{"id":6202,"date":"2015-01-13T08:50:43","date_gmt":"2015-01-13T08:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6202"},"modified":"2015-01-13T08:50:43","modified_gmt":"2015-01-13T08:50:43","slug":"open-country-better-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2015\/01\/13\/open-country-better-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Country \u2013 Better Lives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BBC Radio 4's \"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b006qgft\"><em>Open Country<\/em><\/a>\" last week was\u00a0all about the work that Wiltshire Wildlife <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wiltshirewildlife.org\">Trust<\/a> does around human wellbeing. \u00a0It was a rather inspiring 25 minutes. \u00a0You can find it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b04wwmcc\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Trust has been running its\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wiltshirewildlife.org\/Resources\/Wiltshire%20Wildlife%20Trust\/Wellbeing%20Factsheet%20for%20clients_Jan%202013%20HH2%20PDF.pdf\">wellbeing programme<\/a> since 2008, in partnership with Wiltshire Council and the county's Public\u00a0Health authorities, providing support for people suffering from mental and emotional stress. \u00a0The programme is available to anyone experiencing issues such as persistent low mood, depression, anxiety, or long-term mental health conditions.<\/p>\n<p>For me, the Radio 4 piece\u00a0captured both the essence and spirit of the Trust's\u00a0work with people whose lives are not as they would like them to be, and illustrated the benefits to be had through the wellbeing programme.<\/p>\n<p>Knowing that there are difficulties in finding appropriate language to describe what the Trust is trying to\u00a0achieve, I was interested in how the presenter and participants talked about what they were doing. \u00a0Here's an (unsystematic) collection of the phrases that cropped up:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>in \/ into the landscape<\/li>\n<li>connection with country and land<\/li>\n<li>into the countryside<\/li>\n<li>involved in nature<\/li>\n<li>into the natural environment<\/li>\n<li>part of nature<\/li>\n<li>to do with the countryside<\/li>\n<li>a simple natural environment<\/li>\n<li>the most simple elements of nature<\/li>\n<li>about the countryside<\/li>\n<li>outside in nature<\/li>\n<li>connect to nature sites<\/li>\n<li>a connection with nature<\/li>\n<li>being outside<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Whilst, the \"countryside\", \"nature\" and the \"environment\" are not the same thing, spending more time in any of them is nearly always a good idea, whoever we are. \u00a0I'd \u00a0sum it up like this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2013 getting out of the house is the key thing<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 and being with other people<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 doing something active and meaningful to you<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 and enjoying it<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This applies to everybody, of course, not just those with\u00a0mental health issues. \u00a0A pity not more people know this, as it can be remarkably cost-effective. \u00a0Just off outside ...<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BBC Radio 4's \"Open Country\" last week was\u00a0all about the work that Wiltshire Wildlife Trust does around human wellbeing. \u00a0It was a rather inspiring 25 minutes. \u00a0You can find it here. The Trust has been running its\u00a0wellbeing programme since 2008,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-new-publications"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}