WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- I'm no tree hugger.
I'm a city person. I like buildings. I love the culture of street musicians
and subways. I love the creativity and energy that come from people living in
fairly close proximity. I like great cities and small ones; the stream of
people, their diversity, their style. I even like graffiti.
But summer vacations remind me of what common sense always recognized, and
scientific research confirmed: We need green. Even the most urban of us need to connect to nature.
How do we know we need green? Here just some of the evidence:
Patients recovering from surgery whose hospital rooms have a view of trees in full foliage have shorter hospital stays, and recover with fewer
complications and less need for pain medication than those whose hospital room windows face a brick wall.
Nature soothes and heals us with a look. Nature also makes us more productive. A large survey of more than 1200 employees at corporations and at state agencies found that office workers with a window view of nature -- even just a large lawn, or trees, or bushes -- experienced significantly less frustration and more enthusiasm for their jobs than those workers without windows.
That enthusiasm translates into better health and fewer sick days. Desk-job workers reported fewer overall ailments, greater job satisfaction, and more productivity when they had a green view.
Why does nature work on us this way? The truth is, no one really knows for
sure, and therefore there are many explanations. For some, contact with nature is a spiritual experience, connecting with the greater whole of which we are a part, presenting the glory of creation, the magnificence of life.
For others, nature is experienced in more naturalistic terms, implied by the phrase "biophilia", which the ethnobiologist Edward O. Wilson coined, to mean an innate need to interact with the living world.
Regardless of the way you look at it, this much is undeniable: body and soul both benefit from contact with nature. It is good to lift nose from grindstone and eyes from computer screen and get out to greener places.
Nature's magic is one reason why vacations are important. Americans have less vacation time than any other workers in the industrial world. This year, according to a recent survey, one in seven Americans is taking no vacation at all. Even a worker in China gets three weeks of vacation; European workers average 6 weeks. Today the average vacation in America is less than one week.
As a nation, we are fat, out of shape and stressed. We are overworked.
Nevertheless, despite the paltry vacation time, American workers are very
productive. We are productive despite our meager vacation time, not because of it.
One might speculate that productivity is due to short vacations, as if there were a simple linear equation in which less vacation = more work time= more productivity. It would be easy to think that, but it would be incorrect. On the contrary, research shows that vacations boost performance and curb absenteeism. Vacations reduce burnout and its associated health problems.
We need green. Nature soothes and recharges. Productivity would increase
with more frequent opportunities to get away -- even for just a few days, a long weekend -- to touch base with nature, and let it work its magic.
-- Dr. Renee Garfinkel is a clinical psychologist in private practice in
Washington, DC, an author, and a member of the faculty of the Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management, George Washington University.
-- Outside View commentaries are written for UPI by outside writers on subjects of public interest.
