Now scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it's long been recognized that city life is exhausting -- that's why Picasso left Paris -- this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so.The article goes on to note that humans were designed to interact with nature and that even simply seeing trees helps patients in hospitals recover faster - providing a mental break from a harsh urban environment. Here's another tidbit I found interesting,
This research is also leading some scientists to dabble in urban design, as they look for ways to make the metropolis less damaging to the brain. The good news is that even slight alterations, such as planting more trees in the inner city or creating urban parks with a greater variety of plants, can significantly reduce the negative side effects of city life. The mind needs nature, and even a little bit can be a big help.I'm about to take a group of students on a mission trip to inner-city Winnipeg and I've noticed that there is only so and so much I can take of living there. In part - it is the chaos of organizing & transporting people to different areas of the city that drains me but I'm used to being near nature. Even though I live in a small city - my backdoor literally exists into a park area.
I also have found that spending time at our parents cottage in the Whiteshell provides me with an outlet for stress & consistently is the best environment for me to actually relax. During my graduate studies - I skied every evening after completing research for a paper and I found it was the only way to shut my brain down effectively.
This article is a reminder for my need for interaction with nature in order to better balance my life and I urge everyone to take advantage of your escapes to God's Creation! Shalom!
5 comments:
This makes sense, but for me there is a balance. Having lived in a rural area of Ontario for the past five months - where I have to drive an hour just to get groceries, and my nearest neighbor (that I would want to spend time with) is a twenty minute drive - I find myself going nuts and longing for the city. While I wouldn't want a hour-and-a-half commute to go ten miles to work (i.e. Toronto, Dallas, Houston) I do like the city for what it can provide that the rural life just can't...action and stimulation. I like your point, though, that we need outlets to give ourselves the much-needed time and space to re-charge. Good stuff.
Good post, Garth. As much as I loved living in the city, being close to the "action" and all my friends, pieces of identity are lost, lack of space shrinks my mind, and it is too easy to be lulled into the atmosphere of "entertainment first".
Here in the Whiteshell, life IS slower, but in our stimulation-addicted world it is important to learn how to live quietly, live in the now, and look for the hidden "action" - the ghostly tracks of animals through the snow, and imagine what they were seeking, the way the wind interacts with the trees, the progress of the sun against the sky. To live in the moment, not by the hour or minute.
Sadly, the "city" mentality creeps too often even in rural life. And I do believe that one can keep a certain "rural" mentality even when living in a city. Winnipeg is wonderfully green, depending on where you go. But living near Assiniboine forest, or else in neighbourhoods where, during the summer, the trees create a canopy over the streets - it doesn't "feel" very urban!
I do believe it would be awesome if cities could be more "organic" - designed to fit within the natural environment rather than setting itself apart with too much iron and concrete. However, I have always believed that many humans flee from the immensity of nature. Nature makes us feel small, (in my opinion this is good) and power-hungry executives do not like that feeling. It makes us vulnerable, as we are no longer in control - things are unpredictable, changeable.
Going back to what you said about the city hurting our brain - I think it would be interesting to do a study on whether nature effects the criminal element as well? I have no idea if it would, but I have always felt that, especially in the case of juvenile delinquents, if you took them out of the city and into the woods, it would do something profound. Or even if you had them work in a garden, plant things and watch them grow and harvest them . . .
Life began in a garden. I think there is something deep down that needs that interaction, that care-taking and being taken care of by nature.
I could be wrong.
Very interesting post! Garth, now that you are in the city with your students, how are they coping with inner city life? It would be interesting to get Kent Dueck's perspective on this since ICYA takes kids out to Gem Lake. Have you thought to ask him what it does for those kids?
Enjoy your time in the city - Starbucks and all... Mom
Funny, but I left the green suburbs because they were literally killing my soul. No community, you must drive everywhere, and for some reason the materialism and consumption seemed that much greater. Now I live in downtown Vancouver, steps from the ocean and Stanley park, small ethnic restaurants, etc, and the whole thing feels much like a village. There's ethnic diversity here too, not so in the suburbs. And we're forced to live daily with - and among- the poor and the homeless. Again, not so in the 'burbs.
I've grown to feel that as much as there is a downside to the city, life in the suburbs can be much more toxic for the soul, even if the brain is at rest. But the need for nature? Man I'll get on board with that. Every morning I walk on the ocean, can't imagine living anywhere else now.
(you want noisy cities, try Kathmandu, bro. I love the place but each time I leave I'm ready to start punching kittens the noise is so bad!)
Hope you're well.
-david.
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