Living Near a Transit Line Might Be Good for Your Mental Health

To call the city a stressful place is to undersell the ceaseless assault waged on your sanity by the urban environment. That persistent strain can take the form of something as simple as traffic delays that chip away at your patience to something as complex as an increased risk for schizophrenia. City intensity is so potentially distressing that, over time, humans brains have adapted by filtering out the lesser annoyances that aren’t quite worth a worry.

Of course, it’s not all bad downtown. There might be a Shake Shack nearby, or at least the hope of one to come. Urban trees and parks have a profoundly beneficial impact on our attention spans and general mental health. And a new study suggests two other regular elements of city life that might do the mind some good as well, particularly for older populations: access to public transportation, and dense surroundings.