Green Exercise - Not a New Idea

Green Spaces, Mental Health and Wellbeing 

"Almost one in six people in the UK will suffer from mental ill-health in their lifetime.  Mental ill-health can lead to and maintain health and social inequalities. It accounts for almost 20% of the burden of disease in Europe.  Poor mental health also costs the economy an estimated £26.1 billion a year, because of the thousands of people unable to work due to their mental illness.  Since the 18th Century, we have been promoting good quality natural environments as an important determinant of health.

David Hume lobbied Edinburgh council in 1724 to build a path up Calton Hill, ‘for the health and amusement of the inhabitants’, and you can still walk up Hume Walk today. The workers’ village
of Saltaire, Yorkshire, built in 1853 by Sir Titus Salt, included green spaces such as a park and allotments for the health and wellbeing of his mill’s employees. Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City movement was borne out of a desire to create “a healthy, natural, and economic combination of town and country life”.


But, over the last 20 years, fewer people have been visiting the countryside and urban green spaces such as parks and allotments......"

READ MORE:

http://www.fph.org.uk/uploads/bs_great_outdoors.pdf