سه شنبه ۲۷ شهریور ۰۳ | ۱۷:۱۸ ۹ بازديد
connectedness tend to be happier
We benefit from “high
quality” nature spaces
Quality can mean higher
biodiversity (a wide variety of
plants and wildlife). Whether we
are in rural or urban spaces, certain
characteristics of nature are
particularly important.
These include the amount of
’“green’” in trees, plants, and grass,
the variety of plants and wildlife,
and ‘serene’ landscapes that feel
calm and quiet.
Cleanliness, such as the absence
of litter, in nature spaces is also a
factor in how much our mental
health benefits from spending time
outside. Cleaner nature areas are
linked to lower rates of depression.
“High quality”
natural spaces
are better for
us and our
wellbeing.
Green and serene
Research shows that people who
are more connected with nature
are usually happier in life and more
likely to report feeling their lives
are worthwhile.
Nature can generate a multitude
of positive emotions, such as
calmness, joy, creativity and can
facilitate concentration. Nature
connectedness is also associated
with lower levels of poor mental
health; in particular lower depression
and anxiety levels. Perhaps not
surprisingly, people with strong
nature connectedness are also more
likely to have pro-environmental
behaviours such as recycling items
or buying seasonal food.
This is likely to lead to
further benefits, if these pro-
environmental activities can lead
to improvements in nature that
we can then go on to enjoy. At a
time of devastating environmental
threats, developing a stronger
mutually supportive relationship
between people and the
environment will be critical.
Mental Health and Nature 5
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How connecting with nature benefits our mental health.
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high quality nature isn’t
available equally.
Mental Health and Nature 6
Proximity is certainly a factor, with deprived
communities least likely to live near a high quality
nature space. Perhaps unsurprisingly, our poll found
that people living in urban areas were less likely than
rural residents to connect with nature as much as they
wanted, and people without gardens less likely than
those with gardens.
Younger adults in particular may face many barriers to
connecting with nature. People living with a disability
or health condition often face particular barriers to
access, when natural spaces are not equipped with
inclusion in mind or there is alack of accessible routes.
For some groups, including many women, younger
people, disabled people and people from ethnic
minorities, nature spaces may feel inaccessible or
less enjoyable because they are not safe – from risk
of physical harm, *******ual harassment, hate crime or
discrimination. For many of these groups there is a
double effect of this inequality.
Whilst nature can be found
anywhere, high-quality nature spaces
which we know are most likely to
help support good mental health are
not available equally to everyone in
the UK. This is a more complicated
picture than just how far we live from
a high-quality nature space.
Several groups described above not only get less of
the wellbeing benefit of connecting with nature as a
result of these access barriers, but they are precisely
the groups within our population who are most at risk
of mental health problems.
There are good examples of initiatives in nature spaces
to reduce the inequality of access, and allow all groups
to benefit from connecting with nature to support
their wellbeing.
High quality urban parks, designed with
accessibility in mind, can enable more people to
enjoy and connect with nature. Other solutions
include planting flowers and trees along our streets
or even recreating natural habitats where new
human developments such as a road have been
built. These are known as “green corridors”.
How connecting with nature benefits our mental health.
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Mental Health and Nature 7
@Mentalhealth
The key message of this research evidence is
a need to shift our attention from focusing on
getting people to visit natural and sometimes
remote spaces, to focusing on how people can
tune in and connect with ‘everyday’ nature
close to home through simple activities. We
can develop a new relationship with the natural
world by noticing nature, and that doing so has
been found to bring benefits in mental health.
Policy recommendations
01. Facilitating connection with nature
02. Protecting the natural environment and restoring biodiversity
03. Improving access to nature
04. Using the planning system and urban design to improve the visibility
and availability of nature in every local area
05. Making green spaces safe for all
06. Building Developing a life-long relationship with nature
How connecting with nature benefits our mental health.
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01
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Our relationship with nature – how much we
notice, think about and appreciate our natural
surroundings – can be a critical factor in
supporting good mental health alongside other
factors such as how much money we have or what
kind of job we do.
Mental Health and Nature 8
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How connecting with nature benefits our mental health.
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positively on our mental health and why it is important to develop a good
connection with nature and develop our connectedness.
We also include findings from the YouGov poll we have conducted on this
theme specifically for Mental Health Awareness Week.1
We commonly think of “Nature” as referring to
wild plants, animals, ecosystems, landscapes and
waterscapes, in contrast to built environments and
places shaped by human activity.
Nature exists on a spectrum, from wildernesses with
little evidence of human impact to small parks in highly
urbanised areas, from a dandelion or an urban stream,
to extensive woodlands (Bratman et al, 2012).
It is now widely accepted that green features which
are partly the products of human activity, such as
urban parks and back gardens, also represent nature
(McAllister et al, 2017).
Key to how we define nature is our own personal
experience - our perceptions of and/or interactions
with any stimuli from the natural world, for example
listening to birds singing from our window, growing
herbs in our kitchen, looking at nature photos, sitting
in the back garden, going to the local park, feeling
the weather, and noticing the movements of the sun
(Bratman et al, 2019; Miles Richardson et al, 2015).
As we will explore later, ‘nature connectedness’
describes the way we relate to, and experience,
nature. It refers to the kind of relationship we develop
with the natural world. When we have high levels of
nature-connectedness we are often happier in life, feel
our lives are more worthwhile and have lower levels
of depression and anxiety (Capaldi A. etal, 2014;
Richardson et al, 2021).
What do we mean by nature?
Mental Health and Nature 9
@Mentalhealth
Nature has played an important role in
supporting many people’s mental health during
the coronavirus pandemic, and this is one of the
reasons why it has been chosen as the Mental
Health Awareness Week theme for 2021.
How connecting with nature benefits our mental health.
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1All figures described as coming from ‘our poll’ are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size
was 4274 UK adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 6th - 8th April 2021. The
survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative
of all UK adults (aged 18+).
during lockdown?
Mental Health and Nature 10
@Mentalhealth
At the Mental Health Foundation,
we have been conducting our own
research on the mental health
impacts of the pandemic. We
have learnt the important role
that nature played in supporting
many people’s mental health at
this time. In that study, people of
all ages (except teenagers – more
on this later) told us that us that
visiting green spaces, such as
parks was one of the top coping
strategies and 45% of the UK adult
population used this to cope with
the stress of the pandemic and
its restrictions.
Other studies have likewise found
that different levels of lockdown
restrictions have had negative
consequences on people’s mental
health, but that contact with nature
has helped people to cope (Soga
et al, 2020). During the pandemic,
many people turned to nature,
visiting nature spaces more often
and being more likely to notice the
nature that is all around us.
In fact, the increase in noticing
nature was much greater than
the increase in time spent in
nature. Between April and June
2020, fewer than half of adults
reported they were spending
more time outside, but three
quarters reported they were
noticing and engaging with
everyday nature more (Natural
England, 2020). And studies
showed that these changes in
the relationship with nature
contributed to improvements in
people’s wellbeing; particularly in
feelings of life being worthwhile
(M Richardson & Hamlin, 2021).
At the Mental Health Foundation,
we therefore believe that
connecting with and developing
a close relationship with nature
can help to promote good mental
health, and that nature can act as a
protective factor for good mental
health.
of UK adults surveyed in
our YouGov poll said that,
connecting with nature has been
important in terms of managing
their mental health during the
pandemic.
73%
of UK adults had connected less
with nature during the pandemic
18%
of UK adults had connected more
with nature during the pandemic
34%
By green spaces we mean any nature area that
is predominantly green in colour such as parks,
woodland or forests. By blue spaces we mean any
nature area that is predominantly blue in colour
such as rivers, wetlands, beaches or canals.
How connecting with nature benefits our mental health.
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protective factor for
good mental health
02
Mental Health and Nature 11
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How connecting with nature benefits our mental health.
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@Mentalhealth
Intuitively, most of us feel that spending time
in nature is good for our wellbeing. Whilst
inequalities and barriers mean that by no means
everyone is currently able to connect with nature
in the optimal way (see section 3 below).
This is fully backed-up by research
evidence, which consistently shows
that nature has a beneficial impact on
our mental health. The relationship we
develop with nature is emerging as an
important protective factor for our
mental health.
Studies have found that wellbeing can be linked, in part, with how close we
live to nature spaces and street trees or private gardens, in both urban and
rural settings (Jiricka-Pürrer et al., 2019; Kruize et al., 2020).
Spending time in blue spaces and green spaces is linked to improved life
satisfaction, reduced anxiety and increased happiness (McMahan & Estes,
2015). Contact with nature generates an increase in positive emotions and
feelings of vitality, and a decrease in negative emotions; it also provides
relief of from mental tiredness, and an improvement in our attention span
(Lackey et al., 2019).
Furthermore, research in different contexts demonstrates the positive
effects of being exposed to nature. In the workplace, for example, people
with ‘high exposure’ to nature (taking more frequent breaks to spend time
outdoors in green spaces) reported significantly higher work engagement
compared to the participants in the same study who described themselves
as having a low ‘exposure to nature’ profile (tho
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