Sorry to learn that you got Lyme disease, Ray. It's effects are so
horrible, it would make anyone think twice about risking reinfection.
Both our niece and the young daughter of another niece suffered years of
wrong diagnosis and eventually years of treatment. They're both better,
but, sadly, it definitely stays with you.
Regarding today's kids, or people of all ages, whose natural
surroundings have been largely removed from their lives, I'm sure you
will recall both oral and documented benefits of being in the woods, and
especially that of cedar, pine and spruce on mental well-being. Most
early cultures consider these trees sacred and most effective to that
end. You know the Cherokee do!
How did your surgery go? Or am I mixed up on whether or not you've had
it? You posted something about Monday, but you could have been referring
to the cancellation.
All best,
Natalia
On 17/10/2012 9:39 PM, Ray Harrell wrote:
I got Lyme disease in the country. It took years to get rid of it.
We don't go the country much anymore. As we get older it just isn't
safe.
REH
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *D & N
*Sent:* Wednesday, October 17, 2012 1:31 PM
*To:* RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION
*Subject:* [Futurework] big cities bad for the mind
No news, and certainly no strong evidence cited. But definitely
something for consideration.
*Natalia
*
http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/living-cities-may-literally-be-driving-us-insane.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+treehuggersite+%28Treehugger%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
Simply living in cities may be driving us insane. Or at least making
us more likely to develop schizophrenia or various forms of psychosis.
That's the fear propelling a growing body of research, which seeks to
document the psychological effects of growing up and living in dense
urban areas. If scientists' fears are confirmed, it'd be quite a blast
of bad news, especially when paired with the fact that the world is
fast moving out of rural areas and into cities. More than half the
world lives in cities now, remember.
The basic premise is this: people who spend their lives in cities are
more prone to be subjected to longer periods stress, and, after
prolonged exposure, their bodies aren't good at tuning it out. The
science journal Nature explains
<http://www.nature.com/news/stress-and-the-city-urban-decay-1.11556>:
Considered from an evolutionary standpoint, the physiological
stress response is definitely a good thing: it helps mammals to
survive ...
Problems arise when the stress response doesn't switch off.
Stress-hormone levels that stay too high for too long cause high
blood pressure and suppress the immune system. And, although the
mechanisms are unknown, scientists agree that severe or prolonged
stress also raise the risk of psychiatric disease --- most
brutally in those who have a genetic predisposition, and when the
stress occurs while the brain is still developing. In theory,
then, the ceaseless challenges of the city could produce this kind
of damaging stress. Some fear that they could end up driving an
increase in mental illness around the world.
Now, there have only been a handful of studies that have actually
linked rising rates of mental health to increasing urbanization ---
the most convincing one was published in 2003. Called the Camberwell
study, here's what it found:
In 1965, health authorities in Camberwell, a bustling quarter of
London's southward sprawl, began an unusual tally. They started to
keep case records for every person in the area who was diagnosed with
schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder or any other psychiatric
condition. Decades later, when psychiatrists looked back across the
data, they saw a surprising trend: the incidence of schizophrenia had
more or less doubled, from around 11 per 100,000 inhabitants per year
in 1965 to 23 per 100,000 in 1997 --- a period when there was no such
rise in the general population.
One possible explanation was that exposure to the city itself, and its
myriad stresses, was driving the decline in mental health. Statistics
collected in the United States and Germany seem to corroborate the
finding. Nature notes that "In Germany, the number of sick days taken
for psychiatric ailments doubled between 2000 and 2010; in North
America, up to 40% of disability claims for work absence are related
to depression, according to some estimates."
But nobody's making any conclusions --- cities are vast, complex human
ecosystems, and it's extremely difficult to pinpoint how, if, or why
living in them may give rise to mental health problems. There's still
a ton of study to be done, and there may be more specific reasons that
city residents are suffering from mental health woes. So, scientists
have embarked on ambitious projects to map entire metropolises, follow
citizens with mobile app tech as they go to work, and to better
understand how the urban environment causes stress.
One thing seems to be certain; better-planned cities, with ample green
spaces and areas in which residents can find relief from the bustle
are preferable to the concrete jungle. Research
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8307024.stm> in the Journal of
Epidemiology and Community Health found that city dwellers who lived
closer to green spaces exhibited better mental health; they were less
likely to be stressed or to suffer from more serious ailments.
Findings like that should be taken seriously; we've firmly entered the
age of the city --- cities are now the way most humanfolk are choosing
to organize their societies. And that's a good thing; cities are more
efficient, use less energy, generate less waste and pollution than
sprawl does. And they can certainly be built in pleasing,
less-stressful ways. If we start studying how cities impact mental
health now, we all might be a good deal happier down the line, when
everybody's living in them.
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