Nature based therapeutic impact of borrowed landscape on the stress reduction of secondary school teachers

Abstract

Stress among public secondary school teachers has become a worldwide issue owing far reaching implications. Since the nature has therapeutic effects, incorporating natural borrowed views in to the working places have the ability to reduce stress. With the objective of examining the stress management of public secondary school teachers using natural borrowed views, set in the WP/GM Bandaranayake College, a pilot study was executed among 40 male and female teachers which proved that the majority of both male and female teachers were under stress according to the stress scale. Then, the most preferred views were identified through a structured questionnaire, such as greenery, water and sky. Accordingly, five 3D borrowed views were simulated for the main study, resulting significantly better responses on stress management tests among the participants. The results concluded that female teachers are more stressed than male teachers and both male and female teachers prefer to observe a borrowed view of a combination of natural elements, rather than solely observing each element. Further, it was found that there is no impact of gender towards the therapeutic impact of nature on humans. The findings invite future researches to conduct more studies related stress management and designing healthy working environments.