Residential greenspace is associated with mental health via intertwined capacity-building and capacity-restoring pathways

Background: Experiences afforded by natural settings promote health by helping people to build new adaptive capacities and to restore existing capacities. The aim of this study was to examine relations among restorative experience, mindfulness, rumination and psychological resilience in pathways linking residential greenspace to anxiety and depression symptoms.

Methods: We sampled 529 university students residing in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Residential greenspace was measured in terms of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and tree cover density for different buffer sizes. Symptoms of anxiety and depression were measured with the Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale (7-item) and Patient Health Questionnaire (9-item), respectively. The following mediators were assessed by self-report: perceived greenspace, restorative quality of the neighborhood, dispositional mindfulness, rumination, and psychological resilience. Structural equation modelling techniques were used to test the theoretically-indicated relations among the variables.

Results: Across different buffer sizes, higher greenspace was consistently associated with reduced scores on the anxiety and depression scales. This effect was partially mediated via several pathways. Specifically, higher NDVI _500-m was associated with higher perceived greenspace, and in turn, with higher restorative quality, and then with higher mindfulness, lower rumination, and greater resilience to stress, and consequently, with better mental health.

Conclusions: Our findings affirm the potential of greenspace for building psychological resilience and promoting health by offsetting dysfunctional rumination and facilitating mindfulness as components of intertwined capacity-building and capacity-restoring pathways.