Green Gym

An idea we would like help getting started: A Green Gym

Like to help out on an informal basis to benefit the environment and your health?

Have you heard about the Green Gym movement?

The website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Gym reports that both physical and psychological benefits are claimed for people who attend Green Gym sessions regularly. (See below).

Regular physical exercise in the outdoors not only has health benefits but if it is done working to restore and protect our native bush reserves it benefits the environment.

If you would like to help start a group working in Le Roys Bush, please email Keith on leroysbush@gmail.com quoting "Green Gym"

Physical and psychological benefits of Green Gym projects

In 1999 and 2001, The School of Health and Social Care at Oxford Brookes University independently evaluated the Green Gym projects in Oxfordshire and East Sussex, England and identified the following benefits from Green Gym tasks:

• • significant improvements in cardiovascular fitness, provided that they are performed regularly.

  • improved muscular strength (as measured by handgrip strength) leading to increased coping ability and reduced risk of functional limitations in later life.

  • almost a third more calories can be burnt in an hour of some Green Gym activities than in doing a step aerobics class.

  • a significant improvement in the Mental Health Component Score in the first 3 months of participation (as measured by the SF-12 health-related quality of life instrument).

  • a strong trend in the decrease in depression scores during the same time period.

  • waist-to-hip ratio decrease in the first three months.

  • The Green Gym is viewed by participants as being beneficial to their mental health and wellbeing.

IN 2016, we find that the importance of spending time outdoors in nature gets mention from time to time:

For example this article "Outdoor learning: the secret to improving behaviour in schools"

http://www.theguardian.com/wwf-education-partner-zone/2016/jun/02/outdoor-learning-the-secret-to-improving-behaviour-in-schools

Hunting the web there are other articles, eg

http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/a-prescription-for-better-health-go-alfresco

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/22/how-the-outdoors-make-you_n_5508964.html

http://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/mood-disorders/nature-cognitive-anxiety-depression-mood/article/448018/