Stress Reduction Theory Essay

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The human brain is a well-oiled machine. It requires maintenance like any other mechanism. The brains ability to cognitively function is affected by many factors within a person’s surrounding environment. Cognitive abilities began to develop during the early stages of childhood. In newer generations, children have developed shorter tempers, awry cognitive abilities and bleak imaginations. Scientific researchers have labeled upcoming generations as nature deficient. Many scientists, researchers and naturalists blame the innovations in technology for keeping children glued to their video game controllers and game devices; however, they acknowledged that it would be a short-sighted research project if they were to ignore the advances in production …show more content…

The Stress Reduction Theory (SRT) proposes the idea that nature “posits a healing power of nature that lies in an unconscious, autonomic response to natural elements that occur without recognition and most noticeably in individuals who have been stressed before the experience”(Bratman; Nature Experience, cognitive function, and mental health). Scientists tested this theory through the usage of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). By analyzing the brain activity demonstrated in the images, facial expressions and other factors that indicate changes in emotion, scientists, consequently; children are not fully familiar with their emotions and couldn’t describe what they were feeling in detail. The fMRI brain images indicated massive differences in the children who had had a nature experience prior to the brain scans (the control group) compared to those who had not. The second theory Attention Restoration Theory “centers the power of nature to replenish certain types of attention through conscious, cognitive processed in response to natural landscapes.” The Attention Restoration Theory (ART) focused primarily on the differences in attention spans and behavior of children who lived in urbanized areas compared to those who live in greener areas. In a natural experiment Taylor “compared children from the same population in a housing complex in Chicago, whose living conditions and demographic characteristics differed only by their views from home: a small pocket of urban park or a barren concrete area.” (Berman, Tennessen, Cimprich and Taylor; Nature experience, cognitive function, and mental function). Children in both areas demonstrated the effects of an environment on the behavior and proved the Attention Restoration Theory. A minor

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