Habitat
05/02/19 05:33
In a recent conversation with a friend, we both noted that there is something about a particular senior residence that makes us feel uncomfortable. Both of us have multiple friends who live in the facility and visit there regularly, but we noted our discomfort when we visit. I feel very similarly about another large continuity of care facility in our town. Both facilities feature apartments, a dining room, exercise spaces, a swimming pool, meeting rooms, a small retail shop, a beauty parlor, a post office, a bank, game rooms as well as an assisted living facility and skilled nursing home beds. Both facilities feature a maze of interconnected hallways and elevators that allow those who know their way around to walk from one area to another without going outdoors. Both facilities can be a bit confusing to visitors, but if you pay attention you can learn your way around the campus. Both institutions are very stable. One has had the same CEO since it opened 30 years ago. The other is owned by the largest health care provider in our state.
It is possible that part of our discomfort is over the way our society segregates people by age. Such facilities are devoid of children, with the exception of an occasional visit. They are much quieter than institutions designed for children.
I think, however, that our discomfort is more complex.
When I look at modern continuity of care senior living facilities they all have many things in common. One thing is that while they have paid great attention to architecture and building, to decorating and creating interior spaces, they all have minimal and very generic landscaping with a few trees and a bit of mowed grass. Your attention is always drawn to the building and a tour of the facility focuses on interior spaces. The brochures, web sites and sales pitches all are quick to state how easy it is to live in the facility and take advantage of all of its services without ever needing to go anyplace else.
The problem is that we human beings didn’t evolve to spend all of our time indoors.
Thinking of these places that isolate people from the natural world, I remembered a NPR Hidden Bran podcast I listened to with psychologist Ming Kuo. After investing decades studying the effects of nature on humans, she has come to the conclusion that wild animals are not the planet’s only creatures that are suffering from the degradation of their habitat. We humans evolved physically, psychologically and socially to live outdoors. Urbanization has only recently become the pattern for the majority of the world’s human dwellers.
Kuo stated that humans living in a two-bedroom condo are in a similar habitat crunch to a 1950s circus zebra living in a cage. Our societies have changed at a rapid pace, but our DNA has not.
Studies have shown over and over again that access to nature has great benefit for people. In one study two identical urban housing projects, except one had mostly concrete surroundings and the other a more natural landscape with trees, rocks and grass. Police records show significantly higher reports of conflict and violence in the paved-over neighborhood than in the more natural one. A similar study of drug store sales showed mood-related medications were far more common in the concrete environment than in the one with more natural elements.
People with regular access to the natural world exhibit fewer signs of dissention, anxiety and depression.
The modern retirement communities understand that people need more than the basics of food and shelter. They also need socialization and contact with others and those facilities try to provide socialization by hiring activities directors and planning events. For those of use whose interests tend toward long walks in the woods and regular paddles on quiet waters, the choice of activities in most senior living facilities leaves much to be desired. The analogy of animals kept in zoo cages and deprived of their natural habitat seems apt when I think of those places. I can’t think of games of cards and bingo and chair aerobics classes as a retirement benefit.
Scott MacGregor, publisher of Paddling Magazine, noted in a recent column how spending time in the natural world strengthens our bodies’ natural immune systems. After spending a few days in nature, researchers find measurable increases in natural killer cells that respond to viruses. Three days in a forest reserve boosted these cells by 50 percent. Three days relaxing in an urban environment produced no measurable change in these cells. The effect of three days in a natural setting increases immune cells in the blood levels so much that the difference can still be measured three months after the exposure.
We need time outdoors in the natural world to be able to resist disease. If you doubt this, try to visit one of those senior living facilities during flu season. You’ll be greeted at the door by a sign and a box of face masks. Viruses run rampant in those facilities.
When I think of retirement, I think of making boats and taking my grandchildren on adventures in the mountains. I yearn for longer hikes at a slower pace.
It is possible that a person like myself can’t really afford to move into a place with twice a month housekeeping services, meals prepared by professional chefs, and all of the building maintenance and snow shoveling provided. On the other hand, that might just be a good thing. It might even help me stay healthy into my retirement years.
We may be thinking too small when we think of human habitat. The size, shape and decoration of our indoor living spaces is only part of what we need. The location of those spaces and our access to the outside world is as critically important as is the indoor space.
It is 5 degrees below zero outside today. I’m going to put on my long underwear. I’m going to go outside and I’m going to breathe in that cold air. The day may come when I am no longer to go outside on cold days, but I’m not looking forward to that day.
It is possible that part of our discomfort is over the way our society segregates people by age. Such facilities are devoid of children, with the exception of an occasional visit. They are much quieter than institutions designed for children.
I think, however, that our discomfort is more complex.
When I look at modern continuity of care senior living facilities they all have many things in common. One thing is that while they have paid great attention to architecture and building, to decorating and creating interior spaces, they all have minimal and very generic landscaping with a few trees and a bit of mowed grass. Your attention is always drawn to the building and a tour of the facility focuses on interior spaces. The brochures, web sites and sales pitches all are quick to state how easy it is to live in the facility and take advantage of all of its services without ever needing to go anyplace else.
The problem is that we human beings didn’t evolve to spend all of our time indoors.
Thinking of these places that isolate people from the natural world, I remembered a NPR Hidden Bran podcast I listened to with psychologist Ming Kuo. After investing decades studying the effects of nature on humans, she has come to the conclusion that wild animals are not the planet’s only creatures that are suffering from the degradation of their habitat. We humans evolved physically, psychologically and socially to live outdoors. Urbanization has only recently become the pattern for the majority of the world’s human dwellers.
Kuo stated that humans living in a two-bedroom condo are in a similar habitat crunch to a 1950s circus zebra living in a cage. Our societies have changed at a rapid pace, but our DNA has not.
Studies have shown over and over again that access to nature has great benefit for people. In one study two identical urban housing projects, except one had mostly concrete surroundings and the other a more natural landscape with trees, rocks and grass. Police records show significantly higher reports of conflict and violence in the paved-over neighborhood than in the more natural one. A similar study of drug store sales showed mood-related medications were far more common in the concrete environment than in the one with more natural elements.
People with regular access to the natural world exhibit fewer signs of dissention, anxiety and depression.
The modern retirement communities understand that people need more than the basics of food and shelter. They also need socialization and contact with others and those facilities try to provide socialization by hiring activities directors and planning events. For those of use whose interests tend toward long walks in the woods and regular paddles on quiet waters, the choice of activities in most senior living facilities leaves much to be desired. The analogy of animals kept in zoo cages and deprived of their natural habitat seems apt when I think of those places. I can’t think of games of cards and bingo and chair aerobics classes as a retirement benefit.
Scott MacGregor, publisher of Paddling Magazine, noted in a recent column how spending time in the natural world strengthens our bodies’ natural immune systems. After spending a few days in nature, researchers find measurable increases in natural killer cells that respond to viruses. Three days in a forest reserve boosted these cells by 50 percent. Three days relaxing in an urban environment produced no measurable change in these cells. The effect of three days in a natural setting increases immune cells in the blood levels so much that the difference can still be measured three months after the exposure.
We need time outdoors in the natural world to be able to resist disease. If you doubt this, try to visit one of those senior living facilities during flu season. You’ll be greeted at the door by a sign and a box of face masks. Viruses run rampant in those facilities.
When I think of retirement, I think of making boats and taking my grandchildren on adventures in the mountains. I yearn for longer hikes at a slower pace.
It is possible that a person like myself can’t really afford to move into a place with twice a month housekeeping services, meals prepared by professional chefs, and all of the building maintenance and snow shoveling provided. On the other hand, that might just be a good thing. It might even help me stay healthy into my retirement years.
We may be thinking too small when we think of human habitat. The size, shape and decoration of our indoor living spaces is only part of what we need. The location of those spaces and our access to the outside world is as critically important as is the indoor space.
It is 5 degrees below zero outside today. I’m going to put on my long underwear. I’m going to go outside and I’m going to breathe in that cold air. The day may come when I am no longer to go outside on cold days, but I’m not looking forward to that day.