Why we need Nature ...to a reality
Encounters with nearby nature help alleviate mental fatigue by relaxing and restoring the mind. Within built environments parks and green spaces are settings for cognitive respite, as they encourage social interaction and de-stressing through exercise or conversation, and provide calming settings. Having quality landscaping and vegetation in and around the places where people work and study is a good investment. Both visual access and being within green space helps to restore the mind’s ability to focus. This can improve job and school performance, and help alleviate mental stress and illness.
The myth......we all think
The experience of nature helps to restore the mind from the mental fatigue of work or studies, contributing to improved work performance and satisfaction.
Urban nature, when provided as parks and walkways and incorporated into building design, provides calming and inspiring environments and encourages learning, inquisitiveness, and alertness. Outdoor activities can help alleviate symptoms of Alzheimers, dementia, stress, and depression. Contact with nature helps children to develop cognitive, emotional, and behavioral connections to their nearby social and biophysical environments. Nature experiences are important for encouraging imagination and creativity, cognitive and intellectual development, and social relationships............but really does this true. (For me 110% just a story without base).
What I think ....what all we need
for me following few points really need to understand
1. Brain - The brain, complex and vulnerable, is the only organ that undergoes substantial maturation after birth. This process is shaped in part by response to stimuli in our surroundings (including both negative and positive conditions), and continues throughout our lives. Substantial research shows that natural scenes evoke positive emotions, facilitate cognitive functioning, and promote recovery from mental fatigue for people who are in good mental health. The experience of nature can also provide respite for those who experience short-term and chronic mental illness. The constant stimuli of city life can be mentally exhausting, and life in the city can actually dull our thinking. In navigating the outdoor environment, one must continually monitor traffic and pedestrian flow while constantly focusing on where one is going and the means to get there. Constant response to even such low-level stimuli cannot be maintained indefinitely. A few minutes in a crowded city setting can cause the brain to suffer memory loss and reduced self-control. Even brief glimpses of natural elements improve brain performance by providing a cognitive break from the complex demands of urban life. Our immediate environment can prompt both negative and positive subconscious effects. A glance at an object that even remotely resembles a snake, for instance, may initiate an instantaneous fear response. Similarly, the presence of plants subconsciously and beneficially impact how the brain responds even when we do not focus attention on such surroundings.
In today’s lifestyles and work, we must focus our attention on critical information or tasks. Maintaining that focus by screening out distractions overloads our capacity for conscious attention. Yet, exposure to settings that are visually interesting (having “high fascination”) have been found to aid directed attention recovery. Comparing memory retention in people viewing low versus high fascination scenes in built and natural environments, respectively, people viewing natural environments performed significantly better So, in the case of offices and schools, where one must focus on tasks, the addition of natural features could significantly improve attention and content retention rates.
2. Workspace - Office workers may spend entire days indoors, and many decorate their workspaces with plants or pictures of natural settings to compensate for lack of a window view. In one study, people in windowless workspaces introduced twice as many nature elements to their work area as those who had window views of natural areas.
Office workers report that plants make for more attractive, pleasant, and healthy work environments, but what impact do plants and nature views have on work performance? Studies show improved employee morale, decreased absenteeism, and increased worker efficiency result from such workplace enhancements. Having plants within view of workstations decreases both illness incidence, and the amount of self-reported sick leave. One study found that workers with workstation views that included green elements were more satisfied at work and had more patience, less frustration, increased enthusiasm for work, and fewer health problems. Not having nature views or indoor plants are associated with higher levels of tension and anxiety in office workers.
3. Children - In recent times, children have less opportunity to be outdoors, in terms of both time and space. Some schools provide nature experiences as part of a class, recess, or special activity, as they recognize the potentially significant affects on learning and mental health. Educational theory suggests that contact with nature facilitates children’s development of cognitive, emotional, and spiritual connections to social and biophysical environments around them. Ecological theory also suggests that contact with nature is important for children’s mental, emotional, and social health because imagination and creativity, cognitive and intellectual development, and social relationships are encouraged in outdoor activity, all of which improve the child’s mental health and function. Nature can provide both background and objects for play and learning. Among older children, exposure to nature encourages exploration and building activities, which can improve problem-solving abilities, ability to respond to changing contexts, as well as participation in group decision-making. Younger children often use outdoor settings having plants, stones, and sticks as props for imaginative play, which is key to social and cognitive development. One study of children’s play found that a cluster of shrubs was the most popular place to play on an elementary schoolyard because it could be transformed into many imaginary places: a house, spaceship, etc.
Now nature to your mental illness......
1. Stress Relief - In addition to physiological symptoms, stress can lead to depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, exhaustion, and fatigue syndromes. Stress can occur at any time in life; however, such responses are especially prominent at later age due to physical, psychological, and social changes—for example, in response to chronic disease, disability, death of loved ones, or financial hardship. Stress can also negatively affect people’s perceptions of their well-being, including a poor perception of their own mental health. Physical activity has been linked to improvements in mental health and stress; many studies connect urban park use to decreased stress levels and improved moods. In one study, the longer participants stayed in a park, the less stress they exhibited. More than 100 studies have shown that relaxation and stress reduction are significant benefits associated with spending time in green areas.
2. Depression - Depression also occurs at any age and can be helped through improved social connections (to decrease the feeling of isolation) and exercise, both of which are promoted by having nearby green outdoor spaces. In one study, 71% of people found a reduction in depression after going on an outdoor walk versus a 45% reduction by those who went on an indoor walk. Another study investigated major depression disorder (MDD) and found that an exercise program can be just as effective as antidepressants in reducing depression among patients. The value of green spaces in encouraging exercise is relevant to treating depression symptoms.
DEPRESSION, CARRIER, COMPETITION, AND JOB HAS KILLED SO MANY DREAMS.......ITS JUST BECAUSE WE NEVER TRIED KNOWING NATURE HAS CONNECTION WITH LIFE.......prafulla.
