Removing Any Green Area Affects Your Health!

By Dr. Magdy Badran

CAIRO, March 16 (SEE) - Desertification and land degradation threaten global wellbeing. Your local park is likely playing a vital role in your city’s health, and your own too. But in increasingly crowded cities, it can be difficult to find room for parks.Modern urban lifestyle is associated with chronic stress, insufficient physical activity and exposure to environmental hazards.

Green space can affect health and well-being: by improving air quality, enhancing physical activity, stress compensation, engagement with nature, relaxation and social interactions.

Green spaces improve air quality. Trees, shrubs, and turf remove smoke, dust and other pollutants from the air. One tree can remove 26 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually, equaling 11,000 miles of car emissions. One acre of trees has the ability to remove 13 tons of particles and gases annually.

Cortisol hormone is produced by the adrenal glands. It plays an important role in the body’s stress response. It’s sometimes called the “stress hormone.” That’s because of levels of cortisol in the body spike during times of high stress.

Cortisol levels reach their lowest levels late at night, usually around midnight. From there, levels begin to rise. Cortisol reaches its highest level in the body early in the morning, peaking around 9 a.m., before beginning to decline again throughout the later day. The pattern can change or become altered if people work irregular shifts or sleep a lot during the day.

Cortisol increases glucose in the bloodstream, alters immune system responses, suppresses the digestive system, the reproductive system, and growth processes.

The long-term activation of the stress and the subsequent overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones can increase the risk of numerous health problems, including digestive problems, headaches, heart disease, sleep problems, weight gain, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, anxiety, depression, memory loss, and concentration impairment.

Green urban areas form a refuge from noise, play a critical role in cooling cities, provide safe routes for walking and cycling for transport purposes as well as sites for physical activity, social interaction and for recreation.

Physical inactivity, linked to poor walkability and lack of access to recreational areas, accounts for 3.3% of global deaths. Physical activity has been shown to improve cardiovascular health, mental health, neurocognitive development, and general well-being and to prevent obesity, cancer, and osteoporosis.

Inpiduals living in urban areas with more green space tend to have a reduced level of stress and better well-being, lower levels of depression, anxiety, and stress.

Higher levels of greenness at home and school were associated with better progress in working memory, reduced inattentiveness in schoolchildren, better mental health and cognitive development in children, improved behavioral development and reduced rate of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

There are therapeutic benefits of engaging children with autism with nature. Being in nature, or even viewing scenes of nature, reduces anger, fear, and stress and increases pleasant feelings.

Increased availability of green space is linked with a reduction of mortality. Nature helps us cope with pain, as we are absorbed by nature scenes and distracted from our pain and discomfort.

There are associations between visiting forests and beneficial immune responses, including expression of anti-cancer proteins. Exposure to nature switches the body into "rest and digest" mode, which is the opposite of the "fight or flight" mode. When the body is in "fight or flight" mode, it shuts down everything that is immediately nonessential, including the immune system.

The stress of an unpleasant environment can cause you to feel anxious, or sad, or helpless. This, in turn, elevates your blood pressure, heart rate, and muscle tension and suppresses your immune system. A pleasing environment reverses that.

Children with the highest exposure to specific allergens or bacteria during their first year of life were least likely to have recurrent wheeze and allergic sensitization. Living in residential areas with more street trees was shown to be associated with lower asthma prevalence.

Studies have demonstrated that increased biopersity in the environment around homes is linked with reduced risk of allergy. Greater exposure to commensal microorganisms, especially in early life, may lead to more perse skin and gut microbiomes, and provide protection against allergy.

Green space may stimulate happiness production. Mycobacterium vaccae is a bacterium found in soil and may stimulate serotonin production, which makes you relaxed and happier. Lack of serotonin has been linked to depression, anxiety, and bipolar problems.

The bacterium appears to be a natural antidepressant in soil and has no adverse health effects. Mycobacterium antidepressant microbes in soil are being investigated for improving cognitive function.

Green space reduces cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Walking in a park had a stronger effect on reducing diastolic blood pressure than a similar amount of walking along a busy urban street. Cardiovascular benefits can be caused by enhanced physical activity, improved mental restoration leading to reduced chronic stress, and by reduced exposure to air pollution and noise.

Green space reduces the prevalence of obesity and types 2 diabetes. Living in greener residential areas and living in closer proximity to forests was linked with less sedentary time and reduced risks of overweight and obesity in children. Using green space for gardening may influence physical activity, improve social well-being and encourage eating healthy food, thereby reducing obesity.

Exposure to air pollution is another risk factor for systemic diseases including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes acting through oxidative stress and systemic inflammation mechanisms.

Residential access to green space is associated with improved pregnancy outcomes and reduced risk of low birth weight and prematurity. Low birth weight is one of the main predictors of neonatal and infant mortality, as well as long-term adverse effects in childhood and beyond.

In many communities, additional land for large parks is either expensive or difficult to repurpose. Parks are emerging as important public health solutions in urban communities. Creating small parks can be a productive public and private joint venture that introduces the spaces for nature encounters that benefit everyone.

A pocket park (also known as a parkette or mini-park ) is a small park accessible to the general public. Pocket parks are frequently created on a single vacant building lot or on small, irregular pieces of land. Pocket parks’ benefits are bigger than their size suggests and are significantly less costly than larger alternatives.

Tips for maximizing the benefits of your green space: take care of your grass, choose flowers and plants that suit your area’s climate. Pruning is important to maintain your flowers, plants and shrubs year after year. Planting a tree is one of the most simple and effective activities you can perform to improve your green space.