Many spiritual and scientific traditions have long-standing beliefs that the basis of much human misery is mismatch between our ancient physical and psychic architecture and the standards of modern living. Some 2500 years ago, Siddhārtha Gautama entered the forest after seeing the hardships the people in the agricultural culture of northern India endured. He abandoned society in search of relief from the manufactured and the intellectual, to
contemplate and find the road to release suffering. Then he went back to the people to impart that road of learning. Strict hermits in ancient Greece followed quite similar principles and methods (Fabjański & Brymer Later European Enlightenment thinkers disseminated the knowledge that people inherit a "human nature," that we are part of nature, and that society
cannot supersede our natural rights (Bertram, 2018; Morris & Brown, 2019). Romantics and American transcendentalists who aimed for a truer state of being and knowledge in nature trailed closely (Goodman, 2018; Wayne, 2014). They were also followed by reformists and philanthropists who used urban parks (e.g., Olmsted, 1865) to give the working class access
to fresh air and nature so counteracting
their moral and physical sins in the growing industrial cities. Many have so acted on the belief that a return to the natural world, although it can only be temporary and partial, can bring people to a healthy state of being (see Hartig et al., 2011; Kellert & Wilson, 1995).About seventy percent of Europeans live in cities nowadays (Dye, 2008). Projections for the global
population by 2025 show that similar number will apply. For most individuals, then, access to nature is a restricted resource (Brace).Three sections Adapting To Challenges, What People Tend to Do When There’s Nothing Else to Do, and Transcending the Automatic and Habitual of this thorough summary overview several research fields that share a basic
concern for understanding how people adapt to and interact with changing external conditions. These parts comprise a contman et al., 2019). Furthermore, access to nature is often pabilities and chronic psychophysiological stress (Hartig & Kahn, 2016; Hartig, Mitchell, De Vries, & Frumkin, 2014; von Lindern, Lymeus, & Hartig, 2017). Restoring environments researchers generally use the term "natural setting" pragmatically for those places that are
available to people are perceived as rich in
aturalcontent, and so provide opportunities for "nature experience." Situated as they are in the contrast between urban and increasingly rare and tamed nature,Through individual therapy and training, other developments in psychology, behavioral medicine, occupational health, and related fields have considered ways of mitigating concentration problems, stress, and other ills of modern living (De Leon, Kenkel, & Garcia-Shelton, 2011; Dewe, O’Driscoll, &
Cooper, 2010; Felgoise, 2005; Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001; Rabipour & Raz, 2012; Woolfolk, Lehrer, & Allen, 2007). < Most famously expressed by the concept and practice of mindfulness, viewpoints rooted in Buddhist philosophy and meditation traditions have notably over this period informed and reshaped the understanding of health and adaptation
(Harrington & Dunne, 2015; Kabat-Zinn, 2011; Nathoo, 2016; also see Hayes, 2004; Van Dam et al., 2018). Critics of the secularized mindfulness-based stress reduction (KabatZinn, 1990) course and later adaptations have pointed out that they lack an ethical basis for action against the more general problems that presumably proliferate suffering in modern societies (see
Grossman Van Dam Møllgaard Purser
For many people who live in the modern setting, mindfulness has also been quite helpful for promoting health and well-being as well as for scientific advancement (Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015; Lutz, Dunne, & Davidson, 2007; Sedlmeier et al., 2012). It even shows some potential as a transitional road towards a more ecologically and socially sustainable way of living (Donald et al., 2019; Fischer, Stanszus, Geiger, Grossman, & Schrader, 2017; Schutte &
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