Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Being

Even the ancients understood that some places had healing powers. But in the late 20th century, scientists began to study how space affects both mental and physical health for good and ill. NIH researcher Sternberg thoroughly chronicles research on the neural pathways that connect our sensory perception of our environment with our ability to heal...The conclusions--e.g., that noise induces stress, which can impede healing--seem intuitive and well known, but readers interested in neuroscience will learn much about the research on why this is the case. Publishers Weekly 20090316 What Sternberg does so skillfully is to stitch together an explanation as to how so many of the things we intuitively find relaxing, like yoga, or sitting by the sea, or in a bright airy room, affect how quickly we heal. She provides the science to back it up and explains it so engagingly that it's hard to resist sharing her conviction. -- Linda Geddes New Scientist 20090509 Healing Spaces [is] an exploration of environmental influences over the brain, the body and the course of mental and physical disease...Anyone who has ever felt peace descend in lovely surroundings will find a few seeds of explanation in her book. -- Abigail Zuger, M.D. New York Times 20090630 In this fascinating book, physician Esther M. Sternberg explores the intersection of architecture and medicine; the studies and conferences (primarily through the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture) and vast body of literature that reveals the extent to which our external environment plays a role in healing...Sternberg's findings are fascinating, some strange, some pure common sense--thought-provoking for both individuals and institutions. -- Susan Salter Reynolds Los Angeles Times 20090628 After this fascinating, engaging, and challenging read I'll think about the health consequences of where I am in a different way. -- Richard Mitchell The Lancet 20090704 Sternberg offers a fascinating study of the complex relationships between health and "healing places."...She makes the work of many pioneers in brain and behavioral research accessible to laypersons even as they rub elbows with such figures as Walt Disney, Frank Gehry, and the Dalai Lama...This is a fine, thoughtful volume. -- J. Quinan Choice 20100101