Image source: BBC/Serenity Strull
Did you know that bird watching may help slow brain aging, and that it is increasingly being used as a treatment for people with dementia?
Every week, a group of elderly people spend hours inside a wooden hideout in the English countryside, watching birds through binoculars and enthusiastically sharing what they see. Like the “oystercatcher” bird with its long, shiny beak as it digs through the pebbles of the ground, or the “dipper” bird as it floats above the water with its head with its distinctive crown of feathers.
Most of these observers have difficulty remembering the day's events, and may find it difficult to follow the conversation, but they regain their vitality and activity when they begin exchanging observations about the birds flying in the sky above Mill Forge Lake in the West Midlands region of Britain.
Among them is 78-year-old Harold.
Harold was a nature lover in his youth, but recently his dementia has made him withdrawn and anxious.
His daughter, Lucy, took him to this place, hoping that the change in atmosphere and the calmness that the lake brought would help improve his condition.
After a somewhat apprehensive start, Harold began to smile when someone pointed out the presence of a robin, and he enjoyed watching the ducks frolic in the water. As the blue chickadees skipped nimbly between the nearby trees, Lucy saw her father laugh for the first time in a long time.
Harold “was completely present in the moment; he wasn’t worried about his memory or his self-confidence,” says Jenny Budinger, a dementia consultant at Age UK, a non-profit organization that runs the bird-watching group. “It’s powerful and very gentle.”
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Today, bird watching has become a valuable exercise for the elderly and people with dementia. Groups were established for this purpose in nursing homes in Britain, Germany, and the United States.
Paying attention to birds, even from behind a window, helps elderly people feel more connected to others, enhances positive feelings, and also contributes to memory activation.
Recent research suggests that bird watching may change the structure of the brain - similar to learning a gymnastics or a musical instrument - and may even help slow the brain's aging process.
More organized brains
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In the lab, neuroscientists measured the recognition skills of enthusiastic bird watchers to determine who were experts and who were novices, and then scanned their brains.
Scientists found that the structure of the brains of the experts was different; It appears that experience watching birds may slow age-related decline by maintaining a higher level of organization within the brain.
Eric Wing, who led the research at Baycrest Research and Education Academy in Toronto, Canada, compared MRI images of the brains of expert bird watchers with those of novice birds as they identified bird species. He concluded that the brains of experts have different neural connectivity mechanisms in the areas responsible for functions such as attention, visual perception, and visual recognition.
These areas showed greater activity among bird watchers, especially when they were asked to identify bird species they were not previously familiar with.
Although these results do not confirm whether structural differences in the brain are the cause or result of bird watching experience, Wing points out the possibility that the brain areas used in bird watching may have undergone what is known as “neuroplasticity.” It is the brain's ability to change its structure and function over time.
Wing also analyzed the extent of organization within the brains of bird watchers.
As we age, the level of organization in the brain tends to decline, and this decline is associated with a decline in cognitive abilities.
Experts' brains have been found to contain regions with higher levels of organization and connectivity than the brains of novices of the same age. It has also been shown that some of these areas are the same areas that show greater activity during the process of identifying bird species.
Wing notes that this indicates "a kind of maintenance of organization" within the brains of ornithologists as they age.
Of course, more research is still needed to understand the nature of this “maintenance” of organization and how it relates to cognitive functions in general.
However, according to Wing, the current results indicate that “acquiring this skill early in life may provide benefits that continue into advanced stages of life.”
This is, without a doubt, good news for many young bird watchers who belong to Generation Z (aged between 16 and 29 years), and who start using their binoculars long before they reach old age.
Bird watching therapy
Wing's research looked at the level of experience in birdwatching, but other findings suggest that birdwatching may have psychological benefits, even for those who lack specialized knowledge or skills.
When it comes to achieving “psychological recovery,” that is, a feeling of calm, freedom, and rejuvenation, enthusiasm may be more important than experience.
A study that included 388 bird watchers in Poland showed that those who show more interest in bird watching compared to other activities, and consider it an important part of their lives, are more likely to achieve this psychological recovery compared to others who have high bird watching skills but are less enthusiastic.
Therefore, simply choosing to care for birds may have its own benefits.
Elisabeth Kales, professor of social and organizational psychology at the Catholic University of Eichted-Ingolstadt, Germany, studies how our relationship with nature shapes our life experiences and psychological well-being. CALS has studied the impact of providing nursing home residents with the opportunity to observe birds in their local environment.
Her team has placed bird feeding platforms outside 65 nursing homes, so residents can watch the birds from the comfort of communal halls. The team also conducted an assessment of the residents’ cognitive and motor abilities and level of psychological well-being, through their self-reports, in addition to observations of the staff and their family members.
A significant improvement was observed after only a few weeks; After a month, bird watching was found to be a more accurate indicator of residents' well-being than their age or the level of care they were receiving.
“The results were clearly positive,” Calles says.
She adds that bird watching participants have become more cognitively flexible; They have become better able to follow conversations and interact with family members who visit them, and to remember and recognize birds that have previously visited the place, in addition to showing a greater degree of vigilance and attention.
Care home workers were the first to notice this change brought about by the presence of birds. “After weeks of not seeing a smile on a resident’s face, suddenly they saw that smile,” Calles says.
Calls says that some improvement in memory and concentration began to appear clearly after only about three to four weeks.
These findings by her team prompted German health insurance companies - which were among those who funded the research project at its beginning - to invest in establishing bird feeding platforms and designated areas for bird monitoring in more than 400 nursing homes throughout the state of Bavaria.
“It was so effective that it saved costs,” Kales adds.
In the United States, a similar initiative was launched in 2013 in four care centers in Connecticut, and later expanded to Texas and Colorado.
This initiative is known as “Bird Stories,” and it is a therapeutic program for people with dementia. It relies on placing feeding platforms for birds in care centers, and providing residents there with anthropomorphic models of birds that emit sounds that mimic the sounds of real birds, allowing them to learn about different types of birds. The results were positive for the participants; They reported that the experience stimulated their cognitive abilities and helped them recall memories from the past.
A similar program has proven effective for stroke survivors, including those who suffer from aphasia - difficulty speaking or understanding spoken language.
In 2021, the University of Montana’s “Intensive and Comprehensive Aphasia Programme” began an activity based on monitoring owls, and the program later expanded to include targeted monitoring of various birds in Montana and learning about their voices.
So why does bird watching have such a positive impact on our feelings and way of thinking?
“It's not just about the birds themselves, it's a combination of nature, attention, emotion, meaning-making, social interaction, and activity, all of which come together in a very simple way,” Calls says.
“It creates small moments of curiosity, joy, and anticipation in an activity that is very accessible to everyone,” she adds.
This may explain why bird and wildlife watching came second - after nature walks - on the list of favorite outdoor activities for people with dementia and their carers, according to a survey conducted in the UK.
The same survey revealed that the idea of difficulty moving around and reaching places poses a major challenge for people with dementia. This is a challenge that may not represent an obstacle for those who can watch birds from their kitchen window.
Wing explains that bird watching is a way to explore curiosity, and perhaps it is precisely this curiosity that gives it all these benefits.
“I think there are huge benefits to bringing more novelty into our lives, both in midlife and as we get older,” he says.
Curiosity plays an important role in maintaining cognitive functions in advanced stages of life. It is likely to stimulate the secretion of norepinephrine and dopamine in the brain, which are two substances that have a positive anti-inflammatory effect.
For Calles, recognizing the birds that sing and fly around us is a way to help us remember who we are and who we are. “Since we are human, we are part of nature, but unfortunately we lose this connection [to nature] at a very early stage in our lives. [Bird watching] is a way to restore this connection, and it is a very simple method,” she said.
Note: The names have been changed to protect the privacy of their owners.
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