"(…) In England researchers from the University of Exeter Medical School
recently analyzed mental health data from 10,000 city dwellers and used
high-resolution mapping to track where the subjects had lived over 18
years. They found that people living near more green space reported less
mental distress, even after adjusting for income, education, and
employment (all of which are also correlated with health). In 2009 a
team of Dutch researchers found a lower incidence of 15
diseases—including depression, anxiety, heart disease, diabetes, asthma,
and migraines—in people who lived within about a half mile of green
space. And in 2015 an international team overlaid health questionnaire
responses from more than 31,000 Toronto residents onto a map of the
city, block by block. Those living on blocks with more trees showed a
boost in heart and metabolic health equivalent to what one would
experience from a $20,000 gain in income. Lower mortality and fewer
stress hormones circulating in the blood have also been connected to
living close to green space.
It’s difficult to tell from these kinds of studies why people
feel better. Is it the fresh air? Do certain colors or fractal shapes
trigger neurochemicals in our visual cortex? Or is it just that people
in greener neighborhoods use the parks to exercise more? That’s what
Richard Mitchell, an epidemiologist at the University of Glasgow in
Scotland, thought at first. “I was skeptical,” he says. But then he did a
large study that found less death and disease in people who lived near
parks or other green space—even if they didn’t use them. “Our own
studies plus others show these restorative effects whether you’ve gone
for walks or not,” Mitchell says. Moreover, the lowest income people
seemed to gain the most: In the city, Mitchell found, being close to
nature is a social leveler."
I recently moved out of New Jersey to Maryland. New Jersey is a heavily populated state close to Philadelphia and New York full of heavily polluted water and polluted air. Maryland is close to Washington DC. Here I am living in a small town in the midst of a rural area. The air is fresh and clear. All around the town are farms. I have regained most of my “mental health” here in about a year of living here.
Are you talking to me? I don’t, I live in Lisbon, big city. I have a house in the country where I occasionally go to clear my head and be with nature. I posted some pics here.
Yes and no. I spent a decade living in the country. It comes with its own type of stress. Think having to drive for an hour to get milk. Think having to drive five hours to see a doctor. Think paying 3x what groceries are worth because you have rubbish for local services. Think mosquitoes like you’ve never experienced in your life before, that make walking outside utterly horrid unless you’ve bathed in DEET that wears off inside of an hour.
I like being back in town. I like sidewalks. I like being able to walk to the store and get milk. I like the pest and mosquito control. I can walk a block down to the park and read a book if I need more grass than I have in my yard.
I think that the first line of therapy for mild mental health conditions should be outdoor stuff, I was with a group that did stuff like that it was awesome.
personally I hated the noise of built up areas. Silence is bliss for sleep, but the social aspect is great, when your strong and confident in yourself.