Acute Effects of Biodiverse Nature Images on the Stress Response in Middle-Aged Women During Physical Activity and Recovery

This study aimed to examine the acute effects of viewing varying levels of biodiversity on stress response, as measured by heart rate variability (HRV), in middle-aged women ( n = 33) during physical activity and recovery. Interaction with a more biodiverse environment was hypothesized to result in more significant stress reduction (higher HRV) during activity and recovery. Middle-aged women (45–65) bear considerable stress, and most fail to meet the minimum recommended requirements for physical activity. Physical activity (PA) and exercise provide restoration from stress, primarily if performed when viewing nature. Three test sessions included a warm-up condition, PA (walking), and a recovery condition. During each test condition, the participants viewed different levels of nature/biodiversity (no viewing of video, low diversity video, and high diversity video) during PA and recovery. Each participant ( n = 33) performed the protocols on three days. R–R intervals were collected from a Polar 10 heart rate monitor, and HRV (Standard Deviation Normal to Normal) was calculated. Repeated measures ANOVA assessed the differences between the three viewing conditions. During PA, significant differences were found between no video viewing and low biodiversity viewing (no viewing was less stressful). During recovery, significant differences were found between no viewing of video and low biodiversity viewing and between no viewing of video and high biodiversity viewing (again, no viewing was less stressful). These surprise findings suggest that it is less stressful for middle-aged women not to engage with a nature/biodiversity video than to be visually exposed via video to either low or high levels of biodiversity. The significant finding that NOT viewing nature videos was less stress-inducing in middle-aged women during recovery than viewing nature videos contributes new information to research involving HRV, stress recovery, the impact of viewing nature videos, and screen time. The unexpected finding of greater HRV (less stress) while viewing no-nature video necessitates further studies on mindfulness practices, mind-wandering, and the impact of video/screen time on HRV and the stress response. This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2025 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.