Sharing a preliminary study that you may have seen reports of in your news ...
A preliminary study presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 75th Annual Meeting suggested people living within half a mile of “green” or “blue” spaces had a 17% lower risk of experiencing serious psychological distress compared with those living further away.
Serious psychological distress includes mental health issues that require treatment and have a moderate to severe effect on a person’s ability to participate in work and other social situations.
The experts said experiencing chronic serious psychological distress can play a role in mild cognitive impairment as well as dementia.
Solmaz Amiri, research assistant professor at Washington State University Elson S Floyd College of Medicine in Spokane, Washington, said: “Since we lack effective prevention methods or treatments for mild cognitive impairment and dementia, we need to get creative in how we look at these issues.
“Our hope is that this study showing better mental health among people living close to parks and water will trigger other studies about how these benefits work and whether this proximity can help prevent or delay mild cognitive impairment and dementia.”
As part of the study, the researchers looked at data from the US Census and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of nearly 43,000 people aged 65 or older living in urban areas in the state of Washington.
They analysed how close participants lived to green spaces – such as public parks, community gardens and cemeteries – as well as blue spaces – such as lakes, reservoirs, large rivers and coasts.
Those taking part completed a questionnaire to assess psychological distress, using a five-point scale ranging from zero, meaning none of the time, to four, meaning all the time.
The team reported that around 2% of the overall participants had serious psychological distress.
Of the total participants, 70% lived within half a mile of a green space and 60% lived within half a mile of a blue space.
Of the people who lived within a half mile of parks and water, 1.3% had serious psychological distress, compared with 1.5% of the people who lived further than half a mile.
Ms Amiri added: “Our hope is that this study may help inform public health policies in the future, from where residential facilities are located to programmes to improve mental health outcomes of people living in long-term care centres or nursing homes.”"
Words above from article here
xxx ooo xxx
Had you already seen this report?
Do you share its views?
It's not always possible to live near green or blue spaces ...
I know I always feel better after a walk outside, and we are fortunate to have plenty of green spaces where we live.
Do please share your thoughts in the comments section.
All the best Jan
24 comments:
I guess we are doing good. We live in our own personal park. :)
...when I was a young boy, a family friend was the director of the local park system. I will always remember him saying, parks are for people.
Interesante reportaje, la naturaleza es muy importante para la salud. Besos.
I think getting out in nature is something we as humans all need. When we get away from it, then we are fighting our evolution. That is a fascinating post so thanks for sharing it.
I would LOVE to live close to a place so beautiful. I do think it would be so calming.
A beautiful park and a lovely sentiment to go with the picture. Interesting article! I certainly like my green spaces and it does have a calming effect on me. I feel totally at peace in them.
That park looks so beautiful and I would love to take a walk there every single day!
How interesting. Grass, flowers, water and trees are certainly more pleasing to one's eyes than bricks, morte and cement.
News to me
I agree that public safe park and water spaces are good to be around because folks can gather there for a sense of community contact. In the Boston, Massachusetts area, common green spaces/parks are common. In Vermont, the local greens, as they are called, are on the small side. In my city, walking is mainly sidewalk style as in not the freshests air quality. There are places with benches, but they are not far from vehicle exhaust. The best large open spaces are cow pastures, cornfields or hiking in the woods.
Makes sense to me.
Water source usually causes paranormal activity though.
Hello,
We live next to the watershed and reservoir, lots of green space for us to enjoy.
Great information and post. Take care, have a great weekend.
A soothing walk in the woods by a river can be very healing!
hug
Donna
Interesting, we have a pond in walking distance but I never go there anymore.
I always feel better after a walk in the fresh air, but a walk at the seaside is the best! Take care and have a great weekend xx
Buena recomendación. Me encanta la imagen. Nada mejor que un buen paseo por la naturaleza, nos da mucha paz.
Buen viernes para Todos.
Un abrazo.
I live between to lakes, but there is really no cool places to walk around them. I would love an ocean to walk around....or up and down! Love the nature but so rough on my body walking.
I love being near water, and have always lived near a river or stream. Valerie
It's sometimes difficult to analyze data from a questionnaire. People have a tendency to under or over score their answers. More important would be both their mental and physical health, then compare that to their answers to the questionnaire.
My old house provided me all the green space a person could want. At one point when I was hanging out clothes on my clothesline, I could see nothing but green, not even the house which was about 15 feet from me. All I could see was green. The lack of artificial structures made me very happy. I had people over once a month. One year, we ate outdoors eight out of the twelve months. People loved my yard. One person said, "Your yard looks like a park." I planted most of the trees and all the shrubs and flowers.
Now that I don't live there, my friend's yard has only three trees, no shrubs, no flowers. It is dismal. I have put many flowers in pots, hanging on shepherd's hooks where I can see them when the door is open.
Some days, I want to go to the park and sit in the car. Maybe we will eat. Maybe we will just have ice cream. Maybe we just sit.
When we go back to my town for things, I started insisting we go to a park with a small lake. We sit facing it and eat our lunch. Even if we are not there, we go to one of several parks not so pretty and with no water. It works.
If all I want to do is eat right now, I tell him to just park facing any old shrub.
I know this green sitting improves my life! I have always known it! He believes me and I cannot help but believe my needs improve his life too, both our mental lives.
Another thing, in my old house, I had a picture window in my den about 7 feet wide. I only had a lace curtain on the lower half of the window. I could see the trees blowing, flowers blooming, squirrels, birds. It fed me. Anytime I sat down, I was facing this window. I felt in touch with nature. Here, he has no windows I can look out of during the day unless I walk over and move a curtain. Or, I stand and look out the fan light at the door!
I cannot even have plants in the house because they die from lack of sunlight!
I knew the benefits of green and water, but I am happy it was studied and reported. Thanks for helping others and confirming my native sensibilities were correct.
Maybe that's why I'm so happy at the lake!
We usually have to get in the car to get to a nice green space or coast. There is a small park nearby but it's just grass and a few swings etc for the kids.
I hadn't seen the study, so I'm glad to have read about it here. We live right next to a river, have trees around us, and there's a park within a short walking distance, so this is good news for us personally, too :-)
I do know when we go to the lake it is a very calming experience so I can see having one close would be a great thing for mental health!
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