Green Exercise は健康と幸福を高める

グリーンエクササイズとは、自然の存在下でアクティブに活動することです。

その相乗的な健康上の利点を暗示しています。

グリーンエクササイズがライフコースのすべての段階で人間の健康と幸福に与える影響について説明し、免疫機能などの細胞プロセスから人間の行動変化の促進まで、幅広い範囲をカバーしています。

それは、学校と職場の両方での活動と教育目的のためのグリーンエクササイズの価値と、その治療特性を示しています。

グリーンエクササイズは、荒野療法、園芸療法、森林と水の使用などの活動を伴う、脆弱なグループに対する効果的な介入であり、健康な老化を促進します。

Green Exercise Linking Nature, Health and Well-being

Edited ByJo Barton, Rachel Bragg, Carly Wood, Jules Pretty

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315750941

The concept of Green Exercise has now been widely adopted and implies a synergistic health benefit of being active in the presence of nature. This book provides a balanced overview and synthesis text on all aspects of Green Exercise and integrates evidence from many different disciplines including physiology, ecology, psychology, sociology and the environmental sciences, and across a wide range of countries.

It describes the impact of Green Exercise on human health and well-being through all stages of the lifecourse and covers a wide spectrum from cellular processes such as immune function through to facilitating human behavioural change. It demonstrates the value of Green Exercise for activity and education purposes in both schools and the workplace, as well as its therapeutic properties. Green Exercise is an effective intervention for vulnerable groups and promoting healthy ageing, with activities including wilderness therapy, therapeutic horticulture and the use of forests and water. Chapters also integrate cross-cutting key themes which are relevant to all stages of the lifecourse and have significantly contributed to the Green Exercise research base, such as forest bathing and blue exercise.

The book also explores the future of Green Exercise, the way in which research can be used to influence green design and planning and how health, social care and environmental agendas can be integrated to enable Green Exercise to be more widely used as a mechanism for improving health.

不安と抑鬱に対する”緑”の処方箋

屋外で時間を過ごし、日常から時間をかけて緑や生き物に囲まれることは、人生の大きな喜びです。また、最近の研究は、それがあなたの体と脳に良いことを示唆しています。

科学者は、自然の中で週に2時間過ごすことは、より良い健康と幸福につながることを発見しました。

NHSの「緑の処方箋」の一環として、一部の患者が自然やコミュニティガーデニングプロジェクトで時間を過ごすように”処方”されることが増えています。

たとえば、シェトランドでは、うつ病や不安のある島民に「緑の処方箋」を与えることがあり、そこでは、人々が屋外とつながることができる散歩や活動を医師が勧めています。

内容は「植樹の手伝い」や「緑地で時間を過ごす」と、「薬」というには非常に簡単なものですが、高血圧や呼吸器·心血管疾患の症状や不安の軽減、集中力と気分の向上、生活の満足度と幸福度の増加といった効果がみられ、処方をうけた人のうち63％はより活発に活動するようになり、46％は体重が減ったそうです。

NHSでは、不安、孤独、うつ病に対処するために、社会的処方（健康上の利点がある非医療的治療）がすでに使用されています。

多くの場合、社会的および感情的なニーズを満たすのに役立つ活動を行うことができるコミュニティまたは自主組織への患者の紹介を伴い、医師はますますコミュニティガーデニングを選ぶようになりました。自然の中で高度に構築されたエリアでさえ。

そして、そのような治療の根拠は拡大しています。

社会的処方が患者の不安レベルと一般的な健康の改善を研究が示しています。

結果はまた、社会的処方計画がNHSサービス使用の削減につながる可能性を示唆しています。

https://theconversation.com/anxiety-and-depression-why-doctors-are-prescribing-gardening-rather-than-drugs-121841

Spending time in outdoors, taking time out of the everyday to surround yourself with greenery and living things can be one of life’s great joys – and recent research also suggest it’s good for your body and your brain.

Scientists have found that spending two hours a week in nature is linked to better health and well-being. It’s maybe not entirely surprising then that some patients are increasingly being prescribed time in nature and community gardening projects as part of “green prescriptions” by the NHS. In Shetland for example, islanders with depression and anxiety may be given “nature pescriptions”, with doctors there recommending walks and activities that allow people to connect with the outdoors.

Social prescriptions – non-medical treatments which have health benefits – are already used across the NHS to tackle anxiety, loneliness and depression. They often involve the referral of patients to a community or voluntary organisation, where they can carry out activities which help to meet their social and emotional needs, and increasingly doctors are opting for community gardening – as this also has the added benefit of involving time spent in nature – even in highly built up areas.

And the evidence base for such treatments is growing – with research indicating that social prescribing can help to improve patient’s anxiety levels and general health. Findings also seem to suggest that social prescribing schemes can lead to a reduction in the use of NHS services.

The benefits of gardening

Research shows that gardening can directly improve people’s well-being. And that taking part in community gardening can also encourage people to adopt healthier behaviours. It may be, for example, that neighbourhood projects can be reached on foot or by bicycle – prompting people to take up more active transport options in their daily lives. Eating the produce from a community garden may also help people to form the habit of eating fresh, locally grown food.

Growing food is often the driving force behind community gardening projects, whether purely for the consumption of the gardeners or for local distribution or sale. Unlike growing on individual allotments or private gardens, community gardening requires an element of cooperation and collective planning. Working together towards shared goals can create a real sense of community. And in a garden, a feeling of connection may develop, not just with other people, but with the living world as a whole.

Community gardens offer space and solace for local people. Karin Bredenberg/Shutterstock

Gardens also play a significant role in conserving biodiversity, by developing wildlife pockets and corridors across towns and cities – an idea encouraged by the RSPB’s Giving Nature a Home programme. The inclusion of even a small pond in a garden can provide a home for important species such as amphibians. Gardens can also help to mitigate climate change. Their vegetation captures carbon and can improve air quality. Tree and shrub roots in the soil absorb water, reducing flood risk.

So because people’s relationships with the living world affects their behaviours towards it, taking part in community gardening could also make people old and young more environmentally conscious and responsible. By connecting people to nature, it may be that community gardens can also help to transform society – allowing towns and cities to move towards more sustainable futures.

Community connections

This process of using plants and gardens to improve health is known as social and therapeutic horticulture. On top of promoting physical and mental health benefits, social and therapeutic horticulture has also been shown to help improve people’s communication and thinking skills.

At Hull University’s Centre for Systems Studies we want to understand more about the ways community gardening can boost well-being for people, societies and the living world. So we are working with the Rainbow Community Garden in Hull, which also has links with local schools, social services, mental health teams and veteran’s association, to observe activities and interactions over the course of a year. We are also interviewing staff and volunteers about their experiences, looking at how people’s well-being changes as they participate in the project.

A corner of the Rainbow Community Garden in north Hull. Author provided

Although no one intervention is right for everyone, community gardens do have wide appeal and potential. But such projects tend to be run by charitable organisations – often relying on grant funding to employ staff and provide equipment. And at a time when funding gaps mean that local councils are struggling to preserve public parks and gardens, it seems that despite all the positives that can be gained by such spaces, the future of many community gardening groups could be uncertain.

This would clearly be a massive loss, as individual well-being, societal well-being and the living world are all inextricably linked. John Donne was correct when he said “no man is an island”. Community gardens can bring together diverse groups of people and it’s possible to make these spaces widely inclusive and accessible. Raised beds and paved pathways, for example, can improve access for wheelchair users, while a complex sensory experience can be created using scents and sounds as well as visual stimuli. We hope that our research will help to highlight the importance of these places and the many benefits they can bring for people, society and the living world.