Nature's Effect on Mental Health

A healthy dose of nature may be just
what a patient needs.

by Alex Roweton

Although medication and therapy are often effective for treating mental illnesses, nature may have the ability to help those who are resistant to traditional methods of treatment.

As mental health becomes less and less of a taboo subject in society, it’s important to think about the different approaches to treatment that work for different people. One person might respond well to medication and therapy as a method of treatment for their mental illness, but traditional methods may not work for another. Although medication and therapy are often effective for treating mental illnesses, nature may have the ability to help those who are resistant to traditional methods of treatment. Wilderness therapy (sometimes known as forest bathing) involves spending time in nature and may be just what a treatment-resistant patient needs.

Nature's Effect on Mental Health

A healthy dose of nature may be just
what a patient needs.

by Alex Roweton

Although medication and therapy are often effective for treating mental illnesses, nature may have the ability to help those who are resistant to traditional methods of treatment.

As mental health becomes less and less of a taboo subject in society, it’s important to think about the different approaches to treatment that work for different people. One person might respond well to medication and therapy as a method of treatment for their mental illness, but traditional methods may not work for another. Although medication and therapy are often effective for treating mental illnesses, nature may have the ability to help those who are resistant to traditional methods of treatment. Wilderness therapy (sometimes known as forest bathing) involves spending time in nature and may be just what a treatment-resistant patient needs.

Planning My Post about Nature and Mental Illnesses

For my final blog post, I will be talking about the effects that nature has on mental illness (specifically depression and suicidal thoughts) and how that ties into the Romantic period. Personally, I have struggled with mental illnesses but have experienced a sense of peace when I am out in nature that cannot be paralleled by anything else, so I am excited to write about the beauties and benefits of spending time in nature. I am currently gathering thoughts and ideas and am in the process of making a general outline for the final post.

Revisiting Hot Spots in Mental Health Psychology

In my last post, I talked about three subjects in and around mental health psychology. They were:

• Detecting anxiety and depression in children
• Suicide prevention
• Postnatal depression in men

These topics deserve further discussion on the historical and communication connections that can be made to each.

Danielle Schlosser, via blog.verily.com

Mental Health in Children

Historical Connections

Although I would argue that mental health wasn't really talked about until the Romantic period, being able to look inside a child's brain and see if they are prone to anxiety and depression is something that I'm sure those in the Enlightenment period would have been very interested to learn about - especially within the rationality themes that took place. During the enlightenment, people were beginning to understand things like the scientific method and experimentation. Scientists would even cut open cadavers to see how the human body worked. Our current society, still influenced by the curiosity of the Enlightenment, may have found a way to look in to a living human's brain and predict the future.

Hot Spots in Mental Health Psychology

Detecting Anxiety and Depression in Children

Researchers at the University of Vermont discovered that using artificial intelligence (AI), we can detect anxiety and depression in children at a high accuracy rate. Children often have trouble expressing how they are feeling which maked their anxiety and depression difficult to treat, but AI could make it so that the symptoms are detected earlier, meaning the children would be treated earlier instead of having to struggle through life with their symptoms. More Info

The Butterfly Effect of the Printing Press

The Butterfly Effect is the theory that everything is conditional upon something else and small occurrences can result in massive occurrences. We may not always know the cause of such massive occurrences, but they're there. The term "the butterfly effect" suggests that something as massive as a tornado or a hurricane could have been started from the smallest wind coming from a butterfly's wings, therefore suggesting that nothing is an accident and everything has a stimulus.