Eco-Therapy – I Suggest you Go play in Dirt
The Huddle’s family physician wrote her a prescription that read: “Five times a week… spend 30 minutes at a park near your home.”
Huddle’s treatment plan is part of a growing field of medicine called “ecotherapy” — nature-based programs and exercises that can help patients cope with mental and physical illnesses. Instead of prescriptions for more pills, doctors around the country are increasingly prescribing trips to the park for a range of conditions, including anxiety and depression, attention deficit disorder and chronic illness such as diabetes and high blood pressure.
Full Article: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/dose-nature-doctors-prescribe-day-park-anxiety-n823421
Topics like this get me fired up in the morning, the results of just getting outside and interacting with nature are win-win’s and its just plain stupid not to take advantage of a situation where there’s no downside. In my opinion, this is a key factor in preventative health, Ive been restating a phrase throughout most of my posts “Put Yourself in a Position to Win” and this captures the very essence of that. The fact that some doctors are beginning to prescribe this is both funny and revelating. On the one hand you have patients who are essentially paying for the advise to go take a walk in the park, on the other, that’s exactly the right prescription from the medical professional. Now, if we can continue to transition this “Eco-therapy” into our daily routines then we may be able to get out in front of stressful work (or life) events that are inevitably around the corner.
In many situations, modern medicine doesn’t solve mental and physical problems, they cover it up and many times open the doorways for other issues to arise. Taking a pill for X often opens up the opportunity for Y to go wrong, resulting in another daily/weekly pill. Its a vicious cycle that will gain strength as the average person ages. That being said, modern medicine is one of our strongest assets we have as a human race, its extremely beneficial and life saving, but it’s being overused. People would rather take a pill then go for a walk, and in western society that’s exactly the choice their making. We haven’t even touched on the fact that the very bacteria that antibiotics are being used to kill are evolving and building resistance at a rapid pace (we’ll save this topic for a future post).
The Atlantic’s James Hamblin has a great piece on this in 2015
Its been shown in several studies that this Eco-therapy has shown benefits for Anxiety, Depression and even suppressing symptoms in children with ADHD:
But other research, conducted with actual humans, does support the idea that spending time in nature makes people healthier. Children with ADHD who regularly play in parks have been found to have milder symptoms than those who spend more time indoors, for example, and therapeutic-camping programs have been found to decrease relapse rates in substance addicts. Such findings generally have more to do with mood and behavior than basic biology—but mood and behavior are intimately tied to physical well-being. Social connection, for instance, is one of the most important factors in human health. And communal green spaces foster that.
It’s already been establish that there is upside to this type of treatment, the real push back will probably occur in the healthcare space and the prescribing physicians. It is in the interest of both the doctors and the pharmaceutical industry to prescribe a medication rather then to prescribe a walk in the park. These are market and political hurdles that need to be navigated in the years to come. I think there are valid places for both, most doctor have been trained in the field of medicine and do not feel comfortable giving advise outside of that realm. The market (and the consumers who make it up) will ultimately determine the change in methodology moving forward, the more knowledge they have the faster the shift will occur. How long until we hear this phrase on a drug commercial:
“Ask Your Doctor what a Walk in the Park Can do for you”
My 7th grade social studies teacher always told us to go play in traffic, I’m gonna be a little more responsible in recommending you guys and gals to go play in dirt.
Craig Chalquist, the chair of the East-West Psychology Department at the California Institute of Integral Studies. When I tracked him down, he shared some familiar advice: “If you hold moist soil for 20 minutes,” he told me, “the soil bacteria begin elevating your mood. You have all the antidepressant you need in the ground.”
