In today's
Kristeligt Dagblad, a Danish newspaper published in Copenhagen, Denmark, an article appears detailing how nature helps injured veterans heal. In this article, my work and a quote or two appear. A companion piece to the news article can be found
here.
Here is a
Goggle Translate generated translation of the original article.
Natural Therapy Helps Injured Veterans
It relieves symptoms and can cause permanent resources that bring the wounded soldiers on in life, when nature is part of their treatment, concludes professionals. The US has already hundreds of associations for veterans with nature as the focal point.
Veterans who are disadvantaged of their experiences in the war, you better when they stay and in working with nature. The experience from both Danish and foreign projects with so-called nature based therapy.
Keith Tidball researcher at Department of Natural Resources by the American Cornell University and editor of the anthology "Greening in the Red Zone "on nature and green work healing effect when a life is turned upside down by war and disaster.
"People who participate in nature-based therapy, reports the extraordinarily high levels of satisfaction, improved health and reduced hypervigilance and other PTSD symptoms. I say not that nature is a green pill you can take and then Feel better, but it sets apparently a number of mechanisms
in time, "he says.
Gardening, farming, walks or to sit for hours in wait for a stag hunting tower In this connection all
nature experiences. "Man as a species was born in the wild, and here we have evolved. With or without war, we have made our best to remove us from this natural home with technology industry and by living separated in society. Many longing for cohesion and and in particular, those which
obviously lost touch or life due to violence and war. It takes in the nature. I think it here rediscovered cohesion and the experience of discovering routes back to an earlier self is the main ingredient in what is at stake, "says Keith Tidball.
In military hospitals after WWI worked veterans with shell shock, forerunner of PTSD diagnosis, in gardens and greenhouses as part of their treatment. IN Today in the US, according to Keith
Tidball "hundreds" of organizations and groups with in order to rehabilitate veterans through outdoor activities. But the anecdotal evidence from hundred years experience and recent results from smaller research projects yet to be backed by solid clinical research on long-term studies, he says.
In Denmark wrote Assistant Professor at the Department of Earth Sciences and Nature Management at Copenhagen University Dorthe Varning Poulsen, Ph.D. sore eight PTSD-affected veterans benefits of nature-based therapy in a North Zealand forest garden. She also found that veterans saw an improvement of their condition, as for everyone he also found a year after that the project ended, including because the men found ways to overcome their symptoms, which also acts, when they get home. This might dampen anxiety to sit up a large tree, where his back is covered and allows clear, explains Dorthe Varning Poulsen: "We also know that monotone movements like walking or woodcutting can bring body in a flow mode. Many mental states as PTSD or other stress-related
diseases linked to bodily responses, and when working with the body through structured activities in nature, falls symptoms calm down, "she says, now planning a larger study of 40 veterans together with Kolding Municipality.
At the same institute has Project Niels Overgaard Block out the project Veterans in the Faggrønne. 12 veterans lived for 10 weeks training center Skovskolen by Gribskov in North Zealand and were taught among other things, forestry and nature conservation.
All stood outside the labor market, as the project began. Before, during and after the effect mapped among other with interviews, observations and logbooks. Ten veterans conducted Stay, and six of them are in work or training day, two in progress with actual nature education and another got a part time job, even if he were granted disability pension. Two others got no job, but was given the strength to change their life in crucial ways: One came out of its protracted isolation in an allotment, the second inserting themselves in the Recognizing that he had Need more help. "They used the stay as a
Impetus for change. The magic is that veterans through learning and activities in nature can regain self-esteem and community, so they can better break with resignation and acceptance of a bad life. The feel again, they are life-competent and thrive, "says Niels Blok Overgaard.
AF MAJA FUNCH
funch@k.dk
