Increased Tranquility

Tranquillity is the quality or state of being tranquil; that is, calm, serene, and worry-free. The word tranquillity appears in numerous texts ranging from the religious writings of Buddhism, where the term passaddhi refers to tranquillity of the body, thoughts and consciousness on the path to enlightenment, to an assortment of policy and planning guidance documents, where interpretation of the word is typically linked to engagement with the natural environment. 
Psychological being in a tranquil or “restorative” environment allows individuals to take respite from the periods of sustained “directed attention” that characterise modern living. 

In developing their Attention Restoration Theory (ART), Kaplan and Kaplan proposed that recovery from cognitive overload could most effectively be achieved by engaging with natural restorative environments, that are away from daily distractions and have the extent and mystery that allows the imagination to wander, thereby enabling individuals to engage effortlessly with their surroundings. The theory works on the principle that the amount of reflection possible within such an environment depends upon the type of cognitive engagement, i.e. fascination; that the environment holds. “Soft fascination” is deemed to occur when there is enough interest in the surroundings to hold attention but not so much that it compromises the ability to reflect. In essence, soft fascination, which has been taken by Herzog and Pheasant as a reasonable term to describe tranquillity, provides a pleasing level of sensory input that involves no cognitive effort other than removing oneself from an overcrowded mental space.

Increased tranquil scenes have positive impact on brain
The research uses functional brain imaging to assess how the environment impacts upon our brain functions.
The findings demonstrated that tranquil environmental scenes containing natural features, such as the sea, cause distinct brain areas to become `connected´ with one another whilst man-made environments, such as motorways, disrupt the brain connections.

They utilised the fact that waves breaking on a beach and traffic moving on a motorway produce a similar sound, perceived as a constant roar, and presented the participants with images of tranquil beach scenes and non-tranquil motorway scenes while they listened to the same sound associated with both scenes.

Using brain scanning that measures brain activity they showed that the natural, tranquil scenes caused different brain areas to become `connected´ with one another – indicating that these brain regions were working in sync. However, the non-tranquil motorway scenes disrupted connections within the brain.

People experience tranquillity as a state of calmness and reflection, which is restorative compared with the stressful effects of sustained attention in day-to-day life. It is well known that natural environments induce feelings of tranquillity whereas manmade, urban environments are experienced as non-tranquil. The brain works when it perceives natural environments, so we can measure its experience of tranquillity.

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