Our mental health depends on high quality green spaces

If you rely on days among nature to boost and reset your mental wellbeing, you’re certainly not alone.

UK Charity, the Mental Health Foundation, say that: “access to nature is vital to protect the nation’s mental health”. They’ve released numerous reports examining the benefits of nature on our happiness, including a report in 2021 explaining how nature was vital to getting many through the stress of the Covid-19 pandemic. Five years on, we’re still on the rough end of the cost-of-living crisis and the global political landscape appears increasingly complex and bleak. Escapes into nature are as vital as ever.

Zahra Hanif, 22, graduated from Newcastle University last year. Having moved right into the city centre, she found peace in Newcastle’s green spaces like Jesmond Dene and the Ouseburn Valley, which helped her cope with assignment stress and gave her a calm place to go outside of her student halls.

The Ouseburn, in particular, is a great example of an attempt to create a good quality green space within an urban area. In the 19^th century, the banks of the Ouseburn were an industrial hotspot for coal, glass and pottery, but nowadays, the Ouseburn Trust have ensured that the area has a thriving wildlife through various environmental projects to boost the valley’s biodiversity.