What to hear in your Garden?

Listening to just the right sorts of nature sounds can be as cognitively refreshing and good at reducing our stress levels as seeing nature, in real life or in photos or videos, all of which is as great for our physical health as our mental state.

You may be able to develop a garden space on your home or an area on a balcony that makes these sorts of soundscapes more likely—and if not, play a nature soundscape you find online that conforms to the criteria noted below quietly in your home.

What sorts of nature sounds do the best job of keeping our minds fresh and performing well and our social skills top notch:

• Burbling brooks and gently moving water—no crashing rapids, no torrential downpours, just the quiet splashes of fresh water flowing peacefully. Ocean waves from calm seas are also good for our minds and bodies.
• Gently rustling leaves and grasses—these would be the sounds made by plants gently swaying in slight breezes not the noises of animals running towards us in forests so that they can have us for lunch.
• Songbirds singing serenely and quietly have wonderful effects on what goes on in our heads—the noises of screaming parrots, etc., do not.