Neuroscience of Zen: How gardens help our brains
By Stephen Beech
Well-designed gardens help people relax straight away, as we look at them differently, suggests new research.
Our gaze shifts quicker and more often in specially devised green spaces, say scientists.
They believe it could be "key" to understanding the relaxing effects gardens can have on viewers.
The international research team believes their findings help people affected by neurodegenerative diseases.
They explained that observation gardens are specifically designed to let the viewer's gaze wander, but can also fulfil other functions, such as providing aid for meditation.
The team investigated what it is about those gardens that makes people feel more relaxed when they sit down to observe them.
They assessed the impact of the Murin-an garden in Kyoto, Japan, and compared it to a less vigorously maintained garden.
Study first author Professor Seiko Goto said: "Well-designed Japanese gardens have evocative and abstract sceneries designed in great detail.
"These sceneries encourage the viewer to observe longer to understand the composition and meaning of the scenery, while the gaze wanders more and faster."
Study senior author Professor Karl Herrup, a neurobiologist at the University of Pittsburgh said: "We found a correlation of rapid gaze shifts and a reduction in heart rate and improved mood.
"The reduction in stress experienced by viewers of a well-crafted Japanese garden is largely due to the design features that lead the viewer to engage in frequent, rapid horizontal shifts in gaze."
During a day of maintenance in 2023, the research team was able to get undisturbed access to the Murin-an garden.
Similarly, the garden located at Kyoto University was visited little during the time they conducted the experiment there.
A total of 16 students observed both gardens for seven minutes.
The researchers recorded eye movements, heart rates before and during the observation, and mood before and after viewing the gardens.
Unlike in the university garden, in the Murin-an garden, viewers' fixation points were spread more widely, covering the entirety of the field of view.
Goto, a researcher at Nagasaki University in Japan who specialises in landscape architecture, said: "To induce such close attention of the viewer, not only the quality of design but also the quality of the maintenance is important.
"Viewers' gaze keeps moving to seek more fascination on the well-pruned trees and speckless ground."
All the participants also indicated that they felt more relaxed, liked, and wanted to revisit the Murin-an garden more than the university garden.
The Murin-an garden also produced a calming effect on heart rate and improved mood.
The researchers said their findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, could have some similarities to other therapies that utilise eye movement to reduce stress.
They say other gardens could have a similar effect on onlookers, but the positioning of design elements is "crucial".
While both gardens incorporated water features, stones, trees, and a bridge, in the Murin-an garden, the viewer's gaze is guided through horizontally arranged elements.
But in the university garden, the objects of greatest interest are in the centre of the visual field.
Herrup said: "The Murin-an garden was designed as a viewing garden that should be appreciated from a specific vantage point relative to the design elements.
"It is this attention to detail that coaxes the eyes into the patterns that relieve stress."
The researchers said their work might help people affected by neurodegenerative diseases.
Goto said: "Gardens are generally seen as a hobby for the wealthy, but if appreciating Japanese gardens can induce a relaxing effect, which intuitively everyone feels, it could be used as a form of therapy in hospitals and welfare facilities."
She added, "I think it would be good if Japanese gardens are built not just as a luxury but as a means of mental care in our aging society."
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