The majority of us spend most of our time indoors and in urban spaces dominated by buildings, vehicles and other human-made infrastructure. When we think about and discuss ‘nature’ it is as something other, somewhere else: often as a place to visit for recreation and relaxation or an ecosystem that we must manage to provide food, clean water, fresh air and other ‘services.’
Taking the long view, this is not normal. It is only very recently in our evolutionary history that we have come to deny, by the ways we live and think, that we are part of nature. This denial is making us physically and mentally ill, and more self-centred and less accepting of others, and it’s diminishing our sense of meaning. It’s also setting us up to fail as we tackle climate change, ecological breakdown and other significant challenges.
The work of Jules Pretty and colleagues at the University of Essex reminds us that while our way of life has changed radically since modern humans evolved around 200,000 years ago, our bodies and brains are the same. Humans evolved in environments where the incidence of threatening situations, whether a venomous snake or attack by other groups, was actually very low. When we were threatened, just like other animals, our flight or fight response kicked in, raising our heart rate alongside other physiological changes.
