Visiting Green Spaces Regularly Might Just Lower The Use Of Some Prescription Medicines

Irrespective of anyone’s socioeconomic status, those who are able to visit green spaces like parks and community gardens regularly have been associated with lower use of prescription medicines for anxiety, depression, insomnia, asthma, and high blood pressure. These findings were recently published in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine.

“Many reviews have reported an association between green space exposure and mental1 5 and cardiovascular health, mainly based on cross-sectional studies. However, reviews of longitudinal and experimental studies have evaluated the evidence as inconsistent or suggestive,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

“Despite inconsistent evidence, there are plausible pathways that can explain potential beneficial effects of nature exposure on physical and mental health and well-being, such as increased physical activity, reduced stress, social cohesion, and beneficial immunological reactions,” the researchers added.

In this study, a group of researchers based in Finland analyzed the responses of 16,000 residents in the country’s three biggest cities — Helsinki, Espoo, and Vanta — who were a part of the Helsinki Capital Region Environmental Health Survey from 2015 to 2016. The participants were at least 25 years old. The researchers delved into how each one of the residents experienced green spaces within a one-kilometer radius from their apartment or house. And whether they could see green and blue spaces from their windows. While blue spaces include lakes, rivers, and the sea, green spaces are forests, parks, gardens, cemeteries, zoos, wetlands, and grasslands.

The participants were also asked to disclose if they were using any prescription medicines such as psychotropic drugs commonly used to treat anxiety, insomnia, and depression. Other than that, the participants were also asked if they were on medications for asthma and high blood pressure.

Other questions that the researchers asked included how often the residents spent time exercising outdoors, especially during summer, from May to September. And if they were able to do so more than five times a week. Only 6000 of the residents managed to complete the detailed questionnaires.

The team of researchers observed that whether or not residents had stunning views of green or blue spaces was irrelevant and not at all linked to the number of prescription medicines they had to take on a daily basis. But actually going outside frequently to spend time in green spaces seemed to make a positive difference.

Visiting a green space three to four times a week was linked to 33% lower odds of using psychotropic medications, 36% lower for blood pressure medicines, and for asthma, it was around 26% lower odds of requiring meds. “The associations between nature exposure and respiratory diseases, such as asthma, are thought to be bidirectional. Vegetation can improve air quality and is a source of beneficial microbial agents; however, it is also a source of allergens, which may exacerbate allergic responses and interact with air pollution,” the researchers noted.

“When studying asthma, the results can be affected by geographical study area, types of vegetation and other environmental exposures, as well as seasonality,” they added.

Surprisingly, the researchers found that residents from low-income households in Finland who earn less than 30,000 euros a year, had stronger positive effects after regularly visiting green spaces. But unfortunately, in most parts of the world, low-income communities tend to live in counties or neighborhoods that do not have any type of green spaces. In comparison, high-income residential areas are a lot greener and those residents have easy access to the above-mentioned green spaces.

“It should also be noted that Finland has a high forest coverage, a high frequency of nature visits and most outdoor recreation occurs in municipality-owned areas. In addition, Finnish cities are relatively green; thus, it is possible that the amount of green space is not a limiting factor in this study, but that those willing to use green space can access it with minimal effort,” the researchers further wrote.