SEC-S16 / W4 | "The Environment and Our Health"🌍👩‍⚕️

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Hello friends

Did you know that when your environment is happy, everyone around it becomes happy, and when the environment is sad, people's grief remains with them?.

Environment means our surroundings; they may be living or non-living things around us. It includes physical, chemical, and other natural forces. The air, water, and land on which plants, animals, and people live are environments. We can also say that an environment is the conditions that you live or work in and the way they influence how someone feels or how effectively someone could work.

Every living thing lives in an environment, interacts with it, and adapts itself to the conditions of the environment. When you come to an environment, there are different interactions between the soil, plants, animals, water, and other living and non-living things. The environment affects the growth and development of a person because when the environment is growing, you are growing.

When you hear environment, it involves so many things, like trees, the sea, and rivers. Although the environment may mean different things to people in different fields of knowledge, When we come to physics, a person's environment becomes the people and all the physical things around them. The electromagnetic environment is radio waves and other radiation.

The place we live, hang out, and do other daily activities have the potential to affect our well-being both mentally, socially, and physically. That is why the popular saying, "When you go to Nigeria, you behave like Nigerians," Even places where we are just visitors can have a great impact.

In our daily activities, we see, smell, hear, and experience so many things that impact our mood, which may be harmful to our mental health. In an office environment where there is tension everywhere, people in that environment are tensed, not relaxed, and stressed. You could feel their well-being through their facial expressions or speech.

Being in a dark, cramped room evokes different feelings than being in an airy, light-filled room. Being around happy people lightens your mood and eases your stress more than being around bad and angry people. A dirty environment is dangerous to our health, which simply means that when we are in a dirty environment, we are prone to diseases and sickness that affect our well-being.

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Water pollution occurs when toxic substances or microorganisms pollute a stream, river, lake, ocean, or other water body, making its quality low and making it dangerous to humans and the environment.

Since water is a natural resource that is essential to life and plays a very vital role in our daily activities like washing, drinking, cooking, and bathing, Without water, nothing is likely to survive in the environment.

• Industrial waste can lead to water pollution, hence risking the lives of all living things within the environment. When companies fail to take care of their waste and end up pouring it into the river or allowing it to flow into the river, then health is at risk.

• Oil waste or spillage can also cause water pollution through pipe leaks when being transported. It affects the entire family of aquatic animals in rivers, oceans, seas, and lakes.

• Bush burning leads to air pollution. In my country now, this is the season of bush burning due to farming. No one cares about their health conditions. Contaminating the air with the gas released from burning the bushes leaves all life at risk.

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Sometimes it can be challenging to take control of our environment and make positive change. However, one does not need to move to a new apartment to improve their living situation. In your small environment, there are plenty of changes that could be impactful.

Below are some simple actions I take to promote environmental health:

• Washing the dishes at night before bedtime. I noticed that when we cluster dirty dishes after eating for the day, it attracts insects and flies to the dishes, and when these insects settle on our dishes, they pollute the dishes, which could lead to any health challenge if not properly washed.

• Disposal of dirty water appropriately. I have a gutter in my compound where dirty water is meant to be trashed as it goes directly into a pit. When dirty water is not properly disposed of, it leads to the attraction of harmful animals within the environment.

• Sweeping and mopping floors are essential to promoting healthy living. I sweep the floor every day and mop it because when you don't, there are living organisms around that could develop within the environment because it is dirty.

Environmental awareness is an integral part of the moment's success. Spreading awareness to others is like sharing your knowledge about something. Letting others know that the physical environment is fragile and indispensable and sharing the remedies for it.

Just like recycling, using bottles that can be re-used can reduce waste, hence making the environment neat and safe for living. Educating people on the need to reduce the use of plastic and nylon bags could be of great help in promoting environmental health.

I invite @mariami @eliany @goodybest