The time to start living green is now. Adopting eco-friendly lifestyle choices isn't only beneficial for the environment, as new research shows it can have positive impacts on the human body and improve your well-being, too.
Choosing to live an eco-friendly lifestyle, sometimes referred to as sustainable living, is a great way to improve your health and minimize environmental impact. Eco-friendly lifestyle choices can result in improved nutrition, better mental health, and fewer harmful chemicals.
Learning about different lifestyles is important, even if you don't plan to practice them. For example, learning about eco-friendly lifestyles can be indispensable if you're undertaking a healthcare qualification, like online family nurse practitioner programs.
Understanding sustainable living can help you better support patients who decide on that lifestyle or are interested in it. The lifestyle can also be a great recommendation as a preventative health measure.
What is an eco-friendly lifestyle?
With issues like climate change continuing to grow and pollution filling our air and seas, eco-friendly lifestyles are growing more popular by the day. This style of living is described as being conscious of the environmental impact when making everyday decisions.
This could be small changes, like recycling, turning off lights and appliances when they're not in use, and swapping to energy-efficient light bulbs. The changes can be massive, too, with your diet or how you commute to work.
If you're interested in embracing an eco-friendly lifestyle, your diet and groceries are a great place to start. For instance, you could start buying produce from local farms or start growing your own vegetables.
Buying and eating local products not only supports small businesses but also reduces your carbon footprint. Major companies and supermarkets create so much waste and extra CO2 emissions in the supply chain process.
The Importance of Sustainable Living
Sustainability and protecting our ecosystem for future generations to come could be an article on its own. Climate change is a growing concern, that is already having a rippling impact throughout the world.
The idea that climate change is a future problem isn't true. It's already directly contributing to extreme weather conditions and humanitarian emergencies around the world, including heatwaves, wildfires, floods, and hurricanes.
Research shows that 3.6 billion people already live in areas that are highly susceptible to climate change. This data also estimates that from 2030 to 2050—just decades from now—the climate issue will contribute to 250,000 additional deaths per year.
This is why embracing sustainable living is important—choosing an eco-friendly lifestyle that promotes clean energy, recycling, and lowering carbon footprints. It also helps increase awareness about climate change and other eco-related problems.
On a personal level, choosing an eco-friendly lifestyle can be beneficial for your well-being and future. Harmful chemicals and consuming processed foods can be damaging to your health, increasing the risk of serious medical conditions like diabetes and obesity.
Swapping to a diet that consists of eco-friendly decisions ensures that you're eating organic food and also avoiding any potentially harmful chemicals. The benefits of sustainable living can also extend to your physical fitness and mental health.
The Impact on Physical Health
A huge part of sustainable living is decreasing CO2 emissions, and this can mean walking or riding a bike instead of driving. This is not only beneficial for the environment and combating climate change, but also be incredible for your physical health.
Increasing your daily physical activity, even if it's just adding an extra half an hour of walking to your day, enhances your overall fitness. This can reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and diabetes.
Regular physical activity can improve:
- Muscular and cardiorespiratory fitness
- Improve your bone health
- Reduce the risk of hypertension, heart disease, and stroke
- Help maintain a healthy body weight
Studies have also found that improved physical health and regular activity have a positive influence on your emotional well-being, too. Research has found depression and anxiety symptoms can improve with exercise.
This is because when you exercise, endorphins are released—a natural brain chemical known as the 'feel-good' chemical. It can alleviate pain and lower your stress, improving your mood and sense of well-being.
For adults aged 18 to 64 years old, the World Health Organization recommends at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity throughout the week. For example, this could be walking 30 minutes a day, five days a week.
So, by choosing to go green and save the world, you're also choosing to save yourself. Embracing an eco-friendly lifestyle can be a great way to add physical activity to your daily routine and also lessen your impact on the environment.
Boosting Your Mental Health
Embracing sustainable living can be great for your mental health in a variety of ways. For starters, it can be great for managing symptoms of eco-anxiety—a condition described as anxiety or a sense of chronic doom brought on by climate change.
Studies have shown that taking action against climate change and increasing awareness is one of the best ways to manage eco-anxiety. This is because it can distract you from the anxiety and also let you use it as a productive tool instead.
Going green with your lifestyle can also teach you to be more mindful, which you can apply to different aspects of your life. It teaches you to be more aware of the food you consume, the items you want, and the actions you take.
An eco-friendly lifestyle can also provide a sense of purpose—protecting the world and the environment. Research has shown that when an individual has a sense of purpose, it can help improve self-esteem and confidence.
Taking Steps to Be Eco-Friendly
It's never too late to embrace an eco-friendly lifestyle. As the adage goes, the best time to start was yesterday, and the next best time is now. The first step to starting sustainable living is to evaluate your life, observe the actions you take, and the impact they could have on the environment.
From there, brainstorm ways you could 'go green' with your actions. This could mean swapping to appliances that consume less energy or starting to use public transport. If you're not sure where to begin, there are also plenty of online communities you could join with like-minded people and ask for advice.