The short term adaptation of the autonomic nervous systems (ANS) by type of urban environment and ethnicity.

Background: Previous studies examined the effects of urban environments on the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). These studies measured the effects of environments on Heart Rate Variability (HRV) averaging different time intervals to one value. Yet, the dynamics of change, reflecting the functions and their derivatives that describe the adaptation to the new environments remain unknown.

Women Emotional, Cognitive and Physiological Modes of Coping with Daily Urban Environments: A Pilot Study.

Studies on the effect of urban environments on human risk to health and well-being tend to focus on either physiological or cognitive and emotional effects. For each of these effects, several indicators have been proposed. They are determined either by a physiological-emotional theory or by a cognitive theory of direct attention.

Ethnic Differences in Environmental Restoration: Arab and Jewish Women in Israel.

Throughout the last few decades, plenty of attention has been paid to restorative environments that positively affect human psychological health. These studies show that restorative environments affect human beings emotionally, physiologically, and cognitively. Some studies focus on the cognitive effects of exposure to restorative environments.

The Relationship between City Size and Carbon Monoxide (CO) Concentration and Their Effect on Heart Rate Variability (HRV).

Generally, larger cities are characterized by traffic congestion, which is associated with higher concentrations of pollution, including Carbon Monoxide (CO) pollution. However, this convention requires empirical support on the basis of accurate and reliable measurements. In addition, the assessment of the effect of CO on the autonomic nervous system (ANS), as measured by heart rate variability (HRV), has yielded conflicting results.

The role of social vs. physical environmental nuisances in affecting stress among Jewish and Muslim women in Israel.

We calculate the effects of selected social and physical environmental nuisances on the autonomic nervous system balance among Jewish and Muslim mothers. Seventy-two Jewish and Muslim young healthy mothers from an Arab and Jewish neighboring city were tested in seven urban environments. Three social mediators (social discomfort, participation in household's decision-making and freedom of movement) and three physical mediators (thermal load, carbon monoxide and noise) were considered.

There's no place like home? The psychological, physiological, and cognitive effects of short visits to outdoor urban environments compared to staying in the indoor home environment, a field experiment on women from two ethnic groups.

Background: The home environment is regarded as a safe, comfortable environment, however, home can also be a stressful place. Compared to staying in the indoor home environment, the effects of short visits to outdoor urban environments on short-term psychological, physiological and cognitive responses were not studied previously.

Aim: To evaluate whether visits to different urban and ethnic environments, in comparison to staying in the home indoor environment, leads to short-term changes in psychological, physiological and cognitive responses and whether these responses are independent of ethnicity.

Ethnic Differences in Home-Related Maternal Stress: Muslim and Jewish Mothers.

Parental stresses are normal responses to raising children. They are affected by stresses parents and children accumulate and bring to their interrelations. Background factors like economic difficulties or the relations between the parents may affect parental stresses as well as demographic and environmental factors like noise and access to urban parks.

The effects of crossing ethnic boundaries on the autonomic nervous system in Muslim and Jewish young women in Israel.

Exposure to alien inter-group environments can differently effect ethnic groups' autonomous nervous system, measured by heart rate variability (HRV). Our aim was to evaluate the effect of crossing alien ethnic boundaries on heart rate variability in three selected types of environments. In a field experiment study, we test responses of 72 Muslim and Jewish women to exposure to alien ethnic environments.

A comparison of the effects of selected mono-ethnic urban environments on the autonomic functions of Muslim and Jewish women in Israel.

Few previous studies evaluated ethnic differences in the effects of urban environments on the autonomic balance in intra-ethnic environments and the mediation effects of environmental exposures (air pollution, noise, and thermal load). In a field experimental study, we exposed 48 Muslim and 24 Jewish women to park, town center, and residential street in Israeli mono-ethnic small towns. Heart rate variability (HRV), noise, thermal load, and carbon monoxide (CO) were measured by portable devices while visiting the environments and were analyzed using mixed models.