Even modest reminders of nature can help boost mental health during lockdown, research finds.
Nature can be experienced on a walk close to home, in the back yard or even indoors.
All have been shown to improve mental health and wellbeing and reduce anxiety.
Experiencing nature mindfully can help increase its effect, as can sharing memories of nature, thinking back to natural places that induce calm and sharing these stories with others.
Nature can help stop rumination — thinking about the causes and consequences of depressing events — a process common in depression.
Studies have proven that even the smallest bit of nature—a single tree, a small patch of flowers, a house plant—can generate health benefits.
Look closely in your neighborhood, and the bit of nature you may have taken for granted up until now may become the focus of your attention and help you feel better.”
Over the years, thousands of studies have shown the positive effect of nature on mental health.
Exposure to nature helps to stop people ruminating, a process of continuously worrying about the past and the future linked to mental health problems.
Gardens and backyards provide some with access to grass, bird song, leaves and flowers.
For those stuck indoors, though, potted plants or even photos or videos of nature can provide the necessary reminder.
Being mindful is key to getting the most out of nature.
It’s important to be mindful, commit to the activity and think about your observations while looking at these materials or elements of nature.
That means not merely scrolling through on your computer, but looking at photos or video streams with more intention.
It’s essentially nature-oriented meditation.”
Sharing experiences of nature with others is also powerful.
“Even though we are physically distancing, it’s really important to our health to maintain our social connections.
There is evidence that people who are lonely or who are socially isolated can be prone to poorer health.
Nature might be a means, either by being outside a safe distance from others or by sharing stories with each other, of staying socially connected.”
Exposure to nature helps to stop people ruminating, a process of continuously worrying about the past and the future linked to mental health problems.
In these times, I think our minds can be a little out of control.
Part of the effect of nature is that it can soften negative conditioned mental patterns.
If you can find nature, engage with it and get your heart rate down, then your mind begins to settle.
When your mind isn’t ruminating, it can then open to a wider world, where there’s great beauty and healing.
As the coronavirus pandemic rapidly sweeps across the world, it is inducing a considerable degree of fear, worry and concern in the population at large and among certain groups in particular, such as older adults, care providers and people with underlying health conditions.
In public mental health terms, the main psychological impact to date is elevated rates of stress or anxiety. But as new measures and impacts are introduced – especially quarantine and its effects on many people’s usual activities, routines or livelihoods – levels of loneliness, depression, harmful alcohol and drug use, and self-harm or suicidal behaviour are also expected to rise.
In populations already heavily affected, such as Lombardy in Italy, issues of service access and continuity for people with developing or existing mental health conditions are also now a major concern, along with the mental health and well-being of frontline workers.
As part of its public health response, WHO has worked with partners to develop a set of new materials on the mental health and psychosocial support aspects of COVID-19.
With the effects of COVID-19 on our physical health increasingly documented, we can no longer collectively fail to notice its effects on our mental health. My family’s experience is only remarkable for how unremarkable it is. COVID-19 has the seeds of a major mental health crisis. Early reporting from Ireland shows a tenfold increase in the number of people seeking online counselling.
Some people are showing high degrees of psychological distress, such as healthcare workers, older adults, people with pre-existing conditions, children, thosee in precarious domestic situations, and fragile humanitarian and conflict settings. Together these groups make up maybe most of humanity; these are our friends, family, neighbours, they’re us.
Most of the discussion about addressing COVID-19-related mental health problems is focused on what we can do as individuals. The World Health Organization has published a helpful document. This WHO infographic is less detailed, but easy to digest.
The advice is consistent with what has always helped mental health; staying connected, keeping busy, getting physical activity, staying calm, managing information intake, maintaining a routine, and sleeping well.
But while this is important, much more action needs to be taken regarding policy. Our neglect of mental health is obvious from the insufficient commitments we devote to it; the crisis response is now hampered by our lack of investment in mental health promotion, prevention and care before the pandemic.
We know we need large-scale changes. Yet because of the scale of the problem, the vast majority of mental health needs remain unaddressed.
Last week UN Secretary-General António Gutteres launched a policy brief on the need for more action on mental health.
He outlined three priorities:
Apply a whole-of-society approach to promote, protect and care for mental health
Ensure widespread availability of emergency mental health and psychosocial support
Support recovery from COVID-19 by building mental health services for the future
These recommendations are as good or better than any medical prescription; they will fundamentally change millions of lives.
In the last week before the lockdowns began, UNDP and the World Health Organization (WHO) held our first joint mission to develop a national mental health investment case in the Philippines. With support from the Russian Federation, we have have developed a methodology and will deliver such investment cases in four countries this year. Work in Uzbekistan began last week.
The cases are not so much about assigning a value to mental health, but about finding and prioritizing the best approaches. By focusing on cost-effective interventions and scaling them up, while identifying and addressing gaps, we can make good on our promise to leave no one behind.
COVID-19 has instilled a level of fear and anxiety in us all. As it has isolated us physically, we have felt isolated mentally. We have all felt feelings of depression as we missed friends, family and loved ones.
Yet for many of us, these feelings are just a small glimpse into what it is like to be living with anxiety, depression or other mental health challenges. For many, these issues were a daily struggle before COVID-19 and they will be afterwards–perhaps made worse by the pandemic.
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s consistent plea has been for nations’ coronavirus responses to be based on empathy. “Compassion is a medicine,” he said in March. That compassion and solidarity applies just as much to our own approaches to mental health. Solidarity with those enduring mental health challenges, and a demand that we are all entitled to mental health services, must be a rallying cry for us all.
Stay safe an
Eduindex News 