Birdsong and Wellbeing

Hammoud and colleagues report that they “used the Urban Mind smartphone application to examine the impact of seeing or hearing birds on self-reported mental wellbeing in real-life contexts. . . . Everyday encounters with birdlife were associated with time-lasting improvements in mental wellbeing. These improvements were evident not only in healthy people but also in those with a diagnosis of depression, the most common mental illness across the world. . . . results . . . provid[ed] support to a specific benefit of birdlife on mental wellbeing, above and beyond the well-established effect of green spaces. . . . we found that the beneficial effect on mental wellbeing is still significant after the encounter with birds has taken place. . . . the beneficial effect of seeing or hearing birds on mental wellbeing does wane over time.”

Ryan Hammoud, Stefania Tognin, Lucie Burgess, Nicol Bergou, Michael Smythe, Johanna Gibbons, Neil Davidson, Alia Afifi, Ioannis Bakolis and Andrea Mechelli.  2022. “Smartphone-Based Ecological Momentary Assessment Reveals Mental Health Benefits of Birdlife.”  Scientific Reports, vol. 12, 17589,

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20207-6