We Live Longer

Do you feel like living in a green space helps you live longer? Now there’s research to prove it. We’ve all heard that diet, sleep, and exercise help us live longer and better lives, but the latest research shows that living in a community near green spaces can add 2 1/2 years to our lives. Of course, being in our green spaces in Gilcrease Hills when it’s 105 degrees or when the wind is knocking branches down on us might also shorten your life, so…timing is everything. Anyway, here’s a link to an article about the research and a short sample: “We know the benefits of green space in reducing premature mortality,” said David Rojas-Rueda, an epidemiology professor at Colorado State University who has studied the health benefits of vegetation but was not involved in the latest paper.

“This study explains how this could happen by describing how green spaces can modify how genes are expressed,” he wrote in an email.

“This is one of the first studies that really kind of demonstrates how exposure to nature, living in greener areas, may get under our skin and lead to these kinds of fundamental changes to these biomarkers of aging,” added Peter James, an environmental epidemiologist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health who studies nature and health but who was not involved in the research.