West Virginia & Mental Health
I had a good idea of where I wanted to take this guest blog, and then I saw the blog by Jessica Riggins about our newest national park on this site and my good idea became a great idea. Thanks Jessica!
My name is Dennis Gillan, and I am a mental health advocate with an emphasis on suicide prevention and I travel around the world selling hope! My connection to the mountain state is that I attended WVU for four years and fell in love with the state. So much that when I come back to West Virginia, I literally can feel my anxiety and blood pressure drop as I cross the state line and read the sign that says Welcome to West Virginia, Wild and Wonderful.
While at West Virginia University I studied business with an emphasis on accounting, and it was here that my future path as a mental health advocate was forged when I lost my older brother to suicide during my junior year in Morgantown. Never say it cannot get any worse because it can and eleven years later, I lost my younger brother to suicide as well. Hurts just to type it, and if you want to hear more of that story go here.
Let us tie the two together----West Virginia and mental health. Did you know that it is wonderful to be in the wild? Study after study has shown a direct correlation to improvement in mental health attributes and exposure to nature. Exposure can be anything from backyard gardening to exploring West Virginia’s numerous state parks, abundant state forests, multiple rail trails, and our national sites listed below:
Appalachian National Scenic Trail (Georgia to Maine)
Bluestone National Scenic River
Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park (DC, MD, WV)
Chesapeake Bay Watershed (DC, MD, NY, PA, VA, WV)
Gauley River National Recreation Area
Harpers Ferry National Historical Park (WV, VA, MD)
New River Gorge National Park and Preserve
For many West Virginian’s, it does not take much to get fully immersed into nature and here is why you should do it according to Kirsten Weir in an article for the American Psychological Society titled Nurture by Nature. She stated that “From a stroll through a city park to a day spent hiking in the wilderness, exposure to nature has been linked to a host of benefits, including improved attention, lower stress, better mood, reduced risk of psychiatric disorders and even upticks in empathy and cooperation.”
Source: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/04/nurtured-nature
Now if you cannot get outside, take heart, there is even evidence that images of nature can be beneficial. In the article referenced above, Ms. Weir cited a study by Frantz and colleagues, and they compared outcomes of people who walked outside in either natural or urban settings with those of people who watched videos of those settings. They found that any exposure to nature—in person or via video—led to improvements in attention, positive emotions, and the ability to reflect on a life problem. But the effects were stronger among those who actually spent time outside (Mayer, F.S., et al., Environment and Behavior, Vol. 41, No. 5, 2009).
Ecotherapy is a thing and West Virginia was custom made for this type of treatment. Need proof? After reading this article, use the internet to search “the beauty of West Virginia”, and hit the images button. Now feel your anxiety levels go down, keep scrolling, breathe in, breath out, and then commit to see this beauty live as soon as possible. I am trying to figure out a nice way to say GO OUTSIDE!!!
So, the next time you see the sign welcoming you to West Virginia, Wild and Wonderful I want you to remember that it is wonderful for your mind to get out into the wild. You are worth it.
Dennis Gillan is the Executive Director of the Half a Sorrow Foundation, and you can see his award winning TEDx talk on this website www.halfasorrow.org. (And by “award winning” they gave him a free bottled water when he was done with this talk, and he counts that as an award)
