What surrounds you each day in your home, work, or neighbourhood and the resources available to you can affect your personal wellness. You can’t always choose what’s in the environments you live, work, or play in. But taking small steps to make your environments safer and limiting your exposure to potentially harmful substances can help keep you healthier.
What Is Environmental Wellness?
Environmental wellness refers to your sense of safety, comfort, and connection with your physical surroundings. It involves considering the interactions between your environment, your community, and yourself.
Environmental wellness can be enhanced by living more in harmony with the planet and your community. Wellness in this domain begins in your immediate surroundings. Your personal space has a direct impact on your state of mind, emotional well-being, and productivity. Environmental wellness also extends beyond your personal space to larger communities, geographic areas, and the planet.
“Our very being, essence, health and happiness depend on mother earth”. — David Suzuki
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Why Is Environmental Wellness Important?
The core principle of environmental wellness is respect — respect for all nature and all species living in it. It does not mandate that you join a movement or organization, but it does encourage you to practice habits that promote a healthy environment.
When you become environmentally aware, you will be able to realize how your daily habits affect the environment. Improving this dimension of wellness is simple and results in a more balanced lifestyle.
“The environment is so fundamental to our continued existence that it must transcend politics and become a central value of all members of society. — David Suzuki
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How To Enhance Your Environmental Wellness?
Being environmentally well contributes to your personal well-being, and helps ensure the future health of our communities and the world.
Here are 6 ways to enhance your environmental wellness:
1 — Create a healthy, happy living space
Evaluate your personal living space. What is pleasing to the eye and what bugs you? Make a list of easy, concrete steps you could take to improve your space. For example, you might clear up clutter, add more colour, or bring in more light.
Creating a healthy and happy living space also means paying attention to any toxins or chemicals that enter your space. Learn more about the chemicals in cleaning products and cosmetics in your home and clear out potentially harmful substances. If you have seasonal or environmental allergies, consider where you could reduce your exposure to potential allergens.
Finally, a safe living space is a happy living space. Take any necessary steps to enhance your sense of safety at home.
2 — Find little spaces of tranquility
Take a moment out of the busy day to appreciate your surroundings. You can do this anywhere, but it’s a special treat to do this in your favourite peaceful place.
You can find little spaces of tranquility as you go about your everyday activities. As you walk around, find a bench or courtyard you enjoy. Have a seat and just breath for a minute. When you’re indoors, choose your favourite window and pause to notice the view.
3 — Make a positive impact on the environment
Recognizing your connection to the state of the planet and living more in harmony with nature are a big part of environmental wellness.
Consider the ways you can make a positive impact on the environment. Even small changes add up, so don’t discount the small things in your power to do like recycling more or bringing your own travel mug for coffee.
The best part about making a positive impact on the environment is that it’s good for the planet and your wellness.
4— Make your community a better place
To boost your environmental wellness and your sense of meaning or purpose, find the little ways you could make a big difference in your community. Everyone has the power to make the world a better place, starting right where they live.
Bring a garbage bag along and take a stroll through your neighbourhood and pick up garbage. Put potted plants and a hummingbird feeder outside your door. Or even set up a Little Free Library.
If you have the resources to go bigger, find volunteer support to make your community a better place.
5 — Foster happy relationships in your home
When you come home from a long day of work and school, you want to feel relaxed, comfortable, and welcome. The physical setting is only a part of this feeling. Your relationships with the people there are also influential to your comfort at home and environmental wellness.
There are many joyful aspects of having roommates. These are people to bond with and get to know on a deep level. When things are working well, roommates can become lifelong friends. Living with other people, whether roommates or family, also comes with challenges. It can be hard to share a living, working, and socializing space with someone else.
A good rule of thumb is to treat your roommate and their things with respect. Stay open to learning another way to approach things and using your differences to build a positive experience.
6 — View the place you live in like a tourist does on vacation
Try looking at your neighbourhood and city through new eyes. What interesting things would you notice if you were visiting on vacation? What part of town would you want to experience as a tourist? Doing this helps you feel more connected to your community and enhances feelings of appreciation and awe.
Exploring your hometown doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive. It can be as simple as walking a route you normally do or paying attention to the building’s architecture. Parks, museums, public art, historic districts, and window-shopping downtown are affordable and very touristy options.
Photo by Philippe Beliveau on Unsplash
Environmental wellness is a process that involves learning about and contributing to the health of the planet. This involves establishing a sustainable lifestyle, protecting natural resources, and eliminating pollutants and excessive waste.
Environmental wellness encompasses not just our relationship with the planet and nature but our relationship with our personal surroundings as well. When our personal surroundings are well cared for, clean and organized, we experience a greater sense of comfort and less anxiety.
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References:
8 Dimensions of Wellness, (UMD) University of Maryland’s Your Guide to Living Well.
National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health. 2015. Green space and Mental Health: Pathways, impacts and gaps.
Nisbet, Elizabeth K. 2015. Answering Nature’s Call- Results of the 2015 David Suzuki Foundation’s 30×30 Nature Challenge.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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