Green Your Health: Mind Your Mind

What’s good for our bodies is good for the planet – and what’s bad for the planet is bad for our bodies. This week we’re exploring the idea that caring for the earth must include caring for our own health.

Tip #4: Maintain Mental Hygiene

The link between mental health and environmental degradation isn’t commonly discussed, but if you think about it, it’s when people feel unsatisfied that they’re likelier to overconsume, making the planet a hapless victim. And the unprecedented rates at which people are taking antidepressants and stimulants are polluting our rivers and oceans.

Natural ways to feel better include exercising, getting enough sleep, developing a strong support system, talk therapy, heading outdoors, and pursuing a hobby. If you have to take medications, make sure to dispose of them properly.

Comments

[anya]

I think the way this tip should have gone is to remind people of the natural benefits to mental health of having a healthy environment, rather than condemning people who perhaps have more immediate concerns than environmental preservation. The goal of environmental justice is to protect the environment for the people and for future generations, and to make people see that environmental preservation is in their own best interest, rather than to make people feel like it's their interests v. the environment's.

[Kim]

The best food for you is environmentally safest - think what would happen if people did not buy junk food and pesticide-laden foods and food that has to be flown/shipped/trucked all over the world.

[MixedGreenGirl]

This is a great entry! Thank you! Today I took my kids for a walk...so that they can start good habits now and keep them for life. So much of what we do is modeling for our kids...when we show them healthy eating, living and sustainable living...they will most likely do the same. What a great way to change the world!

[Maureen Murphy]

Three years ago my doctor tried to put me on meds for high blood pressure and high cholesterol. For years I had been abusing my body and I had finally reached the obese stage w/health issues directly related. I declined the meds and instead began a two-year regimen of healthy eating, and regular exercise. I lost over forty pounds and even though I am still a 'work in progress', I am no longer at risk for high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I feel great and have lots of energy. I eat organic, no fast foods, processed crap or red meat. I feel like I am helping the planet as I help myself. Every day is Earth Day!

[Clover]

I was a highly sensitive, creative person. The work ethic environment that was positive for my brothers and sisters was not for me. Without physical hugging and loving words I got the message I was not worth loving. Mental illness is the grief and fear or anger that one is not worth loving and being controlled by that grief.
An intelligent person has an intelligent human brain. Children in a positive environment of love and truth have a chemical imbalance of feeling good and their mind learns growing up into the nonviolent, conscious directed adult. In a negative environment, a chemical imbalance of fear or anger controls the mind and the person does not grow up. The more aggressive person reacts with anger/fight, blaming and injuring others, usually labeled a criminal. The more gentle person reacts with fear/flight, blaming and injuring oneself, usually labeled mentally ill.
Collapsing from the grief of not being loved, 20 years of age, I was committed to psychiatry. Whether alcohol, illegal or legal drugs, repressing the emotions into the subconscious, at first seem a quick-fix, but do need constant fixing. That is why alcoholics and drug addicts become alcoholics and drug addicts and I became a psychiatry drug addict. The drugs, displacing the spirit, alter the conscious awareness to a suicidal and homicidal mind. In the subconscious, the repressed feelings build into terror and rage, and explode into periodic suicidal and homicidal, drugs rages. Psychiatry’s revolving door, revolving. Alcohol and drugs — the quick-fix suicidal and homicidal makers. The mandate of all alcoholics, legal and illegal drug addicts: Quit using or die.
Born very gentle I did not injure anyone else. Real doctors in real hospitals saved my life both from suicide attempts and psychiatry drug reactions. In my 31st psychiatrized year, a nurse directed me to a 12-Step Anonymous Program. “They teach people how to get well.” The profound change from a terrified, homicidal mind to conscious directed, nonviolent adult took me 6 months.
Dr. Peter Breggin, an anti-psychiatry psychiatrist, has written many books including Toxic Psychiatry. Are you a conscience-directed adult? Do you care that even children are labeled and drugged into killing? Help eliminate psychiatry, save lives and dollars. Copy, write, and phone lawmakers, organizations, newspapers, and friends. Tell them, “Teach Self-Development Programs in schools, communities, psychiatry rehabilitation centers, and prisons.” Thank You. A world freed of mental illness is a world free of drugging, torture, crime and war.

[order drugs]

Because food production is a major contributor to global warming, a lean population, such as that seen in Vietnam, will consume almost 20% less food and produce fewer greenhouse gases than a population in which 40% of people are obese (close to that seen in the USA today), according to Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine's Department of Epidemiology and Population Health.

Transport-related emissions will also be lower because it takes less energy to transport slim people. The researchers estimate that a lean population of 1 billion people would emit 1.0 GT (1,000 million tonnes) less carbon dioxide equivalents per year compared with a fat one.

In nearly every country in the world, average body mass index (BMI) is rising. Between 1994 and 2004 the average male BMI in England increased from 26 to 27.3, with the average female BMI rising from 25.8 to 26.9 (about 3 kg - or half a stone - heavier). Humankind - be it Australian, Argentinian, Belgian or Canadian - is getting steadily fatter.

'When it comes to food consumption, moving about in a heavy body is like driving around in a gas guzzler', say the authors. 'The heavier our bodies become the harder and more unpleasant it is to move about in them and the more dependent we become on our cars. Staying slim is good for health and for the environment. We need to be doing a lot more to reverse the global trend towards fatness, and recognise it as a key factor in the battle to reduce emissions and slow climate change', they conclude.

[mary wolfe]

I agree with the comments; I would like to add that mediation is a great way to calm your mind and get more energy. Do it with a group; the group sends out positive energy together

[Carrie]

I would really appreciate some comments about serious mental illness, like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. as mother of a son with bp diagnosis, I would love to think there is some natural cure, as well as believe there is some environmental cause. So far, however, I see evidence that this is a brain disorder. My child was loved, honored, given time to express himself, tools to be creative, etc.. And he still clearly has a mental illness which is at this point only controlled through fairly powerful drugs. Any comments?

[teen drug treatment]

Thank you for the post. It is enjoyable to read.

-mj-

[Generic Viagra]

The best food for you is environmentally safest - think what would happen if people did not buy junk food and pesticide-laden foods and food that has to be flown/shipped/trucked all over the world....

I totally agree with this comment, thanks for sharing, have a nice day!!

[Medical Call Center]

How lovely would it have been if we got the fresh vegeatble from the farm without pesticides?What about the organic food?Are they trustworthy at all?i grow my own small and nice home garden.

[Electronic Medical Records]

It is sad that even to get our vegetable good and safe and poison or pestiside free we need to wage a war and pay a price.

[writer]

The researchers estimate that a lean population of 1 billion people would emit 1.0 GT (1,000 million tonnes) less carbon dioxide equivalents per year compared with a fat one.

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You ides is good, but who is making exercising, getting enough sleep, developing a strong support system, talk therapy, heading outdoors, and pursuing a hobby. Almost nobody here

[Jane]

Hi,
Just interested in knowing your views on our physical environment and how it affects our Mental Health or its factors to Mental Illness in todays world.

[Chicago Property Management]

Hi! Thanks for this post. I run after healthy tips and I stumbled upon this site. I was told that together with exercise I need to drink lots of water to wash the toxins away. Oh, it's good to be alive! :-)

[us drugstore]

This is some very valueable information, thank you very much.

[naked celebrities]

I don't mind to green my mind :)