Good health is something many of us take for granted–that is, not until it’s gone. But the reality is that wellness doesn’t just happen. It’s the product of good genes, some luck, and a healthy lifestyle. Few realize, though, that a healthy lifestyle is about more than exercising, eating right, and getting enough sleep. In fact, living a life that promotes wellness and longevity isn’t just about what you do, it’s also about where you are. Indeed, your environment can play a profound role in supporting, or undermining, your physical and emotional health. But cultivating an awareness of how your surroundings affect your health is a critical first step in building a long, happy, and healthy life.
Sick Buildings, Sick Bodies
A building doesn’t have to be teeming with insects and rodents, walls thick and black with mold and mildew, to make you sick. Your home or workplace could be riddled with contaminants that you can neither see nor smell but that may still be wreaking havoc on your health.
This is why it’s imperative to be alert to any signs that your body is in distress. If you find yourself coughing, itching, having headaches, fatigue, or trouble breathing, when you spend time in a certain room or building, then it may well be the environment.
So-called “sick building syndrome” refers to the constellation of sometimes life-threatening conditions that may develop in vulnerable individuals when they’re exposed to a contaminated environment. The challenge of sick building syndrome is that not all environmental hazards are easily detectable and not everyone will have an obvious adverse reaction. And that means that if you don’t know what you look for, you may find yourself terribly sick without understanding what the cause is or how to avoid or mitigate it.
Peace and Quiet
Your environment doesn’t just pose a threat to your physical health, but to your mental and emotional wellbeing as well. If your home or workplace is cluttered, noisy, and chaotic, you may find yourself feeling unduly stressed and anxious.
Similarly, when your home does not feel warm and welcoming, when it doesn’t embrace you or reflect the things you love, you may develop not only anxiety but also depression, which can manifest in many and varied ways. This could include, for instance, physical symptoms such as pain and sleeplessness.
Learning to recognize the diverse signs of anxiety and depression, and understanding the impact that environment has on mental health, can enable you to take steps to improve your surroundings, to create spaces for living and working that support both your physical and psychological health.
For instance, studies show that filling your home with green plants can significantly boost your mood while also promoting physical health. Likewise, a home infused with lots of natural light and sufficient space to move freely, function well, and interact with friends and family will facilitate an emotionally healthy, socially and psychologically supportive lifestyle.
Location, Location, Location
As important as interior spaces may be in influencing your physical and psychological wellbeing, where your home, work, and socializing spaces are located is equally as important. For instance, if you live in a remote area with little access to consistent healthcare, or an urban environment with few pharmacies or fully-stocked grocery stores within walking distance to public transport, then you’re probably going to have an incredibly difficult time cultivating a healthy lifestyle.
This reality, indeed, is increasingly influencing medical practice, as healthcare providers begin to recognize the environmental obstacles patients may face when trying to maintain their health. Many physicians, for instance, are conducting “social screenings” on their patients to understand which patients lack access to affordable and healthy food, consistent medical care and pharmacies, or parks, recreational, and exercise facilities.
As patients and healthcare providers alike begin to identify the health barriers that patients’ living and working environments create, then strategies may, at last, begin to be put into place to overcome them, such as helping patients to devise in-home exercise programs when they lack access to gyms, hiking trails, athletic courts and ball fields, and other facilities.
The Takeaway
When it comes to maintaining wellness, perhaps the first ideas that come to mind are eating right and getting lots of healthy exercise. But mental, physical, and emotional health are by no means shaped only by biology and behavior. Your environment plays a profound role in shaping your mental and physical health. The inability to recognize the signs of undetected environmental contamination, for instance, can lead to life-threatening illnesses. Similarly, a cluttered and unwelcoming home or workplace can give rise to clinical depression and anxiety disorders. Finally, the location of your living and working spaces can either strongly support or wholly undermine your ability to maintain a healthy lifestyle, but understanding the ways that where you live determine how you live is the essential first step in overcoming environmental barriers to wellbeing.
