Mechanics of pandemics.

Growing recognition of global mental health challenges has elevated interest in nature-based interventions as accessible, low-cost means of promoting psychological wellbeing. The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 1 in 8 people worldwide lives with a mental disorder, yet mental health expenditures remain persistently low, with most countries allocating a median of around 2% of total health budgets to mental health services; the majority of affected individuals receive no effective intervention (, ). Against this backdrop, natural environments have attracted considerable scholarly attention as widely accessible psychological health resources, and the question of how contact with nature is associated with mental wellbeing has become a central concern across disciplines. Two theoretical frameworks have long provided systematic explanations for the restorative potential of nature. Attention Restoration Theory (ART) proposes that natural environments facilitate the recovery of directed attentional fatigue through qualities such as soft fascination, a sense of being away, and extent (). Stress Recovery Theory (SRT) emphasizes that natural scenes activate the parasympathetic nervous system and rapidly alleviate physiological stress responses (). Both frameworks have been extensively validated: experimental studies demonstrate that walking in natural settings not only restores attention and suppresses maladaptive rumination () but also reduces activation in stress-related brain regions (), while systematic reviews and meta-analyses confirm measurable benefits of nature contact across emotional, cognitive, and physiological domains (; ). Notwithstanding this body of evidence, both theoretical frameworks and their supporting empirical literature have been developed predominantly in relation to “ordinary nature”—urban parks, community green spaces, and common forests—while natural landscapes characterized by vast scale, visual grandeur, and high ecological rarity have remained largely outside the scope of systematic inquiry. ) were the first to conceptualize such settings as “extraordinary nature” (e.g., canyons, glaciers), demonstrating experimentally that exposure to extraordinary nature produces stronger effects on mood and prosocial behavior than ordinary nature, with awe identified as the central psychological mechanism. Subsequent research employing electroencephalography, wilderness fieldwork, and virtual reality has confirmed the positive contributions of extraordinary nature to psychological restoration and self-transcendence (; ; ).