Everything from the home, city, and state where you live, the weather will impact your mental health. These areas where you spend a lot of time will have a huge effect on your well-being. It makes sense, then, to take a closer look at how the world impacts your mental health. There are so many variables playing a vital role. So, you may be wondering which ones to work on to improve your mental health. Here, we look at the Influence of Environmental Factors on Mental Health. You will also learn how to know if you need improvement and how to start feeling better.
The environment we live and work in informs part of our lives’ wider meaning. This is important for us to care about while dealing with any mental health problems. If you’re not sure how (or whether) the environment impacts your mental health, we’ll quickly run through a couple of examples:
Physical Environmental Factors on Mental Health
Physical environmental factors on mental health are strong factors that come from noise, temperature, toxins, etc. They are often related to soft social influences. But they may occur independently.
Sleep deprivation. Sleep deficiency or an unhealthful sleep period is known to be bad for your mental health. Several environmental factors could affect sleep cycles – not all of which are in our control. Noisy neighbors, a noisy road nearby, nights that are too hot or too cold, crowded architecture. All of this and more may lead to poor sleep, resulting in a decline in mental health.
Factor. Growing up in dirty air quadruples the child’s risk of developing depression later in life. This may be due to other environmental factors. But the risk is still important to note.
Hazardous working conditions. Hazardous does not only refer to physical danger in the case of work. It refers to any working disorder that can significantly strain the body and mind. If your work environment is overwhelming, your mental health can be affected.
Extreme weather conditions. Bad or harsh weather is stressful, and you will wear it off. If you’re always cold, sweltering, struggling over ice, or drenched on your skin every time you walk outside, your mental health will suffer a toll. This is especially if extreme weather endangers your health, family, loved ones, or property.
Smoking. Passive and active smoke is really dangerous for your mental health.
Inaccessible architecture. Being unable to move through the environment easily is bad. Suppose you are excluded from those areas or events. Perhaps due to being physically unable to do things like climb stairs or cross busy roads. In that situation, frustration and isolation can lead to mental illness.
Social Environmental Factors on Mental Health
Social environment factors on mental health are issues in the extended family or the wider community that may affect mental health.
Stigma. Experience stigma such as racism, sexism, homophobia, etc., raises a person’s mental health risk.
Discord. Fighting and violence in the home or community induce fear, fatigue, depression.
Abuse. Abuse—physical, sexual, or emotional—may encompass anything from domestic violence to community-based bullying to cat-calling. It can be dangerous for you to feel it daily in your environment.
Poverty. Poverty attacks mental health from a wide variety of angles. It may restrict access to the form of a healthy diet that improves mental health. Also, this can make it difficult to get good jobs or other rewards, leading to frustration and self-worth loss. It brings with it the daily stress of worrying about where the next rent payment will come from. And it also drives people into dangerous conditions
Lack of social aid. Humans are social animals designed to depend on each other. Feeling ostracized or alone, or otherwise unsupported within your community has a huge impact on mental health.
Toxic relations. Toxic relationships can lead to low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and even Post-traumatic stress disorder.
The lack of safety. Feeling unsafe in your environment will cause you a lot of stress and anxiety.
Others Environmental Factors on Mental Health
Other factors are a little briefer. They are not as easy to classify neatly as ‘social’ or ‘physical.’ However, we should not underestimate their impact.
Lack of access to green spaces. Access to green or naturally attractive spaces has a massively positive effect on mental health. Being stuck in concrete means never getting the mental benefits of fresh air, green trees, and so on.
Lack of visual stimulation. People also refer to such urban environments as ‘bland’ or ‘dull.’ People find that their moods are uplifted as they enter more interesting environments. Being in a ‘bland,’ uninspiring environment is stressful and may harm mental health.
Untidiness ‘oppressive.‘ Untidiness makes one anxious on an intuitive and personal basis. Instinctively, we’re programmed to have a degree of anxiety about the mess due to the health threat it may present. Personally, people in messy situations can be anxious about what someone may say about their living conditions, the time it takes to clean up, and so on.
How do you know if a change is necessary?
The first step is to understand that the environment plays a vital role in mental health. But you will need to be able to identify when you need a change.
It’s important to note the connections between how you feel and what causes you to feel. Then you make small adjustments to your current environment to decide if you need the big change.
For, e.g., if you live in a city and always feel anxious, engage in more quiet activities at home. Suppose it doesn’t change your mood, but you feel relaxed every time you spend a weekend outside the city. It’s an indication that something has to change.
Moving permanently from one environment to another is not always a choice for many of us. However, a temporary change from city to country, or maybe closer to water, is one way to test how the physical environment affects your mood.
BREAKING THE VICIOUS CYCLE
Environmental factors that affect your mental health can be related to other factors. For example, depression or drug abuse may lead to unemployment, poverty, inadequate diet. Similarly, conditions of mental health, such as hoarding, can lead to environmental problems. Mostly, environmental and other factors end up complimenting each other in a vicious circle.
The positive news, though, is that getting help from one aspect always benefits the other. Finding a psychologist who can help you deal with mental health issues or affect (and affect) your life can enable you to make the positive improvements needed to improve your mental health and get out of a toxic space.
