Viewing Images of Nature Reduces Perception of Pain
This new article Nature Exposure Induces Analgesic Effects by Acting on Nociception-Related Neural Processing, published in Nature Communication, March 13, 2025 highlights new science demonstrating the positive benefits of viewing images of nature.
Stimuli depicting a natural, an urban, and an indoor environment.
This new science not only demonstrates reduced sensation of pain through subjective self-reporting, but also used brain imaging to observed decreased activity in parts of the brain connected to nociception (the sensing and response to harmful stimuli). This provides evidence that the reduced sensation is a real sensory effect and not just a placebo effect.
Plots depicting unpleasantness ratings of painful shocks and cognitive-emotional neural response to pain when viewing images of nature and urban environments.
The paper concludes that “simple and brief exposure to nature reduces self-reported and specific neural responses to acute pain and is linked to lower-level pain-specific nociception-related processing”, and suggests that “employing natural stimuli could be a cost-effective and easily implementable intervention in pain treatment and related contexts to promote health and well-being.“
“It is an exciting research avenue to test the generalization of the present findings to chronic pain and the potential alleviation of chronic pain conditions.”
