ABSTRACT
Environmental psychology, which considers the relationship between the landscape and the human health, has been a growing field of research over the last few decades. This research has brought forth the theories of attention restoration, stress reduction, emotional experience, qi experience, flow experience, and transcendent experience, among others, which all relate to the human need to connect with nature, also known as the biophilia hypothesis, and have given rise to biophilic design, especially in the development of urban green spaces. This chapter uses the human–nature benefit perspective as a theoretical framework to ask and answer the following questions: (1) what is a healthy landscape? This is answered by using the perception of landscape design and landscape ecology to discuss the relationship between landscapes and human health. (2) What are healthy people? What benefits do humans gain by further connecting with nature? To answer these questions, psychological outcomes are considered, such as attention restoration, preference, positive emotion, and recovery from stress. Physical outcomes are also discussed and include the indicators of stress, such as heart rate, electromyography, and brain waves, that allow for the identification of a reduction in stress after experiencing nature. The chapter also illustrates the difference in fMRI brain activations between individuals who spend time in nature and those who do not. Ultimately, this chapter encourages the reader to be more mindful about their attitude and behavior toward communing with nature and to imagine how they can foster nature connectedness from the individual level to communities.
