Living green boosts your mental health by bringing balance into the world. It reduces pollution, lightens landfills, reduces consumerism, and unites humankind. Living green sustains not only our planet – it actually improves our psychological well being.
Living green boosts your mental health by uniting you with the earth, and with those around you. Eco-friendly lifestyles replenish not only the water and soil -- but also your own soul.
Living Green is Unifying
An eco-friendly lifestyle is teamwork. If we all do just little bits – teeny weeny things like reusing plastic baggies, fixing leaky taps and toilets, turning the lights off, refusing bank machine or other receipts – we make a huge difference to the planet. Simply knowing that we're making a difference boosts our mental health. Living green unites us in the common goals of slowing global warming and saving lightening the load in landfills. We're happier when we feel connected to the world and the people around us, and that's what living green is all about.
A world-scale example of how living green unites us are the Live Earth concerts. Billions of people watched legends like Bon Jovi and newcomers like The Black Eyed Peas perform on July 7, 2007. There were seven concerts on seven continents for 24 hours of music – it was a "monumental music event", according to CNN. This type of group experience improves our psychological well being.
Living Green Changes Our Focus
Instead of me, me, me – living green takes our focus from ourselves to the world around us. The trees, air, water, even the universe become more "ours" when we take responsibility. And when our earth is ours, we take her more seriously. Not littering becomes actually picking up litter instead of walking by it. Not wasting paper at work becomes making pads of recycled paper that everyone in the office can use. Living green boosts mental health by changing our focus from ourselves to the world around us.
Changing our focus from us to the world sustains both the planet and our psychological well being. Research shows that doing good and living consciously boosts your mental health -- and that's what green living is all about.
Living Green Changes The Way We Think
Retrieving junk mail from our mailboxes may seem like a nuisance, but it becomes a huge issue when you know that every man, woman, and child in North America receives an average of 450 pieces of junk mail every year. Living green means changing the way we think, which boosts our mental health. Change is good for our brains and attitudes.
Living green is realizing it's not just you who gets junk mail, throws out fruit and vegetable peels that could be composted, or doesn't car pool. We all do this stuff, and we're leaving a heavy footprint. Learning the facts about global warming and living green will change the way we think, which will in turn change our actions.
Living Green Gives Us New Options
When one door opens; another closes. Living green can provide a whole new path. Take Amrita Sondhi, for instance. Amrita's passion for fashion and yoga is woven into living green. She co-created Lululemon Athletica with Chip Wilson; when she left Lululemon she wrote The Modern Ayurvedic Cookbook and started a new sustainable yoga wear company called Movementglobal. Her cookbook brings us back to the basics of air, water, and fire; her yoga wear is made from bamboo and soy. Living green opened new doors for Amrita and changed her life.
Living Green Gives Us a Mission
Maybe you have a life purpose or maybe you're still finding yours. Maybe your life purpose involves living an eco-friendly lifestyle, maybe it doesn't. Even if green living isn't on your radar screen, make it your mission to at least learn the basics. Eco-friendly tips like sharing magazine subscriptions and finding new ways to reuse old stuff may not change your life purpose, but they'll save you money and sustain your sanity!
If you found Living Green Boosts Mental Health interesting, you may enjoy:
Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen - Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen is a full-time writer and blogger in Vancouver, BC, and the creator of the Quips and Tips blog series.
Join the Conversation