Can Science Explain Why Horizons Instantly Relax Me?
Using science, I explore our psychological responses to horizons and explain why viewing them improves our mood.
Sometimes all I need is a moment by the sea – to settle on a bench and gaze at the ocean’s horizon. The moment my eyes rest on that blue line, it’s as if everything else fades away. All my worries, stresses, and awaiting tasks seem smaller, less significant. But I’ve never understood why.
Using science, we’re about to find out…
What is a Horizon?
Like most of these questions, I start by defining keywords, as I often find hidden clues within certain definitions.
The Oxford Language Dictionary defines horizons as
‘The line at which the earth’s surface and the sky appear to meet.’
Cambridge dictionary writes,
‘The line at the farthest place that you can see, where the sky seems to touch the land or sea.’
Instantly, I feel some level of power emitting from those sentences.
I picture the two greatest elements of nature – the sky and sea – colliding to create something beautiful in the process. While I don’t yet have an explanation for it, I already have a slightly better understanding of why horizons affect me so deeply. They represent two vast, infinite landscapes, which are two things our human brains can’t always fully comprehend, and they meet to form a boundary that doesn’t actually exist.
This is a relatively heavy start, and it’s looking like some complex psychology might be going on here. So, I’m going to take a step back for a moment and look back at some history.
While the word ‘horizon’ originated in the ancient Greek language (horos, initially meaning ‘limiting’ or ‘bounding’), it became more commonly used in modern times by sailors in the 17th century. They used the term to describe the boundary between the sky and sea. Sailors relied on the horizon as a reference point for maritime navigation, helping them explore vast oceans.
In 1730, Mathematician John Hadley invented the sextant, a navigation instrument used to measure the distance between a celestial body and the horizon. Sailors began using it to help them determine their position at sea.
Horizons enabled our ancestors to act on their curiosities, venturing across our blue planet to explore unknown lands.
Perhaps we are drawn to horizon-gazing because of our deep ancestral roots. I certainly agree that horizons evoke a sense of curiosity—a wonder about the worlds that exist beyond the blue line.
A Place of Meaning
I feel I’ve made a good start with my research, but now it’s time to bring in the scientific evidence.
One thing that comes up repeatedly in my research is this idea of ‘place’. Now, as someone who is not an expert in psychology, I found this concept a little complicated. It took me some time to untangle but it was worth it for the outcome.
I came across an experimental study done on the concept of ‘place’, where scientists aimed to better understand how people relate to specific places.
The authors described ‘place’ as a dimension linked to perceptions, feelings, meaning, and symbolism. Essentially, this means we associate places with different things based on our history with them, our interactions, and the emotions we’ve experienced there.
By speaking with individuals in a psychiatric clinic in Switzerland, they found that the colours, shapes, and boundaries of landscapes can significantly impact human health and well-being. Two of the landscapes that stood out to them were beaches and coastlines.
When I think about my personal experiences with horizons, I’m reminded of the joyful times spent with my family on the beach—jumping over waves as they rushed to shore or building sandcastles with my dad. I also recall the walks with my dog along the coastline, feeling relieved as I breathed in the fresh ocean air and gazed far off at that line.
All the memories and emotions I associate with the horizon are positive. In fact, I can’t think of any negatives. Horizons represent a place of relaxation, fun, joy, and freedom for me.
But these associations haven’t just been built up in our individual lifetimes, it is also engraved into our existence. The way we perceive landscapes has been developed in an evolutionary process of millions of years. At these places, we are constantly surrounded by stimuli – sights, sounds, smells and tastes - and we have evolved to quickly and accurately analyse the environment using these stimuli.
Incredibly, when stepping into a familiar place, we have the ability to immediately process the environment we’re in and prepare our minds and bodies for whatever this place may bring.
In an academic review, scientists analysed the current research available on this topic. They wanted to summarise the evidence that showed viewing landscapes can impact humans. What they ultimately found was that those natural landscapes, like the discussed beaches and coastlines, can affect our health more positively than urban ones.
This brought another interesting concept to my attention…
Life is Better at the Beach
People who live by the coast are happier. This is widely agreed amongst scientists, due to the sheer amount of strong evidence in the area.
To me, the reason why people might appear to be happier near the coast is because they have easier access to natural spaces. I have lived in both coastal and city environments, and I favoured one massively over the other.
In a city I felt trapped, bored, and a bit lost. There was nowhere to escape to, nowhere I could truly relax. Everywhere I went I was surrounded by concrete walls, boxed rooms and a lack of colour. I know some people find joy in these kinds of busy, fast-paced environments, but I couldn’t help but miss the greens and blues I was used to at home.
There are scientific theories that have attempted to explain this. The ‘Blue Mind’ theory suggests that blue water makes us feel happier and more connected to nature. There was also a ‘Green Mind’ theory proposed in 2017, that suggests green environments shape our bodies, brains and minds, and give weight to nature-based therapies. There is even such thing as a ‘blue-green’ diet, that suggests we need more blue-green infrastructure in urban settings.
I will go deeper into the science of blue-green colours in my next article, but for now, the theories suggest that the explanation for why horizons relax us could lie in the blue colours we are exposed to when horizon-gazing.
In addition to the colours we see at the coast, other senses are also stimulated. Our sense of hearing, touch, and smell are activated with every wave that crashes onto the shore.
For example, when ocean waves break, small bubbles will burst and produce spray aerosols. These aerosols contain a mixture of microbiota and other molecules that can reach us as we sit on the sand. Scientists have shown that acute and/or chronic exposure to these molecules can lead to them interacting with our cell signalling pathways. Ultimately, leading to positive health effects.
If you live on the coast or spend a lot of time by it, you are likely to be exposed to these molecules frequently.
So, perhaps it isn’t just seeing the horizon that improves our mood; it’s also the fact that being in close proximity to the ocean while horizon-gazing can directly improve our health.
Vast Open Landscapes
One of the other ideas that sprung to mind when thinking about this topic, was the sheer scale of open water that horizons bring our attention too.
Looking across the ocean, you will see nothing but an expansive pit of blue sea that stretches for miles, perhaps with only a boat in the distance. Is it something about the vastness of the ocean landscape that resonates with us?
Currently, I’m reading a book titled Adventures in the Anthropocene, which has helped validate this idea of mine. Written by Gaia Vince, who travels to remote regions of the world exploring how humans have impacted pristine environments in the 21st century (I highly recommend it), the book includes a chapter on savannahs.
Savannahs are another vast landscape, this time a sandy, desert plain, with only the odd tree to block someone’s view. She states,
“Unlike in a rainforest, savannahs let you see the animals you’re hunting – whether by weapons or camera – and it’s also easier to see what is hunting us. Perhaps that’s why we humans first conquered the plains so many thousands of years ago, and why it’s the environment we feel most home in…”
(Adventure in the Anthropocene, pg 229).
Firstly, it was fascinating to learn about the theory that our earliest human ancestors first evolved in the savannahs. Specifically, bipedalism – walking on two legs so our hands were free to wield tools and weapons, making us effective predators.
It is, therefore, a sensible theory that modern humans feel most at ‘home’ in these vast landscapes, as Vince described, because it is where our ancestors were most successful in hunting food. Maybe the same occurs when looking at ocean horizons. Is there something rooted deep within our evolutionary past that leads us to feel at home when surveying open landscapes? It’s a possibility.
However, I found some additional scientific research that could provide a different explanation.
As I’ve said in this article before, one of the reasons I enjoy looking at horizons is because it helps me destress. It brings me away from the hustle and bustle of urban life and I feel almost re-charged when I return home. I now know there is a reason for this…
It is called ‘Attention Restoration Theory’ or ART.
More than half the world’s population live in urban areas, so most people lack easy access to natural environments. Even if you do have access, it’s unlikely you’ll have the time or ability to sit in these environments every single day. This is simply unnatural. We were not born to live in concrete boxes, be typing on smaller boxes whilst staring at moving images on a box day after day. But this is the life we have built for ourselves.
ART proposes that humans benefit from the chance to ‘be away’ from everyday stresses, and we can achieve this by spending time in natural environments. It is an opportunity for us to take time out from attention-demanding tasks and enable us to recover our attentional capacities.
While this theory makes complete sense just as an idea, naturally scientists need to experiment so they can validate it.
One group of scientists tested the theory by comparing the cognitive benefits of spending time in urban versus natural environments. Their methods involved giving participants a task to do, which required a significant amount of concentration to complete. Some were asked to walk through a tree-lined walk, secluded from traffic and people, and some did an urban walk. After their walk, they did the task and found that participants performed better at the task if they had walked the nature route.
The scientists could conclude that spending time in nature helped restore their attention span and improve their ability to perform certain tasks.
While digging for similar studies, I came across the concept of ‘landscape fragmentation’, which added even more weight to my vast landscape theory. Landscape fragmentation refers to the disruption of natural land by human interventions, most likely buildings, which divide the natural landscape. Instead of seeing a wide-open space (as it’s meant to be), our line of sight is interrupted by man-made objects, disconnecting us, once again, from nature in multiple ways.
So, there is a good chance that we love horizons because they offer an opportunity to view a landscape uninterrupted by man-made inventions, taking us away from urban life, destressing us, and restoring our attention.
The Awe of a Horizon
I would like to finish off on a more philosophical argument by describing what I know about the concept of ‘awe’.
I did a lot of research into ‘awe’ and its relevance in our lives for my Lights article, where I explored our relationship with natural phenomena, such as starry nights.
I will repeat a quote that summarises the concept clearly,
“Awe makes us feel powerless and insignificant yet at the same time also strangely empowered…It’s as if the universe has given us a special privilege – that it sees us as worthy and deserving enough to trust us with a look at its secret, whatever that may be.”
We can, once again, apply this concept to ocean horizons. Staring at two powerful elements of nature - the sky and the sea - as they collide to produce something magnificent certainly evokes a feeling of awe within me. It is simply a breathtaking sight.
A more recent definition, provided by scientists Francis Heylighen, says awe has the ability to open our minds, encourage curiosity and wonder, and motivate us to expand our understanding.
In his 2025 paper, he states,
“Awe is a mixture of fear and fascination for something so vast and mysterious that it challenges our understanding, thus inciting cognitive accommodation.”
If I’m not mistaken, this quote encompasses many of the things I have talked about in this article. The sheer vastness of the ocean, the mystery of what lies beyond the horizon, and the curiosity embedded in our ancestral history.
Can Science Explain it?
Yes. However, there isn’t one perfect answer (as expected when exploring our complex relationships with nature). Instead, here are some valid theories I have gathered.
Why do horizons instantly relax me?
· When viewing a horizon from the beach, you are not just seeing something spectacular; your senses are also exposed to various stimuli that can provide positive health benefits—the sea spray, the colour blue, and a sense of place.
· We may associate horizons with positive memories, making them places of meaning. Or, perhaps more deeply, we could have memories instilled in us from when our ancestors used the horizon to navigate across unknown seas.
· The open, uninterrupted landscape provides an opportunity to destress from modern life and restore our attentional abilities.
· Viewing a horizon offers a chance to experience awe—something that is both a privilege and a human right.
There are many takeaways from this, but the main one for me was the validation that horizons represent something more powerful than us. They give me a chance to escape from this modern life, immerse myself in nature, and recharge.
