Our environment is what surrounds us, it can be either natural or manmade. It involves all the entities which surround us. All of us interact with our environment to varying degrees and not only are we influenced by it but in turn, we also influence it. 

In this article, we will speak of important aspects related to our relationship with our environment including the impact of natural disasters it has on us and the impact we make on it. Also, we will learn ways in which we can uplift the relationship we have with our environment so that we can master the act of coexistence and avoid coextinction. 

How Our Natural Environment Affects Us?

Various studies are being conducted worldwide to understand the ways our environment affects us. For instance, there is an app called Mappiness that tracks people’s feelings by random questionnaires while recording their geographical locations. The answers are then correlated with the factors in their location. The results were found to indicate the impact of our environment on us. 

Another study was conducted in Ulrich where some surgical patients in Pennsylvania hospital were by chance allocated to a room with a view of a natural setting, others to a room with a view of a plain wall. Patients living near a natural setting had shorter postoperative hospital stays and needed less medication.

• Our environment affects us deeply, impacting us both mentally and physically.
• It defines us in many ways. People’s feelings and life evaluation are impacted by their surrounding geography, natural capital, temperature, precipitation, land cover, air pollution, noise pollution, infrastructure, or natural disasters and risks associated with it.
• According to psychological studies, green, natural environments improve mental well-being by reducing stress, raising positive emotions, cognitive restoration, and positive effects on self-regulation.
• Environmental services such as scenic amenities, land cover for recreation, may have indirect impacts on happiness, but stressors like pollution of all kinds can, arguably, have direct impacts, by causing worries to people.
• Therefore, we must fix our environment and take all necessary steps to uplift its well-being so that when we spend time outdoors, near both green and blue spaces, breathe clean air, and have comfortable weather we can expect happiness levels to be elevated further.

How Do We Affect Our Environment?

It is pretty clear to us by now that our environment has a lot to give to us and all its bounties ensure a healthful hence a happy life. But what we are doing in return is not adequate and is deteriorating the environmental goods. Though many steps are being taken around the globe to ensure an environmentally friendly way of living, efforts are far less than the deleterious impact we make on our environment in our daily life. Let’s find out the ways anthropogenic activities and their effects on the environment and we are deteriorating the goodness of the environment and in return ours.

• The ever-increasing population has been the predominant cause for much of the impact we’ve had on our environment.
• Humans adversely impact the physical environment by contributing to pollution, burning fossil fuels, and deforestation. 
• Activities like these have led to climate change, soil erosion, poor air quality, and undrinkable water. 
• Human intervention has changed our ecosystem forever. It has led to global warming, severe climate changes, air, soil, and waterway pollution.
• Deforestation, faulty agricultural practices, advances in genetic modification have adversely impacted the environment.
• Animal domestication has depleted the flora and contributed to soil erosion and has even changed the gas composition of the environment 

However, all these changes are negative, humans also have the power to correct our mistakes and change our environment for the better. All we need to do is realise soon that the human impact on the environment is like a two-edged sword and take adequate steps from today to better the environment.

How Can We Mend Our Relationship With Our Environment?

There are ten simple ways in which we can cure the damage we are doing to our environment in our daily life. Let’s follow the simple steps below and make our environment a better place to live.

• “3Rs” – Be mindful of what you throw away. Now, before gathering waste to throw out, follow the rule of reducing, reusing, and recycling.
• Learn – Further your knowledge and understand the importance of our natural resources.
• Go green – Trees can do it all, provide food, oxygen, save energy, clean the air, and help combat climate change. So plant trees.
• Ride the bike – Reduce car use, instead hop on a bike and ride off. Keep yourself and the environment robust.
• Restore water – By using less water you can reduce the runoff and wastewater that eventually end up in the ocean.
• Take one for the team – Set out to clean your area. Get more people involved too.
• Go the sustainable way – Have an eye for the alternatives and ways to coexist with the environment.

We hope this article helps you understand our environment better and realise the relationship we have with our environment and how important it is to safeguard environmental goods. Hang with us as we bring to you more interesting and informative content to read.