We continue our journey of wellness today by exploring environmental wellness. Environmental wellness is a more nuanced aspect of our wellness and involves introspection and social awareness of oneself. Most simply, environmental wellness is the awareness of the fragility of the earth and how our personal actions affect the environment. This may not jump out to you as a mandatory aspect of wellness. Perhaps you are not one that concerns yourself with matters of pollution or waste and if so it is probably because you have lived a very blessed life. A life where air quality didn't affect your morning run or someone close to you got an early cancer from being exposed to harmful chemicals. Though we often are not in a place where we are so aware of the environment and our impact in the US, our actions do still affect it. Even if you are not interested in protecting the earth or other environmental concerns, at the very least you should be concerned about the cleanliness of your home and that it is safe from contaminants.
Environmental wellness is important because it strengthens our bonds with nature and the world around us. When we want to go on vacation and use some of our hard earned money, usually we want to go somewhere beautiful. Usually a beach or mountain or somewhere where nature is so perfect and serene. This is the earth and this is our environment. If we do not take efforts to protect it via our own actions then we will lose out on these gorgeous places to vacation. It can be a little hard to see right away how these actions towards our environment affect our own personal wellness, but if you just stop and think about some of your most cherished memories or wonderful vacations I can almost guarantee that all of these memories have an aspect of the beauty of nature in them. Without proper care, these things will not be around for us or our future children to enjoy.
Take the following assessment to see where you stand in your environmental wellness. Rate the below statements on a range of 1 to 5, 1 being the always, 2 almost always, 3 sometimes, 4, rarely and 5 never.
1- I recognize that my actions have an impact on the environment.
2- I recognize the environment's impact on my health.
3- I try to practice environmentally conscious habits (such as recycling, eating local etc)
4- I try to make changes in my lifestyle to help the environment when possible.
5- I appreciate clean air and clean beaches and other aspects of a healthy environment.
Any score more than 15 indicates a need to assess your environmental wellness. Luckily, there are several things you can do to help the environment. There is no doubt that the trend to care for the earth is only growing nowadays. There are countless simple ways to make your life more environmentally well with little change to your routine. Not only will this ensure that you will have an environment to interact with in the future, but the altruistic intentions of helping the environment and fellow humans is enough to add to personal happiness and wellness.
How we deal with our actions and their impacts on the environment will be largely based on personal tastes. Some of us will want to get reusable bags and water bottles, others donate to companies to help offset our carbon footprint and others install big ticket items like solar panels, electric cars and energy saving appliances. The important thing is that we remain aware of the impact of our living on the world. Universally, we all can eliminate littering habits, recycle and sort our trash and other small habits with little to no cost or negative impact to our lives. Those inspired to do more always can answer the call, but the important takeaway here is to realize our impact on the environment. The following is a short list of things you can do to aid in your environmental wellness, select 4 of them to get yourself started to include in your everyday life.
Sort your garbage and recycle
Use reusable water bottles and bags
Use glass food storage containers over plastic
Shop local when you can for produce
Eat local when you can for restaurants
Check your carbon monoxide detector's batteries or install a carbon monoxide detector
Invest in energy saving light bulbs
Look into solar paneling for your house.
Consider an electric vehicle for your next purchase.
Avoid littering at all costs
If you smoke, dispose of cigarette butts properly
Start a compost pile in the backyard
Consider environmentally friendly cleaning products for the home
Reduce your meat consumption
Reduce your overfished fish consumption
These are just the tip of the iceberg, there are so many ways you can help the environment around you, we would love to hear how you improve your environmental wellness. Reach out to us with your comments or questions at info@bullionite.com