Читать книгу Natural Environments and Human Health - Alan W Ewert - Страница 19

It may be harder to see and feel emotional connections with nature than it is to understand our biological connection, but the examples of evolutionary connections described above also point to psychological, emotional, and spiritual connections to nature. If a plant many miles away exhibits the stress of its caretaker, it implies an emotional or psychological connection. Our psychological connections with nature are mostly demonstrated by: (i) people’s self-report of feeling better when in natural environments; (ii) people performing better on stress indicators or cognitive tasks after spending time in nature; (iii) nature having an immunizing effect on people’s psychological health or people having psychological problems attributed to a lack of nature; and (iv) showing that people’s environmental behavior is related to their emotional attachment to nature or animal and human interactions.

There are many examples of humans simply feeling better after contact with nature. Marghanita Laski (1961) studied spiritual experiences and found that ecstasy usually takes place shortly after making contact with something valuable or beautiful or both. Nature, including bodies of natural water and beautiful natural settings, is the most common trigger that inspires ecstasy experiences. Her research was a combination of literary analysis and survey using a questionnaire. Francis and Cooper-Marcus (1991) asked a sample of university students in the San Francisco area what settings they sought when feeling stressed or depressed. Seventy-five per cent of the students cited outdoor places—wooded urban parks, places offering scenic views of natural landscape and locations at the edge of water such as lakes or the ocean.

John Zelenski and Elizabeth Nisbet (2012) from Trent University in Peterborough, Canada, found in their studies about people’s nature relatedness that people who are more connected with nature report being happier than people who are less connected. They also compared outdoor walking with indoor walking and found that outdoor walks in nearby woods contributed more to personal happiness. Moreover, they found that people tend to systematically underestimate how happy short walks in nature will make them (Nisbet and Zelenski, 2011).

Taylor and Kuo (2009) found that children with attention deficits concentrate better after walking in a park, most likely due to the restorative effect of nature. Berman et al. (2008) found that a relaxing 3-mile walk in an arboretum refreshed people and they showed more of an increased cognitive ability than people who had taken a 3-mile walk in an urban industrial area. In a different study, Berman et al. (2012) found cognitive and affective benefits for people with major depressive disorder, indicating that time in nature could be a clinically viable supplementary treatment for this disorder. Others have found contact with nature to decrease depression and mental illness and increase feelings of self-efficacy, self-worth, self-confidence, and personal contentment (Pretty et al., 2006; Van den Berg et al., 2007).

In her book The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood, Cobb (1977) summarized years of observation and research that showed a correlation between deep experiences in the natural world during childhood and healthy development, adult cognition, and psychological well-being. She found that a strong, loving bond between children and nature is indicative of adult creativity. Chawla (1990) concluded that early experiences in nature lead to adult creativity and indicated that this link is related to ecstatic childhood moments, or moments of intense emotion during formative years, most often occurring while in nature. Chawla concluded that these transcendent experiences or enchantment can be found in a spectrum of natural areas, including a weedy patch in an apartment building’s parking lot.

Other researchers in Sweden, Australia, Canada, and the US have found that children tend to show more curiosity and participate in more creative play, including participating in more fantasy and make-believe, in naturally green playgrounds as opposed to manufactured playgrounds. These studies showed a difference in the social standing of children and the social distinctions between girls and boys depending on setting. In nature-based play areas, the social hierarchy among children tended to be based on language skills, creativity, and inventiveness. In manufactured areas, the social hierarchy tended to be established through physical competence and the social distinctions between girls and boys were more pronounced (Taylor et al., 2001; Bell and Dyment, 2006).

Environmental stewardship or strong environmental protection feelings have been correlated with time spent in wild or semi-wild places with an adult who taught respect for nature (Chawla and Hart 1988; Sobel, 2008). The theory is that people protect what they are emotionally attached to; in this case, children become emotionally attached to nature and therefore want to protect it.

Animals, such as dolphins, have been shown to produce healing or beneficial changes in humans, perhaps because of an emotional connection between human and animal. In a 2011 book published by Yale Press, Frohoff and Dudzinski reported on over 20 years of research about human and dolphin interactions. A neuroscientist, Lily, initiated human–dolphin interaction interventions in the 1950s, followed by Betsy Smith, an educational anthropologist, and then David Nathanson, a psychologist, both at Florida International University. Nathanson (1998) and MdYusof and Chia (2012) demonstrated that when children swim with dolphins they become less anxious and more teachable, and their ability to pay attention increases by 500%. Language, speech, gross and fine motor functioning improve for children more effectively than when conventional speech or physical therapy is used.

One of several theories about why healing occurs with dolphins is that the unconditional acceptance stimulates the immune system, enhances self-worth, and gives hope for the future. This fits with the theory put forth by Bernie Siegal, author of Love, Medicine, and Miracles (2011), who said that disease comes from a lack of unconditional love, causing the immune system to be vulnerable. Swimming with the dolphins may increase immunoglobin or I-killer cells, thus stimulating the immune system.

Finally, there are numerous examples of animals warning or saving people from fires, floods and other disasters through a seemingly emotional connection between animals and humans. One typical headline might be: ‘Dog sounds alarm in Magnolia house blaze’, followed by the story about Joey, a normally quiet dog, running through the house barking until the five people woke up and escaped safely from the home (Delaware State News, 2013). Other examples include a pod of dolphins protecting an injured surfer from sharks (Celizic, 2007), and a female gorilla protecting and caring for a toddler who fell 24 feet into the gorilla exhibit at a zoo (King, 2008). Many indigenous people have taken cues from animal or plant behavior over the course of time for seasonal clues or for storm, earthquake, and tidal wave warnings.

This emotional and spiritual link to nature hugely impacts our well-being and ability to live in a compassionate and peaceful world through the immunizing effect for the human psyche, opportunities to recover from mental stress and gain protection from future potential stress, and opportunities for psychological restoration. Humans’ emotional connection to the natural world is profound; when humans do not understand this connection their mental well-being can suffer.

Our connection to the natural environment influences our physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual well-being. There are a number of intricacies to our connection with nature. Some aspects of humans’ connection with nature are absolute; we simply have to have air, water, and food and these are sustained by the natural world. We may never be able to make air, water, and food without nature and if we discover a way to do so, we may not want to because of the importance of the more than physical ways we are attached and interrelated to nature.

This complex and interconnected system of life illustrates that human-made changes in the natural environment can have negative consequences for health and well-being. Next the impact of WorldViews is discussed.