Both restored forest and birdsong promote psychological well-being

Abstract

We contribute to research addressing links between forest restoration and human well-being with an experimental study testing how exposure to a restored forest and birdsong impact mental stress, positive and negative experiences and perceived restorativeness. This study engaged 106 campus participants at North Carolina State University in a 2 × 2 experiment to assess the impacts of soundscapes (i.e., traffic noise versus birdsong) and a restored riparian forest (compared to proximate grey space). Soundscape and location were drivers of all well-being metrics (p < 0.001 for main effects in every case, with effect sizes ranging from η2 = 0.05 to 0.34). The restored forest with birdsong combination elicited the lowest stress, lowest negative experiences, highest positive experiences and highest perceived restorativeness (p < 0.05). The grey space with traffic noise combination was always the least beneficial (p < 0.05), and mixed treatments yielded intermediate results. These results build evidence that exposure to restored forest reduces stress, increases well-being and assists with perceived restorativeness; they also suggest that birdsong soundscapes have additive beneficial effects. These findings support the value of ecological restoration in urban areas, particularly when landscape restoration is accompanied by restoration of bird communities.