Category: Mental Health

People with this amenity are less likely to suffer depression and anxiety during lockdown.

Access to nature is key to surviving lockdown, a new study finds.

People who are able to get out into nature are less likely to suffer depression and anxiety during lockdown.

Even a natural view from inside can help to ameliorate the effects of COVID-19 related policies.

The conclusions come from a study that examined the mental health of people in various European countries as governments imposed lockdowns of different scales.

Spain, for example, imposed one of the most severe lockdowns: for a period, people were forbidden to go outside, even to walk.

The UK and Norway, though, did allow people access to nature.

Dr Sarai Pouso, the study’s first author, explained the results:

“The main conclusion is that people who were under the strictest lockdown during the first wave of COVID-19 (those who were only allowed to go out for work or essentials purchases, as was the case of Italy and Spain) were more likely to show symptoms compatible with depression and anxiety, compared to countries with more relaxed lockdowns where people could still visit natural places such as parks.”

Nine countries were included in the analysis, comprising the responses of over 5,000 people.

The researchers also tested whether having a garden or view of nature from the home was important.

They found that green spaces visible from the home were much more important for the mental health of people under the most severe lockdown.

Dr María C. Uyarra, study co-author, said:

“The results indicate that having access from the home to outdoor spaces (e.g., garden, balcony) and having window views to open spaces or natural element (e.g., coast, park, forest) decreased the probability of showing symptoms of depression.

Furthermore, people with access to outdoor spaces and with nature views, managed to maintain a more positive mood during lockdown.”

Pandemic or not, green and blue spaces have a remarkable healing effect on people’s mental health.

→ Read on: 10 Remarkable Ways Nature Can Heal Your Mind

The study was published in the journal Science of The Total Environment (Pouso et al., 2020).

When experiencing psychological distress, people first use self-soothing techniques and social support.

It is commonly believed that people in mental distress fail to use healthy coping strategies and are not resilient.

In other words, people with mental health problems are thought ‘weak’.

This is a myth.

New research reveals that many people experiencing mental health problems are resilient and already use many healthy strategies like distraction and meditation.

Indeed, these healthy strategies work up to a point — it is just that their levels of distress are too great.

The conclusions come from a survey of 509 young people who were asked about their mental health and any strategies they used to cope with it.

Professor Helen Stallman, the study’s first author, explained the results:

“We found that the majority of extremely distressed people already used healthy coping methods such as mindfulness techniques before turning to unhealthy methods to feel better such as emotional eating, aggression, alcohol, drugs and self-harm, social withdrawal and suicidality.”

When experiencing psychological distress, people started by using self-soothing techniques and social support.

When these did not work to alleviate mental pain, some moved on to seek professional support.

Once people were experiencing very high levels of distress, they tended to use more unhealthy ways of coping like drink, drugs, social withdrawal and worse.

Professor Helen Stallman, the study’s first author, said:

“What we have found busts the myth that mental health services and workers should encourage extremely distressed people to build resilience or learn healthy coping strategies like relaxing or distracting activities.

Support should not focus on ‘fixing’ the person who is suffering, it should focus on other ways to help reduce their overwhelming distress.

While we may consider people in mental distress to be lacking in resilience, they are the most resilient people but have too much to cope with.”

Professor Stallman advocates a model called “Care, Collaborate, Connect.”

She explains:

“‘Care’ is the initial intervention when someone is upset, so listening without interrupting and validating their experience.

‘Collaborate’ starts with asking how they are coping and ‘connect’ involves suggesting they talk to a health professional, like their GP, if things keep getting them down.”

• Now try these 10 mindfulness exercises.

The study was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders Reports (Stallman et al., 2020).