BUCOLIA THE ANSWER TO SCHIZOPHRENIA

Well now look, people have been saying it for years: "Get out into the country and breathe some good fresh air!" The implication is country-living is better for your well-being than city-living. A feeling hard-wired into humanity ever since we climbed out of trees.

Greek philosophers like Plato preached it; Roman emperors like Augustus practiced it. It's one of the reasons why the Greek Islands, the hills of Tuscany, and the fields of the Provence have lured millions for centuries Then came our own American Garden Myth in which the bucolic charms of the countryside were churned up as early as the frontier novels of James Fenimore Cooper; the meditations at Walden Pond by Henry David Thoreau; along with generations of small-town imagery from Norman Rockwell to Thomas Kincaid, from Frank Capra to Andy Griffith.

But in recent years sociologists have kinda spoiled these charms. Like most serious-minded statisticians, they've gone and recorded how people in small towns are not necessarily happier, only gossipier. And maybe that's true. Only at the rate modern science is moving -- what with all its discouraging reports on the terrible costs of tasty foods and fat desserts -- it will leave us mere mortals with little more than frightening facts!

Ahhh, but here come some scientists with a heart. There's a high-IQ gang of behavioral scientists at the University of Heidelberg who report great news from the great countryside. Study author Andreas Meye-Lindenberg describes how the stress of city living has "permanent negative impact on the brain's amygdala" and "higher agitation levels in its cingulate cortex." He goes on to say: "We speculate that stress from urban life might cause these abnormalities."

Driving city expressways every day, that sure makes sense to me. So three cheers for the docs! Maybe our sentimental affections for the countryside aren't so crazy after all. After all, the study sums it up this way: "If everyone were born in the country, there would be 30% fewer people with schizophrenia."

Now that's something both of me can agree with....!