Ben Wiehl - Outside Reading #3

For my third installment of outside readings, I chose to read an article from the magazine Health Promotion International entitled "Health and nature -- new challenges for health promotion." This article talks about the impact nature has on health of both individuals and communities. This article makes use of the relationship between human beings and other living organisms. As there was a general movement from rural areas into urbania, people began to become disengaged from their natural environment. The article cites a study that I found very intriguing. According to the article, there was a study done that showed that hospital patients who viewed natural scenes such as trees and animals from their wards, recovered faster, spent less time in hospital, required fewer painkillers and had fewer post-operative complications than patients whose ward views were devoid of any appearance of plants and animals. The article also cites a study about prisoners. In prison, having a cell window with views of plants and animals lowered the number of sick calls of prisoners. There are many other interesting points, such as trees near the freeway lowering driver stress, blood pressure, and heart rate. From this article, I think that it is clear that human health is directly tied in to a relationship with nature.