Does a view of nature promote relief from acute pain?

Inadequate control of acute pain is a well-recognized and serious problem. Distraction is one of the methods used in adjunct with medications to relieve pain. Nature-related sensory stimuli are frequently used for both distraction and relaxation. The human response model that focuses on individual adaptation to health conditions is used in this article to guide an analysis of relevant studies. Four studies in clinical settings evaluated the effect of nature (as a visual stimulus) to determine whether it promoted relief of acute pain. All these studies also used audio stimuli (nature sounds or music). Distracting visual and auditory stimuli used together provided stronger evidence of pain reduction than when either type of stimulus was used alone.