Many of us know instinctively and intuitively that open green space around us can relax our minds and lift our spirits – somehow we just feel better.
A new study confirms just that: it shows that people living near green space experience less anxiety, depression, heart disease, back pain and asthma than those living in concrete jungles.
“The role of green space in the living environment for health should not be underestimated,” Dutch researchers wrote in a study published in the British Medical Journal’s Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
Check out reports in PsychCentral here and Bloomberg here.
That’s another reason why we desperately need to preserve existing green space and create even more around us.
No wonder, with green space rapidly diminishing all over the country, all sorts of health problems are on the rise. (Another contributory factor behind mental health problems is the wide gap between the rich and the poor, which this blog has highlighted in the past).
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Dear Anil Sir
Thank you for pointing this out.
Our people and the leaders MUST hear these things!
We live in tamans and housing estates which are like concrete jungles, no green space!
People are suffering because some contractors want to make lots of money!
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Hi Ravi, yes, we have to do our best we can to preserve what’s left of the precious green space around us – and ask for more green space wherever possible.
p.s. Just call me Anil!
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All diseases begin from the mind. Even when there are exogenous factors, if the body is healthy it is able to restore homoeostasis very quickly. The health of a person is dependent on the mind state.
Many of today’s physical problems is not recognised as “mental problems” but it has been recognised to be so for thousand of years in traditional chinese medicine and ayurvedic medicine.
As an example. A person suffering from mental stress will suffer large intestine constriction i.e. constipation. This will progress to affectations of the lungs such as having a lot of phlegm, wheezing, coughing (chronic and acute) etc.
Indigestion and excessive bile production are all also due to excessive heart functions.
Many people will try to suppress the symptoms of diseases and as a result will force the symptoms backwards and affect the heart. This phenomenon is known as grandchild insulting grandmother or child insulting mother in TCM.
Affectations of the heart, if excessive can also affect the kidney and urinary bladder. If a person goes to toilet often the problem is not with the urinary bladder but with the heart.
Stresses on the heart/mind could be from endogenous factors such as liver or kidney derangement and this could be due to genetic factors or it could be due to exogenous factors such as work place expectations, living in a congested environment etc.
We could see from this simple accounting, from the wuxing theory of TCM (5 element theory) that humans are so interconnected within a deep ecology of life and environment that to presume that causes for mental health or even suicide rate could be isolated by research would be like believing in tooth fairy merely from the sound of tapping of a blindman stick.
Physical immunity rests upon mental and spiritual immunity. The homoeostasis of mental and spiritual dimension is equanimity. There are much that poison and pollute the mind in today’s society. A mind, upon receiving a poison of rumour may hate and despise and the same mind upon receiving a different poison may feel pity. In either case it is a disease state of the mind. When there is no equanimity there is no capacity for homoeostasis and we then become an open wound to be manipulated and used by others.
Equanimity, is not only a buddhist cultivated mental state, but a highly priced state in TCM. Happiness and sadness both saps the spirit.
When we know not what we are talking about, we should at least preserve a noble silence. Good intentions from a poisoned chalice is just as poisoned.
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Hi MD, my gut feeling tells me there’s a lot of truth in what you are saying. Yes, I believe we are all inter-connected with one another and the environment and all that it is in it. Thanks for sharing.
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I hope LGE administration will *cccidentally* realize this fact before committing more concrete projects. He should appoint this blog owner as green adviser.
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The Urban Matrix has a deleterious effect not only on our mental and physical beings but it gradually attrits the sensitivity of our souls to the subtle epiphanies of nature. Once we lose that spiritual connection, all talk of “God” is mere lip service!
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Private property, Trespassers will be prosecuted. this is what is happening to our green spaces around.
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Only the rich cares for themselves – More space and especially green. What about those in slums and in housing estate. Is Gerakan really a socialist party?
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Sorry, but I have to question the veracity such studies. Finding a correlation in the data between those living near green space with health does NOT show causation. What the study doesn’t take into account is the lifestyle of the respondents. There are so many variables missing that to jump to the conclusion that green space does this is hasty in my opinion.
Sorry but I do believe that green space is important and its easy to get people to plant trees etc. There are obviously other advantages to this so I feel it should be encouraged, but this study doesn’t tell the whole story.
Don’t get me wrong I do believe we should take care of our environment and yes we should create more green spaces(or green lung) in cities. There are advantages to having them.
But we can’t jump to conclusions that so and so is true simply because of statistics. Yes the study shows something interesting, but it requires further study.
I believe taking care of our planet is our responsibility. Let us not plunder everything in the name of profit. This is our home. peace
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Bro, what was earth when God created it?
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Is this a bait question or something? I said the environment is important and we must preserve it. Plants are after all a very important cog in the eco system of this planet.
I only questioned the accuracy of this ‘study’ and that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. There have been many studies done in the past that were sponsored by certain groups with certain agenda/bias. Some even for the purpose of conning people into believing rubbish(like the countless miracle health cures in our market).
Science requires the most rigorous tests and experiments to ascertain if a hypothesis is fact/correct. Statistics alone won’t do it(great for preliminary studies but there are many things that can make their results skewed).
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My point is, further studies on this is required.
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The older generation used to talk about high blood pressure, but modern generation is start talking about low blood pressure and low blood count. Low blood count is worst than high blood pressure. The low blood count will lead to what modern medicine call cancer.
More than half of Malaysian young generation suffered from low blood pressure and low blood count. If not because they are staying in concrete jungle why the sudden abnormal change in the disease pattern? More than half of today youngsters suffered from ED especially from the Chinese communities, increasing number of Malay youths also started to show the same kind of problem. Why? Better food and better living environment contribute to lousy health?
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Trees and green spaces make good living.
However,our local councils do not seem to be doing the right thing. They cut down the shady old trees, and plant new ones, which will take many years to provide the least of shade.
I visited Quilin, China, and wonder how a clean ‘Li River’ flows through the city of so many people, why our rivers, so narrow yet so polluted.
The streets were lined with shady ‘Qui’flower trees, which permeates the air when you walk beneath it. Its so relaxing to be there.
Air Asia flies direct to Quilin. Make a trip.See for yourself.
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People,
I got to agree to the need of having green space. However to what extent. One got to handle this matter on a balanced matter. Not just skewed towards one end, forsaking the others.
What say you if we propose that we should not build houses & stay on top of trees? Where do we draw the line? Think along that line
We should be talking about having a balance. It’s tough but one got to make a choice. Absolute protection of environment. That means we got to stay on top of trees or overdeveloped cities such as Monaco & Macau
Ah so Anil,
You dare to tell Prince Albert of Monaco that his principality is a pile of … because there is plenty of space except his castle without green space.
What about telling that to Macau people? Better still Vatican City? Aiyah……I am more for the middle ground. I do miss Romerz…….
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It is a subjective issue, how much is enough? How much development is enough? Let the council and State Government decides. There is so called, cost and benefit study. You can not have the best of the two scenario. If you want to read, go to the subject of cost and benefit study on development on many websites. You can not enjoy development without the cost!!!
All civilizations come with a price. Nothing is free.
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Hi Anil,
Yes I agree with you – greenery helps to soothe the soul and relax the mind. Psychologists say that, and personal experience also proves that.
The problem is … green space need to make way for housing, offices, factories, roads, etc. Why do we need so many of these ? Because our population is growing like crazy. We have one of the highest population growth rates in the world. Why ? Because a certain stupid politician (in the past) said that our country can support 70 mil population. Why did he say that ? … For racial/political reasons. And to make matters worst, certain other politicians from other races started making comments that their own race need to “catch up in terms of numbers”. So we are in a race to make babies. As a result, we are facing a population time-bomb. Too many people, increasing too fast, need to build more homes, more people with more cars so need to build more roads, more people need jobs so need higher growth and more factories, offices, schools, etc.
So if you want to solve the problem of not enough greenery, go back to the root of the problem. Tell the politicians to put in place policies to slow down population growth and reduce intake of migrants. When the “pressure to build” slows down, you have a better chance to ensure higher ratio of greenery.
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