beauty and awe, which can have a positive impact on mental well-being.
