Walking in the park makes people happy - Twitter proved

What makes people happy? Representatives of our species have been searching for this question since time immemorial. Recently, scientists from the University of Vermont found that after a walk in the park, a person becomes less irritable, but that's not all. According to the results of the study, a walk gives us a sense of euphoria, akin to the one that you can experience on Christmas morning. Who would have thought?

Does your city have a park?

How to cheer yourself up?

In a study, scientists found thatmood starts to improve already while waiting for a walk. And the increased level of happiness persists for several hours after it. However, in order to feel as happy as possible, walking anywhere is not worth it. British scientists came to the conclusion that walks in open areas and pastime in crowded places, although they cheer up, but they can not be compared with a walk in the park.

According to one of the authors of the study, Christopher Danform, being in nature has a restoring effect on the body, which cannot be compared with shopping or going to the movies.

By the way, reading articles on our channel in Yandex.Zen during a walk perfectly cheers you up.

Where are people happiest?

But how did scientists come to such conclusions? You may be surprised, but all thanks to Twitter: the study relies on a tool called a hedometer. It measures the mood of Twitter users based on the words they contain. Words such as “laughter”, “rainbow” and “love” correlate with a positive mood, while the words “murder”, “terrorist” and “cancer” are clearly not. Other words like “indicate,” “abide,” and “I” do not carry any emotional connotation.

Here's what the hedometer looks like

Of course, like any other tool formood analysis, the hedometer is not perfect. Despite the fact that the hedometer cannot determine whether this or that tweet with sarcasm is written, and this is not uncommon in this social network, studies have shown that the instrument measures moods well.

Scientists analyzed tweets of residents of San Franciscowith geotags for the period from May to August 2016. Thanks to geotags, researchers could track whether a tweet was sent from a park or any other place in the city. They then analyzed the mood of users during the publication of tweets made in the park, as well as tweets made after the walk.

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During the analysis, scientists resorted to usingscales from one to nine, according to which 1 is the least happy mood, and nine is the maximum. Tweets sent from parks were rated at 6.43 points. They also had more than 0.229 points more than tweets sent from other places.

According to previous studies withusing a hedometer, a similar level of happiness is observed among users at Christmas. By the way, on this day, according to the hedometer, the level of happiness of Twitter users increases to heaven.

Where is better to live?

It's no secret that residents of large cities are happyfewer than those living in less populated regions. Noise and light pollution of cities increases the level of stress, which, in turn, leads to the development of many diseases, including mental illness. A study by scientists from the University of Vermont once again shows that green areas have a positive effect on the psychological and physical condition of citizens.

So the next time you hear aboutthat someone wants to build a shopping center on the site of the park, consider that this someone is taking away your physical and mental health. Thus, possibly shortening your life span.

Required reading: How does polluted air affect the brain?

Scientists note that the presence of biodiversity inParks are also of great importance to our well-being. Thus, the preservation of a variety of animal species is important for every inhabitant of our planet. The fewer green areas remain on Earth, and the fewer animals live in them, the sadder people become.

So, after reading this article, feel free to go to the nearest park to feed ducks, squirrels or pigeons.