Songs Before Sirens: Ornithotherapy as A Tool for Stress Reduction and Academic Support
Songs Before Sirens: Ornithotherapy as A Tool for Stress Reduction and Academic Support

Summary/Abstract: Attention Restoration Theory posits that natural environments restore depleted cognitive resources, while recent evidence confirms that birdwatching yields mental health, cognitive, and social benefits. This hypothesis-generating pilot study examined whether a curriculum-embedded birdwatching program is associated with changes in self-reported stress, academic focus, creative blocks, and social connection among students studying under wartime conditions in Kyiv, Ukraine. Twenty-three audiovisual arts undergraduates (mean age = 20.4 years; 14 women, 9 men; no prior birdwatching experience) completed approximately 10 hours of guided birdwatching across five sessions. A single-group retrospective pretest-posttest survey assessed four constructs using 10-point scales. Open-ended responses captured qualitative mechanisms. Significant pre-post changes were observed: Perceived Stress decreased (d = 3.71), Academic Focus increased (d = 2.46), Creative Blocks decreased (d = 2.93), and Social Connection increased (d = 2.33). These large effect sizes should be interpreted as upper-bound estimates given potential demand characteristics inherent to the retrospective design. Qualitative analysis identified attentional anchoring, affective regulation, and social co-regulation as key mechanisms. A compact birdwatching curriculum integrated into an arts program at a crisis-affected university appears feasible and educationally valuable. The observed associations warrant further investigation using controlled designs to establish causal efficacy.

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