How just 30 minutes’ birdwatching every week can send your spirits soaring

Spending just 30 minutes a week watching sparrows and starlings could benefit mental health, a study suggests.

Researchers found that people who were randomly assigned to a birdwatching group saw greater improvements in their wellbeing than those assigned to a nature-walking group, or a control group.

The academics, from North Carolina State University in the U.S., said the results support ‘a causal relationship between birdwatching and mental health and well-being, and it supports previous research suggesting exposure to birds may be more influential than other forms of nature’.

For the study, 120 participants were randomly allocated to either go birdwatching for 30 minutes once a week for five weeks or to walk for the same amount of time each week, or to carry on with their usual routine (the control group).

Their mental wellbeing and distress levels were monitored before and after the five-week experiment using psychological surveys.

The experiment found that going birdwatching was better than taking walks in nature or doing nothing at all

The study concluded that engaging directly with nature such as via birdwatching was more beneficial for mental health than simply surrounding yourself with it

Several weeks later, the experiment was repeated, with the same participants again randomly allocated to one of the three groups.

The researchers found that birdwatching was associated with a 12.1 per cent average increase in wellbeing, compared to an 8.5 per cent increase for nature walkers.

Those who carried on as normal (the control group) saw a 2.6 per cent increase.

The birdwatchers’ distress levels also dropped by 13.7 per cent, while the nature-walkers experienced a lower drop of 6.9 per cent.

Meanwhile, distress levels for the control group went up by 6.4 per cent.

Study co-author, Dr Lincoln Larson, said: ‘In general, contact with nature provides health benefits, but contact with biodiversity, especially birds, might be even more beneficial, perhaps because it triggers the “soft fascination” that makes natural environments even more restorative.’

Soft fascination, a term coined by a pair of environmental psychologists, Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, in the 1980s, is when our attention is naturally held by a less active or stimulating activity.

‘Looking for birds forces us to engage directly with nature rather than simply being within it,’ said Dr Larson.

The study was published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.

A 2021 study by researchers from Goethe University, Frankfurt, and Kiel University, both in Germany, found that an increased biodiversity of birds in an area was associated with increased life satisfaction.

And a 2017 University of Exeter study, which analysed the link between different neighbourhood characteristics and mental health, found that a higher abundance of birds present in the afternoon was associated with lower anxiety, stress and depression.