Place Matters: How Your Environment Affects Your Mental Health

Look around: where are you reading this? Are you sitting in an office lit with bright fluorescents, or maybe you’re on a train heading to work or school? The spaces we inhabit—our homes, workplaces, schools, universities, social settings, and even transient spaces like public transport or cars – play a pivotal role in our mental state. Understanding how these environmental factors affect your mindset can be the key to staying balanced and controlling your emotions. Of course, none of this has to be done on your own: seeking help from a social worker with an online Masters in Social Work (Accredited), a certified therapist, or any other mental health professional can help you navigate improving your mental health. This article will go through the impact of physical spaces, how natural environments can improve your mental health, and have a look at how urbanization can negatively impact your day-to-day life.

Physical Spaces

In a study of women’s cortisol levels, those who lived in more disorganized spaces were found to have higher levels of what is commonly referred to as the ‘stress’ hormone. In addition, patients recovering from surgery who were exposed to a view of a field of trees recovered faster than their counterparts with no natural view, so there are direct links to physical health that depend on the environment in which you live, work, and learn. Lighting can also affect circadian rhythms, with too much morning light hurting sleeping patterns, alongside urban noise, which can also harm sleep. 

Urbanization and its Challenges

Here’s the issue: across more economically developed countries, more than 80% of the population lives in urban environments. This means that most people will get lower exposure to green spaces, live in smaller environments than if they lived in the more spacious countryside, and are also exposed to the pollution—sound, air, and light—of big cities. High population densities can also make city life lonely, with one review finding that the way urban populations feel and interact is causing a loneliness epidemic. Obviously, this has major impacts on mental health, but also on physical health: a 2010 review underlines the fact that “loneliness is not simply being alone” and has far-reaching physical health consequences that can increase morbidity and mortality rates of urban populations. 

Environmental Pollution

Breathing in polluted air can have a direct impact on your mental health, including an increased risk of depression and anxiety. Additionally, pre-existing long-term conditions “appear to deteriorate” in environments with poor air quality, although researchers from this 2023 study agree that more work needs to be done to make conclusive claims about these links. A mental health factor that is on the rise, however, is anxiety around climate change. Helplessness and a sense of impending doom are just two of a myriad of symptoms associated with very real concerns about the degradation of our planet. According to the United States Geological Survey, increasing surface temperatures will make droughts, storms, and so-called “100-year floods” more common and more severe.

Mitigating Negative Environmental Impacts

Many of these aspects of our environment are, unfortunately, out of our control. Many move to cities to pursue job opportunities or to be closer to family, and few can afford to uproot their lives and social connections to move somewhere with better air or a lower risk of climate catastrophe. Like many things, taking small steps can begin to make a difference. Clean up your desk. Water your plants. Make sure you make your bed. If you’ve got spare time, walk around a park, or go somewhere a bit more wild, like a national park. It’s important to remember that the natural world isn’t something separate from you. Sometimes, we forget that we are part of the natural world. Everything we do to our planet, good or bad, will affect everything and everyone in some way, shape, or form. Go down to your local community garden and look at how plants grow and thrive, but also how they wither. In a way, our brains are like these plants: they need the right care and environment to reach their fullest potential, but none of this happens by accident, and your happiness won’t, either.

Mental health is affected by so many different factors, and everyone’s personal situation is different. But whatever yours is, it’s important to look at it both as a whole and broken down—when doing so, consider your environment.