When is the last time you watched the clouds, or looked in wonder at a forest or considered the amazing symmetry of the snow flake? If your childhood was lived before the computer age, you probably watched nature often.
Think of the patterns in nature you have observed.
The veins in the back of leaf, the randomness of growth in the forest, even the conch shell you can hold to your ear to listen to the "ocean.
" Simply holding these images in the mind's eye helps relaxation.
Nature is filled with repeating patterns.
The symmetry of a snowflake results from the repeating patterns of one part of the snowflake.
With expensive optical equipment you could follow these repeating patterns to the atomic level.
  If you were a mathematician you would be able to construct a mathematical formula for these continually repeating patterns known as fractals.
If you are not a mathematician, you can purchase a program to develop your own fractal designs.
Some fractals trigger a state of relaxation in the viewer.
Most people find walking in a garden or forest relaxing.
  Being surrounded by nature has this effect.
Photographs and paintings of nature can also produce a relaxation response.
Is the relaxation due to a personal memory of what being in nature feels like, or is it due to the repetitive designs, fractals, within nature? I'm going to say both are true.
Since fractals can now be designed with a computer program, some patterns will be found in nature and some will not be.
Using computer generated fractals, let's examine the possibility that some fractals have a quality that induces relaxation.
Here is a little experiment you can try.
(Finishing reading the directions before you do your search.
)  Use the keywords "fractals, images" in your favorite search engine.
  The one I used had more than 3 Million images.
Click on one of the links that has multiple images.
You'll want to look at one image at a time, not one image in a group of images.
Pick an image and just look at it.
Notice how your body feels when you are looking at the image.
Are you more tense, or do you relax? If you find yourself relaxing, the fractal has produced a relaxation response.
The relaxation response causes changes in the body which boost the immune system, which assists the body in healing.
Pat attention to what you look at that produces relaxation.
There are patterns within the very design, be it in nature or human engineered, that assist in generating the relaxation response.
People working in the complementary health field are now incorporating healing fractals in the designs of their products and in architecture.
  Examine the pictures and objects in your home or office.
How does your body feel when you look at them? Relaxed or tense? If relaxed, then relaxation, which supports healing, is induced.
Observing this effect can help you decide whether you want that piece of artwork or decoration in your space.