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NHS Value
"We will defeat this coronavirus and defeat it together. We will win because our NHS is the beating heart of this country. It is the best of this country. It is unconquerable. It is powered by love.”
– Boris...
April 17, 2020, 2:38 pm
Science & Psychology of the Coronavirus Crisis
There is rightly criticism of the pseudoscience of the behaviourism the government promotes in tandem with the expertise of epidemiologists and virologists. But there is one psychological principle that helps explain the misery that the crisis...
April 17, 2020, 2:38 pm
Covid19 Outbreak – Psychological Issues around Social Isolation
Many nations are undergoing some form of “lock-down”, so some anxiety is normal. Borwin Bandelow, from Gottingen in Germany, who has conducted a study on fear, said humans developed into social creatures to survive, so isolation was...
April 17, 2020, 2:38 pm
People who take time to notice nature, by listening to birdsong or smelling flowers, are happier than those who do not, research has found. They are also more likely to feel that their lives are worthwhile if they regularly spend time in green spaces or watch bees and butterflies, according to a survey by the University of Derby and the National Trust.
Researchers compared two groups of people who had very high or low scores when asked if their life was worthwhile. They found that 60% of those who felt their life was highly worthwhile spent more than an hour outdoors on 4 or 5 days a week, compared with 13% of those who felt the opposite.
Adults and children were also asked about their sense of connection with nature and ranked on their level of happiness. Adults with the closest connections with nature were 15% happier and children 10% happier than those disconnected from nature.
The researchers also found that when people were prompted to notice nature each day they reported feeling better able to slow the pace of life and feel an improved connection with loved ones. People who regularly engage with nature were also more than 3 times as likely to support wildlife, such as putting out food for birds or volunteering for a conservation charity. However, 83% of children and 79% of adults never or rarely smelt wild flowers, and 77% of children and 62% of adults never or rarely listened to birdsong.
The Times, 27.2.20.