“Is life in the city driving you mad?” I read this Daily Mail article and realized that is exactly how I feel, though I live in the suburbs rather than the city itself.
City residents are more likely to develop mental illnesses such as schizophrenia than those who live in rural areas, a study has found. Researchers from Cardiff University examined the lifestyles of more 200,000 people in Sweden and found that those who lived in urban areas were more at risk from psychosis than people who lived in villages. The experts don’t know exactly why this is but they suggest that town and city residents are more likely to be ostracised by those around them. They are more likely to experience discrimination if they do not fit in, which can lead to them feeling anxious and even developing mental illnesses. […] [Dr Stanley Zammit] also added that people living in towns and cities were more likely to develop other mental illnesses that result in personality changes – a condition known as non-affective psychosis. It is not the first time statistics have shown that country life is healthier.
I would add to that overcrowding, traffic noise and detachment from Nature as more triggers for mental illness, and are unhealthy places for children to grow up in. A similar article from last year, “How the city hurts your brain”, Boston Globe, 2/1/2009, vindicates why I find cities such disagreeable places.
This research arrives just as humans cross an important milestone: For the first time in history, the majority of people reside in cities. For a species that evolved to live in small, primate tribes on the African savannah, such a migration marks a dramatic shift. Instead of inhabiting wide-open spaces, we’re crowded into concrete jungles, surrounded by taxis, traffic, and millions of strangers. In recent years, it’s become clear that such unnatural surroundings have important implications for our mental and physical health, and can powerfully alter how we think.
That is just one reason why population reduction – and the “downsizing of civilization” as mentioned in my previous (24/7/2010) entry – is a necessity for our long-term survival; it is good for mental health.
