Читать книгу Natural Environments and Human Health - Alan W Ewert - Страница 12

A number of terms are used extensively in this book and are defined in the following way.

• Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (World Health Organization, 1948). Health and well-being is seen as spanning across six dimensions of a person’s existence. The dimensions involve both the micro (immediate, personal) and macro (global, planetary) environments (Blonna, 2011). The six dimensions of health and well-being include the following:

Emotional health is being in touch with feelings, having the ability to express them, and being able to control them when necessary. Optimal functioning involves understanding that emotions assist us get in touch with what is important in our lives. Our emotions help us feel alive and provide us with a richness of experience that is uniquely human.

Environmental health includes aspects of human disease and injury that are influenced by variables in the environment. This includes the study of both direct and pathological effects of various chemical, physical, and biological agents, as well as the effects on health of the physical and social environments such as parks, greenspaces and undeveloped landscapes (adapted from the US Department of Health and Human Services, 2000).

Intellectual health is the ability to process information effectively. Intellectual wellness involves the ability to use information in a rational way to problem solve and grow. It also includes factors such as creativity, spontaneity, and openness to new ways of considering situations.

Physical health is how well the body performs its intended functions. Absence of disease, though an important influence on physical wellness, is not the sole criterion for health. The physical domain is influenced by factors such a genetic inheritance, nutritional status, fitness level, body composition, and immune status.

Social health is being connected to others through various types of relationships. Individuals who function optimally in this domain are able to form friendships, have intimate relationships, and give and receive affection. They are able to give of themselves and share in the joys and sorrows of being part of a community.

Spiritual health is often described as feeling connected to something beyond oneself. Spiritual wellness is expressed through an inner peace and understanding of one’s place in the greater universe. People can express spirituality through participation in organized religious activities, often involving the belief in a supreme being or supernatural force as well as a formalized code of conduct by which to live, or in many other ways such as spending time in nature. The crucial underlying feeling is a perception of life as having meaning beyond the self, often enhanced by being part of a community and helping others.

• Connectedness to nature: An individual’s sense of connection or relationship to the natural world. This concept is often linked to predisposing factors such as personality, past experience with natural environments, and a specific setting and/or situation.

• Constructivism as a learning theory is the active mental constructions of children resulting in the ways in which children organize and act on their knowledge and values.

• Cure is to eradicate a disease condition or symptom(s) that the patient has. Curing happens at the level of the body.

• Environment is the natural, physical, and societal surroundings that affect individuals’ functioning on both the micro and macro levels. On a macro level this might include natural-area buffering from potential storms, floods, or other environmental challenges. The well-being of our micro environment includes the level of functioning in our school, home, worksite, and neighborhoods. Our social support system includes family and friends and is also part of our micro environment; it affects our personal safety by influencing whether or not we are at risk of and fear such issues as theft, crime, and violence. Air and water quality, noise pollution, overcrowding, and other factors that influence our stress level are also affected by our micro environment (Blonna, 2011).

• Ethic of care presumes that there is moral significance in the fundamental relationships and dependencies in life and affirms the importance of caring motivation, emotion, and the body in moral deliberations. The ethic builds on the concept of empathy and is inspired by memories of being cared for and of the idealizations of self (Mitten, 1994).

• Healing is process that leads to a sense of well-being which includes optimism and calmness. Healing happens to the whole person and is about confidence and trust in life. If a disease has no cure, the person may still experience healing. For example, the focus of hospice and palliative care is healing (Mitten, 2004).

• Indigenous refers to people who are native to a particular environment and have maintained living in a natural area or environment insomuch as is realistic in the 21st century. These people are usually ethnic minority groups affected negatively by colonization and often marginalized. In this book examples from indigenous people do not mean that all indigenous people are the same nor do we intend to mythologize indigenous people. Throughout the book we have tried to include specific examples when referring to indigenous people.

• Green exercise: Physical exercise performed in relatively natural settings.

• Natural environments: Surroundings or the geophysical space that encompasses all living and non-living features and systems that are dominantly influenced by environmental processes with minimal human disturbances and not managed by humans for human purposes. In this book we use natural environments, nature, natural settings, the natural world, natural landscapes, greenspaces, and outdoor places interchangeably.

• Place-based education is an educational philosophy and method focused on enhancing people’s relationship with their personal community and surrounding land. This experiential pedagogy links curricula, the local classroom, or informal educational settings to the students’ local community by connecting multidisciplinary topics to cultural, political, economic, and ecological concepts.

• Praxis is the practical application of a theory or a branch of knowledge.

• Stress: A resultant situation where an individual perceives the situation as exceeding her or his abilities or ‘a holistic transaction between an individual and a potential stressor resulting in a stress response’ (Blonna, 2011, p. 12). Chronic stress is linked to factors such as obesity, high systolic blood pressure, and elevated heart rate.

• Stress response is a change in the body’s internal environment (i.e. leaving homeostasis) in response to a stressor. When people are stressed, hormone levels change (e.g. cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrena-line increase) resulting in, among other things, blood pressure rising and heart rate increasing.

• Systems theory is a coherent scientific framework that understands that everything in the universe (and perhaps beyond) affects everything else and that everything known to humans is in effect one living system of which humans are a part.

• Quality of life is a person’s ability to enjoy normal life activities and an overall sense of well-being. Quality of life often has a strong connection to individual health perceptions and life functioning.

• Wellness is the realization of the fullest potential of an individual—physically, psychologically, socially, spiritually, and economically—and the fulfillment of expectations associated with one’s roles in the family, community, spiritual life, workplace, and other settings (Smith et al., 2006, p. 5).

While there are many more terms that could be included, the above list represents those that are most essential to a shared understanding of the relationship between human health and natural environments.