7 Ways Environmental Health Affects Mental Health
Genetics form one piece of the puzzle of mental health. Environment and lifestyle form another essential component. Environmental psychology explores the intrinsic connection between your environment and mental health. Knowing how the health of your environment impacts your mental health can lead to you recognizing the changes you can make to feel better mentally.
Your environment encompasses most things that aren’t inherited. It includes components of your physical surroundings, along with drugs, injuries and psychosocial influences. Poor environmental health in any of these areas may change your brain structure and function, influencing mental health. How do environmental factors affect mental health? Explore a few environmental factors that contribute to your mental health.
1. Access to Nature
A healthy environment should include regular access to nature through a grassy backyard, a local park or nearby nature trails. Even looking at pictures of natural scenes can reduce feelings of stress.
When you go out into nature, you experience even more significant benefits. Getting moving outside can also lead to the production of more serotonin, which can decrease stress and improve mood.
2. Noise Pollution and Overcrowding
Environmental health includes noise pollution and overcrowding. When you live in an unhealthy environment with excessive crowding and noise, you’ll experience mental health challenges. Exposure to noise from sources like traffic can potentially impact the central nervous system. When you live in an environment with noise pollution, you may experience mental health problems like depression, anxiety and behavioral issues.
You can often experience a physiological stress response when you navigate crowded urban environments. High numbers of people, bicycles and cars might negatively impact your mental health. Care for your mental health by seeking healthier environments with limited noise and crowds.
3. Extreme Weather
Your environmental health includes the prevalence of extreme weather. Climate change leads to record-breaking extreme weather like:
- Heat waves
- Rain
- Floods
- Droughts
- Wildfires
After a natural disaster or other severe weather events, you might experience immediate mental health changes from trauma and shock, leading to anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. You might also experience long-term effects like greater aggression, helplessness, fear and depression from gradual climate change over time.
4. Exposure to Toxins
A healthy environment includes less exposure to toxins. Toxins may come from air, food, products and water. Toxic substances can disrupt normal brain function, leading to mental health problems like altered thoughts, moods and behaviors. You will experience the most significant mental health changes through exposure to toxins in early life.
You can improve your environment to influence mental health through various simple practices. Pay attention to the products you buy for cleaning your home or caring for your skin and hair. Be mindful of toxins in food or drinking water that could influence your mental health.
Limiting toxin exposure also involves working toward cleaner air. Waste reduction initiatives for substances like corrugated boxes and plastic lead to a reduction in carbon footprints, which means cleaner air and better mental health.
5. Work Conditions
Your environment includes your workplace because you spend many hours throughout the day at work. Most people work from their teen years to retirement, meaning they spend more time at work than in other environments. Here are a few factors in the workplace that may influence your health.
- A heavy workload causing burnout
- Poor pay and pressures to make money
- Stigma surrounding mental health and sharing struggles
These factors may lead to job-related mental health issues like anxiety and depression. You may experience excessive worry at work or struggle to juggle home life and job responsibilities. All of these environmental factors can influence your mental health.
A healthy work environment means a place free from excessive workloads, money pressures and mental health stigma. Many workplaces today prioritize resources for their employees to support mental health.
6. Sleep Disturbance and Deprivation
Sleep is another factor of environmental health. A healthy environment includes getting the proper sleep you need to complete your daily tasks. Sleep disturbances or deprivation may lead you to experience mental health issues like psychological distress, anxiety and depression.
Sleep is necessary for your brain and body functions. You will have better cognitive skills like attention, learning and memory when you get proper sleep. You can also cope with stressors more effectively.
Here are some techniques to improve your sleep:
- Stick to a consistent routine.
- Create a soothing environment.
- Try meditation.
- Use muscle relaxation techniques.
- Use medicinal solutions.
7. Smoking and Substance Use
Your environmental health also includes smoking and substance use. Mental health problems and substance use disorders sometimes occur together. Part of the reason is that certain substances cause people with addiction to experience symptoms of mental health problems. Here are a few ways long-term substance use disorder affects mental health:
- Changes in memory
- Learning challenges
- Concentration difficulties
- Altered consciousness
- Modified behavior
These changes result from adaptations to your brain’s function and structure. Substance use disorders also worsen symptoms of existing mental disorders. Improve this mental health contributor by seeking treatment that addresses substance use and cognitive disorders.
Consider Your Environmental Health
Your surroundings may play a more significant role in your mental health than you realize. Everything from your physical surroundings to daily exposures and activities make up your environment.
A healthy environment can promote a healthier brain and better mental health, reducing symptoms like anxiety or depression. If you’re experiencing an increase in mental health symptoms, schedule an appointment to speak with your physician.
