Reclaiming your place in the world (1)

by Beth McHugh | More from this Blogger

03 Sep 2006 01:38 AM

Compared to our parents and grandparents, most of us live in an overwhelmingly synthetic environment and our bodies struggle to maintain our connectedness with the natural world around us. We drive where our parents would once have walked, we live in apartments hundreds of feet above ground level, we breath air-conditioned air, we seldom feel earth beneath our feet.

Our bodies are highly adaptive instruments but they are not infinitely adaptive. There comes a point in time when the lack of fresh air, the lack of connectedness with the earth, the absence of natural substances all combine to make us sick. Yet the sickness may be so subtle that we do not notice that we have changed. Sometimes we put this sickness down to a physical or emotional illness, not recognizing the true origins of our malaise.

Research backs this idea up. Studies on young children in high density housing areas such as New York have reported high levels of aggression, learning difficulties, concentration problems, poor social skill development, and a raft of other undesirable behavior patterns.

However, when these children were taken out of the city environment one day a fortnight for a period of three months in a groundbreaking experiment on child and adolescent behavior, something miraculous happened. Their behavior improved, particularly hyperactivity levels and aggressive behaviors. Their general mood became more stabilized and their school grades rose accordingly.

So where did the researchers take these children? They took them to the country. For one whole day a fortnight, these children experienced grass under their feet, fresh air, and farm life. Just one day a fortnight was sufficient to see significant changes in these troubled children. The researchers involved in the study concluded that the harsh noises, and particularly shapes and colors associated with inner city living were acting to overstimulate the brains of these children, causing social and behavioral problems which were then wrongly interpreted as psychological problems. They also concluded that the predominance of the color green provided a soothing influence on the overwhelmed nervous systems of these children.

But these maladies don't just happen to children; we adults are just as susceptible to living in an environment that we simply weren't designed to experience. Sick building syndrome is a manifestation of how much we have lost touch with our natural environment.

So what can we do to save ourselves, our children, and our environment? Stay tuned for the next blog!

Contact Beth MHugh for further information or assistance regarding this issue.

Learn more about Beth McHugh

Beth McHugh began her career as a geologist and worked both in industry and as a university researcher.

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