Advances in Integrative Medicine
Volume 2, Issue 1, April 2015, Pages 5?12
Special Issue: Integrative Mental Health
[h=1]Natural environments and mental health[/h]
[h=2]Abstract[/h] Ancestral experiences and evolutionary processes continue to influence the brain in ways that may escape conscious awareness by contemporary adults. It is becoming increasingly evident that the 2.2 million years our genus has spent in natural environments are consequential to modern mental health. This might be especially true in the context of rapid global urbanization, loss of biodiversity and environmental degradation. Here, we examine some of the emerging research related to natural environments (and specific elements within them) and mental health. Our synthesis includes research from various branches of science and medicine, e.g., epidemiology, psychology, physiology, anthropology, evolutionary biology, and microbiology. Significant knowledge gaps remain. However, the accumulating strength of research from multiple disciplines makes it difficult to dismiss the clinical relevancy of natural environments in 21st century mental health care.
[h=2]Keywords[/h]
- Attention;
- Delay discounting;
- Green space;
- Light at night;
- Melatonin;
- Microbiota;
- Mindfulness;
- Negative ions;
- Stress physiology;
- Urbanization
What is already known about the topic?
? The study of natural environments and mental health is an expansive topic.
? Experience within natural environments (or with components of natural environments) produces a differential effect on human stress physiology vs. similar activity in predominantly built environments.
? Experience within natural environments (or with components of natural environments) supports cognitive restoration.
What this paper adds?
? Our review attempts to tie evolutionary aspects of the human-natural environment relationship to modern clinical relevancy.
? Our review attempts to break down the silo-contained research related to the topic so that the relevancy of compartmentalized natural environment research areas (e.g. microbiota) can be viewed through a single lens.
