These Chirping Sounds Can Soothe Your Anxiety

livemint.com:

Bertha Masuda has a new self-help guru: a dark-eyed junco bird. She watched a pair of the birds feed their young in her geranium planter for weeks this spring. Then one day, Masuda realized that the chicks had flown the nest.

She found this comforting as she is preparing to become an empty-nester herself in the fall, when her youngest child heads to college. “Watching this bird family has made it easier to process my own transition," says Masuda, a consultant who lives in Los Angeles. We could all use a calming, reassuring influence these days.

Try birds. Bird songs and calls may be the mostrestorative natural sounds, research is finding. They can help reduce stress and give our brain and nervous system a much-needed rest.

They can also alleviate our anxiety, comfort us and bring us joy. These benefits increase when we can see the bird we’re hearing. The novelty of a bird’s appearance can activate the dopamine system in our brain, which boosts our mood and motivation, neuroscientists say.

“It’s like a little emotional gift," says Ron Hoy, an acoustics researcher at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. We might be primed to notice birdsong because its frequency falls within our sweet spot of hearing, between about two and five kilohertz, says Hoy. It has a lot in common with our own vocalizations and reminds us of music, with melody, rhythm and tone.

The benefits of birds Birds are fun! And sometimes they can help put our own lives into perspective. Dave Cohen discovered this years ago after an argument with his then-girlfriend while camping in Utah’s Arches National Park. He had stormed off to hike alone when he overheard another big disagreement—between two ravens.