Psychological Benefits of Green and Controlled Exercise - Coursework Example

Psychological Benefits Of Green And Controlled Exercise Literature Review According to Willis & Osman (2005), Greenspace is a major resource for physical activity, especially walking, running and cycling. Access to and use of greenspace has benefits for psychological health” (Willis & Osman, 2005, p.8). “Direct exposure to nature can be labelled as green exercise. Both physical activity and exposure to nature are known separately to have positive effects on physical and mental health” (Pretty et al.2005, 319). Majority of the current generation are trying to maintain their health with the help of artificial exercise equipment. They are doing their workouts within the walls of a closed room. In their opinion, physical workouts can be performed anywhere for maintaining health and proper body shape. However, many of the recent studies have proved that exercises conducted in open world or in nature can provide physical as well as psychological benefits. “Recent research on the benefits of green exercise on mood and self-esteem confirmed that it generates many positive physical and mental benefits regardless of the level of intensity, duration or type of activity” (Benefits of Trails, N.d.) Pretty et al.(2005) investigated whether there is a synergistic benefit in adopting physical activities whilst being directly exposed to nature (‘green exercise’). Five groups of 20 subjects were exposed to a sequence of 30 scenes projected on a wall whilst exercising on a treadmill. Four categories of scenes were tested: rural pleasant, rural unpleasant, urban pleasant and urban unpleasant. The control was running without exposure to images. Blood pressure and two psychological measures (self-esteem and mood) were measured before and after the intervention. There was a clear effect of both exercise and different scenes on blood pressure, self-esteem and mood. Exercise alone significantly reduced blood pressure, increased self-esteem, and had a positive significant effect on 4 of 6 mood measures. Both rural and urban pleasant scenes produced a significantly greater positive effect on self-esteem than the exercise-only control. This shows the synergistic effect of green exercise in both rural and urban environments. By contrast, both rural and urban unpleasant scenes reduced the positive effects of exercise on self-esteem (Pretty et al.2005, 319). “Using nature to nurture good health is not a new idea. Prisons, hospitals, monasteries and churches have historically been associated with having different outdoor therapeutic spaces. Hospitals have traditionally had gardens as an adjunct to recuperation and healing” (Sempik et al., 2010, p.13). Nature has the ability to calm down or settle agitated minds. It should be noted that breathing fresh air is necessary to maintain physical as well as mental health. A life in isolation with nature is impossible for a living thing. Nature has everything to make the living things happier. Many people have the illusion that nature provides only the food, water and air necessary to maintain our physical health. According to Peacock, et al. (2005), “it seems that the presence of living things makes us feel good. They help us when we feel stressed, and if there is green vegetation, blue sky and water in the scene, then we like it even more” (Peacock, et al. 2005, p.9). In other words quality of nature affects our mental health immensely. It should be noted that the mental health of people working in Middle East is poor mainly because of the fact that majority of the places in this region are desert. Overseas people who are working in Middle East often take breaks and go back to their home country to get access to greenery and to maintain their mental health. People working in urban areas experience more stress than people working in rural areas. This is because of the fact that urban area lacks greenery whereas rural areas are enriched with greenery. According to Peacock et al. (2007), walking, gardening activities, social and therapeutic horticulture, garden design, conservation activities, bush craft, dog walking etc are examples of green exercise (Peacock et al. 2007, p.1). It should be noted that these activities are performed in association with the nature and therefore a person may get immense psychological pleasure out of it. For example, working in a garden which consists of beautiful flowers will definitely enhance the mental health of a person. Researchers analysed 10 British studies encompassing a total of more than 1,200 participants involved in outdoor activities such as cycling, walking, horseback riding, and fishing. They found that “green” exercise improves people’s mood and self-esteem, with the biggest effects coming in just five minutes (Marsh et al., 2010) “UK researchers looked at evidence from 1,250 people in 10 studies and found fast improvements in mood and self-esteem. They concluded that the strongest impact of green exercise was on young people” (Green exercise quickly boosts mental health, 2010). Many reports have shown that the mental health of the upcoming generation is getting weaker as time goes on. Green exercise seems to be an answer to this problem. “Incorporating green spaces into built environments can improve learning effectiveness and work productivity, and help alleviate mental stress and illness” (Mental health and function, 2012). Nobody wants to build a house in deserts. Everybody wants to build a house in a plot which is enriched with greenery. This is because of the awareness that greenery has the soothing effect upon the mental injuries. Bowler et al., (2010) pointed out that “A natural environment may provide an environmental setting for an activity or exercise programme, thus promoting increased physical activity. Physical activity can have positive benefits for mental health, for instance, lowering depression” (Bowler et al., 2010). Many people have the illusion that physical activity can improve physical health alone. If performed in suitable environment, all physical activities can promote mental health also. Pretty et al., (2003) argued that “closeness to nature increases well-being as well as the likelihood of understanding of and care for nature, and its rediscovery can lead to transformations in people and nature” (Pretty et al., 2003, p.5). After conducting a pilot study about the effects of nature on mental health, Barton et al (2011) concluded that “Combining exercise, nature and social components in future initiatives may play a key role in managing and supporting recovery from mental ill health” (Barton et al 2011). Nature’s role in treating mental health problems cannot be ruled out under any circumstances. Mental health patients are usually treated with medicines which may have lot of side effects. Treating mental health patients with the help of nature may avoid the risk of using dangerous psychoactive medicines. Methodology Both primary and secondary data will be collected and analysed for this research. Primary data will be collected with the help of semi structured interviews, online surveys, questionnaires etc. Women aged between 20-30 are taken as the sample for this study. I have planned to visit some colleges and ladies clubs to interview some women in this particular age group. I would like to interview women from different communities and cultures to know whether culture plays any role in my topic. An online survey will be conducted to get the views of women from different parts of the world about this particular topic. Online survey will help me to reach distant parts of the world and get diverse data about this topic. The details about the women who are going to be interviewed and who are going to participate in the online surveys will be kept in strict confidence. Both qualitative and quantitate data will be used for this research. According to Trochin (2006), “Qualitative data is extremely varied in nature. It includes virtually any information that can be captured that is not numerical in nature. In-Depth Interviews, Direct Observation and Written Documents are some of the sources of qualitative data”(Trochim, 2006). Interviews play a vital role in collecting qualitative data. It should be noted that a person may reveal so many things if the interviews conducted in the right manner. Many people have the habit of revealing important facts only in private conversations. They may not be ready to publish it publicly. In other words, data collected from interviews could be more qualitative in nature whereas data collected from published sources could be more of quantitate in nature. Direct observation can help a person to learn more about a particular topic. It is not necessary that the observations made by others may not help a person too much in getting more insights into a topic. This is because of the fact that different people may approach a subject from different angles. For example, while watching a construction, an engineer may analyse it though the engineering aspects whereas an ordinary person may analyse it with respect to the beauty of the construction. The observations of these two persons may not be right for an archaeologist who is more interested in studying the history and age of that construction. In short, direct observations are important in getting proper insights about a particular topic. Written documents or previous studies or research finding may also help in collecting qualitative data. One of the drawbacks of collecting qualitative data from previous studies is the possibility of getting outdated data. It is necessary to use more recent studies to get updated data. Along with qualitative data, quantitative data are also necessary to make correct judgements. Internet resources, journal articles, books etc will be used as the secondary sources to collect secondary and quantitative data. According to Cherry (2012),“Quantitative data is used to describe a type of information that can be counted or expressed numerically. This type of data is often collected in experiments, manipulated and statistically analyzed. Quantitative data can be represented visually in graphs, charts etc” (Cherry). No research will be completed properly without quantitative data. If the research finding is relevant only to few people, such finding may lack reliability. Only the finding which is applicable to a large number of people can be judged as a reliable finding as far as a research study is concerned. In other words, quantity matters in all research topics and it is provided mostly by the previous researchers. Data analysis will be done with the help of primary as well as secondary data. It is a process of inspecting, cleaning and transforming of the collected data to make conclusions. It should be noted that the collected data may contain lot of wanted and unwanted things. It is necessary to avoid all the unwanted things from the collected data which is done in data analysis. Moreover, collected data may contain contrasting data. It is necessary to analyze both supporting and opposing data properly to make conclusions. The collected data can be regarded only as a raw material. These raw materials (data) will attain the form of a finished good (conclusions) only after the correct analysis and interpretations. References 1. Bowler, D.E., Ali, L.M.B., Knight, T.M. & Pullin, A.S. 2010. BMC Public Health 2010, 10:456 doi:10.1186/1471-2458-10-456 2. Barton, J., Griffin, M. &Pretty, J. 2011. Exercise, Nature and Socially Interactive Based Initiatives Improve Mood and Self-esteem in the Clinical Population. Perspectives in Public Health, 2011; DOI: 10.1021/1757913910393862 3. Benefits of Trails, N.d. [Online] Available at: http://www.shannonregiontrails.ie/UsefulInformation/BenefitsofTrails/ [Accessed 21 April 2012] 4. Cherry, K. 2012. What Is Quantitative Data? [Online] Available at: http://psychology.about.com/od/qindex/g/quant_data.htm[Accessed 21 April 2012] 5. Green exercise quickly boosts mental health, 2010. BBC News. 1 May 2010. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8654350.stm 6. Marsh,J., Wong, B & Saslow, L. 2010. “Green” Exercise Improves Mental Health. [Online] Available at: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/research_digest/green_exercise_improves_mental_health/ [Accessed 21 April 2012] 7. Mental health and function. 2012. [Online] Available at: http://depts.washington.edu/hhwb/Thm_Mental.html [Accessed 21 April 2012] 8. Pretty, J., Pretty, C., Sellens, M & Griffin, M.2003. Green Exercise: Complementary Roles of Nature, Exercise and Diet in Physical and Emotional Well-Being and Implications for Public Health Policy. CES Occasional Paper 2003-1, University of Essex. March 2003. Available at: http://www.outdoorfoundation.org/pdf/GreenExercise.pdf 9. Pretty, J., Peacock, J., Sellens, M & Griffin, M.2005. The mental and physical health outcomes of green exercise. International Journal of Environmental Health Research October 2005; 15(5): 319 – 337 10. Peacock, J., Pretty, J., Sellens, M., Griffin, M. Hine, R. & South, N. 2005. Countryside for Health and Well-Being: The Physical and Mental Health Benefits of Green Exercise. Report for the Countryside Recreation Network February 2005. Available at: http://www.essex.ac.uk/ces/occasionalpapers/Kerry/CRN%20Report%20FINAL%20Feb14.pdf 11. Peacock, J., Hine, R. & Pretty, J. 2007. The mental health benefits of green exercise activities and green care. [Online] Available at: Available at: www.psykinfo.regionsyddanmark.dk/dwn109161[Accessed 21 April 2012] 12. Sempik, J., Hine, R. &Wilcox, D. 2010. Green care: A conceptual framework. A Report of the Working Group on the Health Benefits of Green Care. Available at: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ccfr/growing_together/Green%20Care-A%20Conceptual%20Framework.pdf 13. Trochim, W.M.K.. 2006. Qualitative Data. [Online] Available at: http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/qualdata.php [Accessed 21 April 2012] 14. Willis, K. & Osman, L. 2005. Economic Benefits of Accessible Green Spaces for Physical and Mental Health: Scoping Study. Final report for the Forestry Commission. CJCCONSULTING economics environment countryside. October 2005 Read More