Nature could help reduce mental health issues: Study

Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital workers and members of the public in Eldoret town mark the World Mental Health Day on October 7, 2016. The prevalence of people living with depression is 4.4 per cent of the entire population. PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Women living in green spaces also record lower blood pressures and giving birth to larger babies.
  • According to WHO, the prevalence of people living with depression is 4.4 per cent of the entire population, that is more than 1.2 million Kenyans.

You are less likely to be obese or dependent on antidepressants if you live near trees, a new study has showed.

Women living in green spaces also record lower blood pressures and giving birth to larger babies, the research in Bradford has found.

However, Jack, who suffers from depression, would not catch himself moving from Buruburu, Nairobi, for this because the reason would be laughable.

Making the smallest decisions, like chewing food or rising up from bed, needed Herculean strength that he always struggled to gather every day.

It is only after he attempted to take his life that his family talked of “depression” for more than a minute and not in a comical way.

“They always told me to get over my bad mood, or just eat or sleep,” he said adding that “I would, if I could, to stop me from living in my head, in an unending state of sadness.”

VICTIMS OF DEPRESSION
With the stigma around it, Jack agreed to share his depression story on a first name basis only as the world marks the day centred around mental health today.

According to WHO, the prevalence of people living with depression is 4.4 per cent of the entire population, that is more than 1.2 million Kenyans.

Ignorance and deeply ingrained cultural attitudes have damned depressed people in Kenya to a life of misery, experts in mental health say, expressing concerns that few seek professional help.

Prof Lukoye Atwoli, a psychiatrist and the medical school dean at Moi University, told Nation: “Walk into a hospital, and you would be surprised that those seeking care are actually suffering from mental health issues.”

SUICIDAL
Very little population-based studies have been carried out to map out the prevalence of mental health issues in Kenya, whether in its subtle or serious forms, but there is a general consensus in the medical and counselling fraternity that depression is on the rise.

Ms Mary Wainaina, a Nakuru-based counselling psychologist, says that most of these people end up committing suicide.

The two views on depression are that it could be complex neurochemistry, having to do with chemicals in the brain, while others feel it is a collection of socio-economic circumstances that lead to stress and later depression.

Despite the agreement, Ms Wainaina says that Kenyans are living in corrosive society where change is fast and intense.