How a real tree can spruce up your mental health at Christmas

Birgitta Gatersleben, senior lecturer in environmental psychology, said proximity to a real tree could help people to cope better with stress or mental fatigue
Birgitta Gatersleben, senior lecturer in environmental psychology, said proximity to a real tree could help people to cope better with stress or mental fatigue
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Forget the trail of pine needles across the carpet and the extra cost. Buying a real Christmas tree may, it seems, be good for our mental health.

Birgitta Gatersleben, senior lecturer in environmental psychology at the University of Surrey, said proximity to a real tree could help people to cope better with stress or mental fatigue.

Not just any old Christmas tree, either. Dr Gatersleben believes that smell is central to the evocation of nature associated with healing. For this reason, she advises against non-drop varieties of tree. This suggests that families ought to choose a Norway spruce, regardless of the additional vacuum cleaning needed to pick up pine needles, over a Nordmann fir.

Dr Gatersleben, who has written an academic paper on the case