Green Mind Theory: How Brain-Body-Behaviour Links into Natural and Social Environments for Healthy Habits
Abstract
:1. Recent Findings from Research on Nature and Health
2. Red Brain, Blue Brain, Green Mind
3. The Brain’s Negativity Bias and Causes of Suffering
4. Immersion and Attentiveness to Quiet the Chatter
5. Habits and Behaviours in the Lifecourse
6. Neuroplasticity and Placebos
7. Place Making
8. Linking Greener Minds to Contemplative and Greener Economies
9. Priorities for Implementing Healthy Habits
- International agreements: these are rare, slow to implement, and easy to free-ride or undermine;
- National policies: few successes for whole populations, so far, though anti-smoking and seat-belt legislation are successes;
- Institutional and sectoral policies and practice: the potential for government, employers, and charitable organisations to change practices to affect large numbers of people, such as in education, mental health, social care, or hospitals;
- Community actions and ceremonies: already widespread and manifested in local groups and rituals, but undervalued and not yet widely used to improve well-being;
- Voluntary actions of individuals: hard to sustain, though the most commonly pushed by governments.
9.1. Children
- Young children are becoming increasingly socially-disconnected, inactive, and eating badly: what green mind interventions would work best for 5–11 year olds?
- How protective would such interventions be across the lifecourse?
9.2. Adults
- 3.
- How can immersive-attention activities be promoted to produce health and well-being improvements across whole populations (including the disadoption of unhealthy habits)?
- 4.
- What are the best policies for local and national governments to implement that would aid such adoption and disadoption?
- 5.
- What priority activities and behaviours should be promoted at stressful transition points in the lifecourse (moving schools, transition to university, becoming a parent, marriage and divorce, deaths of friends and relatives, retirement, transition to social care)?
9.3. Longevity
- 6.
- What green mind interventions offer the greatest efficacy for health outcomes in elderly populations and social care settings?
- 7.
- How can interventions based on outdoor activity, social interactions, good food, and cognitive engagement be best implemented?
- 8.
- What can be learned from cultures where healthy living continues into the 8th–11th decades of the lifecourse (such as in the longevity hotspots of Nagano and Okinawa in Japan)?
9.4. Redesign
- 9.
- What well-being and health outcomes could be delivered in hospitals and care settings if green and prosocial design was implemented?
- 10.
- How much real income could be saved by hospitals from promoting behaviours that prevented the need for treatment?
- 11.
- How can human settlements be redesigned to increase engagement with existing green spaces?
- 12.
- Could some solutions to climate change rest in the green mind and its capacity to drive low consumption behaviours?
10. Conclusions
Comments on the Green Mind
Acknowledgments
Author Contributions
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Condition | Proportion of Population Currently Affected | Number Currently Affected | Full Annual Cost to Economy (£ Billion) |
---|---|---|---|
Mental ill-health | 18% of adults 10% of children | 8.8 million | 105.0 |
Dementias | 13% of >65 year olds | 0.75 million | 20.0 |
Obesity | 26% of adults 15% of children | 13 million adults 1.9 million children | 20.0 |
Physical inactivity | 20% of adults completely inactive | 10 million adults | 8.2 |
Diabetes (type 2) | 5% of adults | 2.9 million | 29.0 |
Loneliness | 30% of >65 year olds | 0.9 million | 40.0 |
Cardiovascular disease (including hypertension and strokes) | 1.84 million in-patient episodes: 180,000 deaths | 22.6 | |
Total (assuming all costs independent and additive) | 244.8 | ||
Total costs (assuming one quarter of costs double-counted through co-morbidities) | 183.6 |
Modern Mind in Affluent Consumer Culture | Green Mind |
---|---|
Too many daily red alerts (first arrows) | Balance of blue and red brain |
Chatter of second arrows increases stress, suffering, and anxiety | Second arrows are suppressed and suffering reduced |
Immersion-attentiveness forced out of daily life | Immersion-attentiveness deliberately increased by daily habits and routines |
Over-alert status of SNS-HPAA causes secondary health problems | PNS activates blue brain to engage in self-healing |
Tendency towards mental ill-health | Tendency towards health and well-being |
Empathy forced out by over alert red brain | Green mind is more prosocial and empathetic |
Inactive, sedentary lifestyles | Regularly active |
Disconnected from nature and sensate green places | Regular user of green places through green exercise |
Some conditions and diseases only appear treatable through medication (or not at all) | Dose of green mind approaches can be therapeutic |
Tendency towards increased material consumption for consolation and interest | Tendency towards non-material consumption and sustainable material consumption for well-being and long life |
Nature Engagements | Activities that deliver health benefits in nature include walking, gardening and allotmenteering, fishing, rock climbing, bike/horse riding, outdoor tai chi/yoga, beach holidays, outdoor swimming, surfing river bores, watching sunsets or waves, dog walking, pigeon-racing, pilgrimage walking, bird watching, park running, and fen skating. |
Social Engagements | Socially-based activities low in material consumption yet delivering health benefits include drama and song/choral groups, dance groups (ballroom, Morris dancing, Highland dance), coffee mornings, carol singing, conservation volunteering, participative prayer, book groups, curating social media online, bell-ringing, dance/night-clubs, fairs and fetes, parades and carnivals, horticulture societies, community supported agriculture groups, pop-up music festivals, folklore ceremonies (mud racing, cheese rolling, Halloween, bonfire night, beating the bounds, horn dance, tar barrel rolling, apple day, and rush bearing). |
Craft Engagements | Craft activities that deliver attention and immersion, bringing further well-being benefits, include painting, drawing, writing, calligraphy, baking, jam-making, carpentry, home repairs and improvements, knitting, needlework, quilting, crosswords, mindfulness and meditation, tai chi/yoga, jewellery making, boat-building, craft beer brewing, wine-making, pottery, stone masonry, dry-stone walling, and hedge-laying. |
Every child outdoors every day. |
Every adult physically-active every day. |
Every adult learning a new skill or craft throughout life. |
Every care home with a garden. |
Every hospital redesigned on greener, prosocial principles. |
Every natural environment promoted for some human use. |
Every person able to access green, social and talking therapies. |
Every person engaged in neighbourhood groups for social interaction. |
Every kilogramme of fossil fuel left in the ground. |
Every economy green and prosocial. |
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Share and Cite
Pretty, J.; Rogerson, M.; Barton, J. Green Mind Theory: How Brain-Body-Behaviour Links into Natural and Social Environments for Healthy Habits. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017, 14, 706. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14070706
Pretty J, Rogerson M, Barton J. Green Mind Theory: How Brain-Body-Behaviour Links into Natural and Social Environments for Healthy Habits. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2017; 14(7):706. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14070706
Chicago/Turabian StylePretty, Jules, Mike Rogerson, and Jo Barton. 2017. "Green Mind Theory: How Brain-Body-Behaviour Links into Natural and Social Environments for Healthy Habits" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 14, no. 7: 706. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14070706