Three Minutes to Calm

Aug 28

Nuanic Dr. Silviya Korpilo — When was the last time you paused in nature – just for a few minutes – and noticed your body relaxing?
A recent study led by Postdoctoral Researcher Silviya Korpilo from the University of Helsinki confirms what many of us have felt intuitively: even a short moment outdoors can help our minds and bodies recover from stress. Read our interview with Dr. Silviya Korpilo on how nature restores us.

What the Research Found

The study, published in Urban Forestry & Urban Greening explored how different types of urban nature – forests, beaches, and city parks – support stress recovery. By measuring both how people felt and how their bodies responded, the research provided rare, combined insights into psychological and physiological restoration. Psychological restoration was measured with Nuanic technology. “Our research group wanted to measure EDA with Nuanic’s solution, because we wanted to capture people’s real-time responses to environmental stimuli as part of their everyday interactions with urban nature”, Dr. Korpilo explains.

Here are the highlights:

● Forests and beaches outperformed city parks. Participants experienced greater relaxation in places with high “naturalness” – rich in greenery, water, and natural sounds.

● Soundscapes matter. Natural sounds such as birdsong, waves, and rustling leaves were strongly linked to stress recovery, even more than visual qualities.

● The three-minute effect. Electrodermal activity (EDA) measurements showed that stress levels began to drop after only three minutes in natural settings, especially in forests.

● Physiology confirms psychology. While self-reports told one side of the story, real-time wearable data confirmed that our bodies respond to nature almost immediately.

In short: Nature that looks and sounds natural isn’t just a nice bonus in urban life – it’s a core part of keeping city residents healthy.

So, would it be good self-advice to say “Go to the woods” when feeling anxious? “Yes, it seems so. We were actually quite surprised at how quickly the EDA levels started to go down when participants went into the forest,” Dr. Korpilo smiles.

Bringing Precision to Nature and Health Research

When we ask Dr. Silviya Korpilo about the role of wearables in her work, she highlights how transformative real-time measurements can be. “Instead of only asking people afterwards how they felt in a park or a forest, wearable sensors like Nuanic Ring make it possible to see how stress levels change in the very moment of exposure. This gives researchers a much clearer picture of how our bodies respond as we move through different environments in daily life,” she explains.

Dr. Korpilo sees great promise in combining Nuanic technology with GEMA methods (Geographic Ecological Momentary Assessment), which already blend self-reports of mood and behavior with location tracking. “With real-time EDA data layered on top, GEMA studies could provide a far richer understanding of how urban spaces affect health and well-being,” she continues.

Beyond the individual level, Dr. Korpilo emphasizes the societal impact. Urban planners and policy makers increasingly want evidence-based data when making decisions. “Opinions and perceptions can vary, but objective physiological measurements provide a solid foundation for designing healthier cities”, she notes. And, thanks to advances in wearable technology, such data collection has become now both practical and scalable, she concludes.

How Nuanic Can Support Research

Nuanic technology is more than a tool for studying city parks and forests. At its core, it measures electrodermal activity (EDA) – a sensitive indicator of how the autonomic nervous system responds to stress and recovery. Because the Nuanic ring provides lab-level accuracy in real-life settings, it can be applied in a wide variety of research designs. In health research, it helps scientists explore stress, anxiety, depression, and recovery processes, including rehabilitation studies such as long COVID. In occupational studies, it enables early detection of stress patterns and burnout risks among knowledge workers. In clinical research, it allows continuous, real-time data collection that was once limited to controlled lab conditions, making it easier to test and evaluate new interventions. This versatility opens new possibilities for understanding and promoting human well-being — whether in the forest, the workplace, or the clinic.

Work with us

If you or your research group would like to explore how Nuanic technology can support your work, we’d love to hear from you. Reach us at contact@nuanic.com and we’ll be happy to set up an introductory call.