Nature's Fractals: the surprising shortcut to 'wakeful relaxation'

When I first got hooked on the idea of 'nature-enhanced capacities', I did a deep dive into the literature on the relationship between human wellbeing and Nature experience. There are now 1000s of publications on the positive effects of Nature on human wellbeing, which is wonderful, because it confirms what most of us who take the time to notice, already sense. However, most of this evidence is describing correlation and Western science is still providing little explanation for causation.

I did find one super interesting article though, which I think reflects the reality of human beings as designed for, and as a part of, nature.

The paper is entitled, ‘Human Physiological Benefits of Viewing Nature: EEG Responses to Exact and Statistical Fractal Patterns.’ If you don’t wish to read the below paragraphs explaining the science, the key-take-away is that it appears that humans prefer fractals as they occur in Nature, and that viewing naturalistic fractal imagery invokes the alpha brain state, a ‘wakefully relaxed’ state, which is the Goldilocks zone for performance.

The main causal theory cited in the literature for why Nature is so effective at replenishing us humans is Attention Restoration Theory. It says that Nature demands much less ‘top-down’ directed attention than less natural contexts. Directed attention, which includes things like filtering out distractions and staying focussed on tasks that aren’t necessarily fun, draws from a limited pool of cognitive resources. Use that type of attention too much and we end up in ‘directed attention fatigue’ and can become distractible, forgetful and irritable, with impaired judgement and increased likelihood of accidents.

Not only that, says ART, but Nature engages us in ‘soft fascination’, a kind of bottom-up involuntary attention which is not only effortless but also leaves space for light internal reflection. The combination of soft fascination and lack of directed attention demands is thought to result in a sweet spot for mental restoration.

Exactly why Nature has this effect on us is less clear. This article investigates one hypothesised pathway - that humans find the fractal nature of Nature pleasing, and that looking at naturalistic fractals engages this ‘soft fascination.’ They conducted their experiment by measuring brain activity via EEG in response to a set of images that varied both on the density of fractal patterns and on the randomness included in the images. In Nature, the density in imagery is typically within a defined range and there is a high degree of randomness. Randomness results in statistical fractals rather than exact fractals, meaning that the fractals rather than looking identical at all scales, look similar at different scales.

The results showed alpha power increases with randomness, and with density values similar to those found in nature.

So, an easy shortcut for replenishing your cognitive supplies and slipping into ‘the zone’ is to view Nature. This research would suggest to especially favour a scene where it is easy to see fractals e.g. a coastline or the foamy edges of the waves reaching up the shore, or the edges of clouds.

Statistical fractals lie everywhere in Nature however, and once you learn to open your senses and develop flexible awareness, you can more easily pick up on these mathematically resplendent patterns. For example, widen your field of awareness and you can pick up on the patterns of the wind playing across the grass of a field, or even moving through the trees in your neighbourhood, or the different layers of waves, currents and ripples moving through water. Widening the scope of awareness to sense more of the field, allows more pattern to become apparent. It’s very satisfying.** 

This also can be implemented in your workspace. Maybe you can arrange it to have a view out of a window (pro-tip, ideally just above your screen, as looking up slightly is alerting to our brain) looking onto a tree, and/ or if that’s not possible, change your screensaver to one including fractal nature patterns which I have just done as a result of this research!

Ultimately I think resting awareness on the pattern of nature is nourishing for us to do because it connects us back to the essential patterns of creation which are moving through all of life. This feels very stabilising for me, reminding me that there is order in everything, along with the chaos. I also believe it is an essential task for humans to do, to connect with and ultimately embody these patterns of creation. With our conscious minds it is all too easy to play the role of the disruptive patterns, but that’s not really the wholeness of humanity, we need to play out the generative patterns too. 

**In case you can’t tell, if nothing else, my excitement about this bit of research is because it has helped me justified why I am not a total weirdo for seeking out ways to view or listen to the patterns of nature.

—

Hagerhall, C. M., et al. "Human physiological benefits of viewing nature: EEG responses to exact and statistical fractal patterns." Nonlinear dynamics, psychology, and life sciences 19.1 (2015): 1-12.