If you’re suffering from mental illness, have you considered the impact your environment might have on your life?

Mental illness is affected by many things, your past, genetics and even what you surround yourself with, even your environment. When sifting through these possible contributing factors, you might find yourself wondering if the city life has a detrimental effect on your mental health. After all, the sirens and screams you hear can’t possibly be a positive influence.

With the world being the way it is today, we start to question our locations more and more. Are we living in a safe area? Does our location have plenty of opportunities for jobs or social activities? Many environmental factors such as this have a heavy impact on our lives. So, what can we say?

Does the environment affect our mental health and what should be done?

We must first discover what happens within, in order to make a decision about where we need to be. We should also learn to not pay attention to what others want for us, and more about what we feel is good for ourselves. When it’s all said and done, we are the ones who will have to live with our choices. Our surroundings provide a huge influence on many decisions we make.

Fear

For instance, when we suffer from anxiety and live in an urban area, we might not want to leave our homes. In this day and age, it’s almost impossible to do that. Although we do have the internet and phones, we still have to venture out at some point. When we do, just the normal city landscape will cause a heightening sense of worry which can trigger an anxiety attack.

On the other hand, if we live in a rural environment, these negative stimulus’ are limited a bit. There are less crime and usually less drama, as a whole. Although there will still be situations that could arise, it will be a drastic improvement from the urban environment.

Now, with anxiety, you also experience worry when nothing is happening, so no matter where you live, this will be somewhat of an issue.

Convenience

Much different than the element of fear is the element of convenience. In the urban community, there will be a much larger selection of convenient venues: small family owned stores, restaurants, clubs and other social scenes. There will always be plenty to do in the city.

For those who suffer from depression, living in an urban environment has it’s good and bad points. Doctors have implemented drugs with this in mine.The illness of depression is treated with doctor prescribed medications along with vitamin D, and this vitamin D is given to the patient in order to increase a deficiency created by the lack of sunlight.

Medications given for depression, give us a boost so we can enjoy the many convenient choices of the city, those which keep us stimulated when we are prone to sleep in during bouts of depression. Whether you are in an urban or rural area, you will need to increase your time outside. For those who suffer from depression and can venture out, they will find plenty to do.

In rural areas, however, the distance from place to place will be farther, thus making enjoyable activities outside the home a little more difficult. In order to spend time outside and soak up the vitamin D, you will need to tend a garden or go on a bike ride. This is also therapeutic.

So, what’s this tell us about our environment?

Well, it seems overall, that the rural environment is better than the urban one when it comes to keeping in touch with nature, but this doesn’t mean you have to give up and leave your home in the city. What this means is that it’s time we made a change, learned ways to improve our urban lifestyle and surroundings.

Many people are already implementing roof gardens and planting trees to bring more nature into the concrete jungle. I think, in time, even thought environments play such an important role in mental illness, that we will be able to find a way to be happy wherever we are.

At least we can try.

Copyright: Dream Humanity