Have you ever wished you could live in a quiet peaceful place somewhere in the country? Because city living is just too stressful? Studies back up exactly how you feel.
Brain imaging studies have found that living in a city or growing up in one can affect brain function during a stressful situation.
According to projections by the United Nations, the world is becoming more urbanized, with almost 70% of people expected to live in urban areas by 2050.
Studies suggest living in a city increases the risk of depression and anxiety, and schizophrenia rates are higher in people born and brought up in cities. But until now, there hasn’t been research into how human brain structures might be affected by urban living.
So researchers at McGill’s Douglas Mental Health University Institute in Montreal and the University of Heidelberg in Germany used magnetic resonance imaging to study brain responses of healthy German students who were taking a math test under stressful conditions.
Study participants faced time pressures and, in some cases, investigators scolded them through headphones.
The researchers reported in the online issue of the journal Nature that, when exposed to those stressful conditions, two areas of the students’ brains known to be involved in processing emotions became more active.
The amygdala is an almond-shaped mass located deep within the brain. It plays an important role in processing and remembering emotional reactions. Researchers found the amygdala was more active in those who lived or had been brought up in cities. According to Jens Pruessner of McGill and his co-authors, a brain mechanism links the urban environment to social stress processing across the human lifespan.
“These findings contribute to our understanding of urban environmental risk for mental disorders and health in general,” said Pruesssner.
He said these findings might point to the importance of taking time away from the hustle and bustle of city living.
“I think what’s important is to realize that you might be more exposed to a higher amount of social stress if you live in the city,” Pruessner said. “Therefore you should account for that by giving yourself more chances to take a vacation and pause from the stress, to find times for recreation.”
In the case of schizophrenia, scientists suspect that both genetic and environmental factors are involved. The new findings point to the social stresses of city living.
“We’ve all known that there has to be something else involved that triggers the onset of schizophrenia, and it’s called stress,” said Chris Summerville, the chief executive officer of the Schizophrenia Society of Canada in Winnipeg. “So if you have higher levels of stress in urban areas, then it stands to reason you would probably have higher levels of schizophrenia.”
The findings did not come as a surprise to a man rushing for a commuter train in Toronto.
“Seriously, if you lived in the country and you didn’t have to deal with the traffic and trains and all the noise, I think you would be a calmer person,” said David Smith.
David Hine, who now lives in the small community of New Ross, N.S., after living in cities and towns, said there is a greater sense of connectedness in rural life.
“In the ups and downs of life, it’s nice to have the security and support of a community,” Hine said.
In these studies, a city was defined as having more than 100,000 inhabitants, a town more than 10,000.
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Source:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2011/06/22/city-stress-brain.html?ref=rss
