Environmental wellness focuses on what is around you on a daily basis and how your surrounding can affect you both positively and negatively. It’s easy to get so used to who and what you see everyday that you become blind to what can be emotionally and physically harmful in your surroundings. Here are 3 questions to ask yourself about your personal environmental wellness:
1. What is physically around you?
Does your home or place of work have a lot of dust, grime or clutter? Or is there something or someone nearby that might make you sick? Having an unclean environment can lead to several serious health issues involving the respiratory and immune systems as well as a variety of other illness. A messy living space is also known to hinder the healing process when you do get sick, too. Cleaning your surrounding areas even for just a few minutes at a time can keep dust, mold and germs from building up where you work and live. Even if everything is clean, too much clutter at home or at work is linked with an increase in depressed feelings.
2. Who is around you?
Who do you spend the majority of your time with and how do they make you feel? Letting negative people into your life can have a huge effect on your emotional well-being. Certain friends or even family members might have a troubling effect on your life if they are too demanding, controlling or negative. You have the right to limit the amount of time you spend with those people as well as the right to disengage from them if they begin to use abusive language or actions against you. While you may not be able to escape the presence of every person that rubs you the wrong way, taking steps to eliminate unhealthy relationships from your life will make you more emotionally healthy.
3. How do you get from one place to another?
Are you often exposed to pollution on your daily route? Those who walk or bike in congested areas are more likely to be affected by air pollution than those who live a more rural setting. Exposure to pollution in the air is known to cause various breathing difficulties and there are many who speculate that pollution’s harmful effects on the immune system. Also spending a long hours in the car commuting is known to affect your mental well-being and as well as lead to the harmful effects of a sedentary lifestyle. Finding ways to make your commute and even your lifestyle more sustainable can improve other people’s well-being as well as your own.
Veronique Hoebeke, Associate Editor
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This article was informative and simply asked us to look around. In our busy lives we often don’t take inventory and we should. Thank you Veronique for the good incites and information to help us all be healthier.
Thank you Mary Kate for your kind words! I’m glad you enjoyed the article.