Guest Post: Psychological Benefits of Living Green

I'm pleased to have my first guest blog post from Jamie M. Leonard MEd. LPC writing about the benefits of living green. Please enjoy the below post.

Living a green lifestyle is certainly good for the planet, but there’s more to it than that. Green living can have a significant psychological impact as well. People aren’t just brainwashed and pressured into being eco-friendly. While humans are creatures of habit, there is an intrinsic value that comes along with green living that can make us feel good about our actions to help protect the environment. Here are a few of the other psychological benefits of green living.

Increased Awareness and Thoughtfulness
Living a green life can awaken feelings of increased awareness and thoughtfulness. Some might consider learning to care for the environment similar to learning to care for a child. Your actions change, you look at things in a different way, and you begin to realize that there is more out there than just you, your wants and your needs. There is now a larger responsibility involved and you must think of how your actions affect others, including not only others and future generations, but plants, animals, and the planet as a whole.

A Cleaner More Efficient Lifestyle
You may realize that living green can impact your entire lifestyle. Learning how to make due with less, conserve resources, and waste less to reduce your environmental impact may lead you to live a more organized, efficient life. This psychological change could have your de-cluttering your home, shopping less, cooking better, growing your own food, and making a whole variety of lifestyle adjustments.

Peace of Mind
Knowing that you’re doing your part to make the world a better place in which to live, can be incredibly freeing. While you might still have worries regarding global warming, a deteriorating ozone layer, and the human race’s impact upon all other earthly creatures, you do have that sliver of peace of mind knowing that you are making a difference through green living and maybe influencing others to do the same.

Reduced Feelings of Guilt/Remorse
Looking back on the days before you realized that your actions were having an environmentally harmful impact; you probably have some feelings of guilt and remorse for some of your actions. Maybe you remember the time you went camping and threw your soda cans in the bushes. It could be the thought of all those plastic jugs and bottles you used to put out with the garbage that makes your stomach churn. But now you can push those feelings aside and know that you are trying to rectify those previous wrongs, and you don’t have to feel guilty about harming the world in which future generations must live.

Jamie enjoys writing about the different ways to manage life's challenges. She is a college professor and a licensed counselor in Houston. Jamie has been helping women and adolescent girls deal with depression, anger, grief and more for nearly a decade.