Articoli taggati con ‘wellbeing’
Culture and Wellbeing
People’s happiness and wellbeing are undoubtedly at the center of today’s modern life – we could even dare to say that our generation is obsessed with the pursuit of happiness, with finding the perfect balance between our inner desires and the lives that we actually live. Nevertheless, we know very little about what truly makes a human being happy. We read tons of self-help books, we go to courses, and we talk to counselors. But the truth is – we very rarely dig deeper into the scientific causes behind human happiness and wellbeing. We may even be surprised to know that, in fact, there are very solid scientific causes. And among those causes, culture lists as one of the main ones. In order to better understand this, we need first to define what we mean by wellbeing and by culture. What is scientifically defined as psychological wellbeing – and more commonly referred as happiness – is a very complex, subjective feeling, made up by a series of multiple interactions and by a long list of factors: first of all, our physical and mental health, along our age, our yearly income, our profession, our education, the lifestyle that we have, our family life and many others. If we want to make sure that communities and populations thrive, we first need to make sure that the general level of wellbeing is high. To do so, we first need to understand how much every single factor named above contributes to the general wellbeing of individuals. To name a few, we can easily understand how lifestyle is one of the main contributors to psychological wellbeing, since unhealthy lifestyles can deeply influence the quality of our lives and therefore will influence our physical and mental health. Family life is also very important: we bring our own lives into our families, and when even one individual within a household is affected by stress, this can easily be transferred to other family members. We can’t obviously forget about the social sphere – this is where everything converges. We can have happy populations or unhappy populations, with real waves of wellbeing affecting a specific population in a specific time. And what about culture?
Fragmented We Stand
Rephrasing the famous quote can sketches the picture in which Western world has found itself recently, especially Europe and the Americas. Since the end of 2016, a wave of political and social fragmentation has been sweeping at least two of the most important continents in the world, giving way to a culture of populist nationalism. Often people are not aware of the multiple interconnections affecting their lives, impacting on our own happiness and wellbeing. Nor we realise the “butterfly effect” each of these interconnections has on the other around the world. In their restricted landscapes of the last three years, are the people of these continents happier, freer, richer than they used to be? Do they, do we, have a deep understanding of what make us happy or are we functionally illiterate even about it? Few, basic items contributing to our happiness and well-being are: freedom and respect of other people’s freedom, work, healthcare, the outcomes of good politics and the effects of stable and growing economics, the possibility of living in a friendly environment, both on a psychological point of view and where the effects of the climate change are limited. Social and societal interactions, safe and affordable mobility, broad and uncensured communication. To which, finally, it can be added what anyone considers to be good. In an individualistic culture as the Western one has transformed, declaring that anyone can decide what it is good for him/herself can be considered really the base of the fragmentation we are observing recently, the right anyone claims to have not to homologate or not to be submitted to the law and common rules: “one is one” is the claim that anticipate “first my people”. What kind of culture is generated by all this?
Culture Change: A neuroscientific Analysis
The art and health nexus has always existed, from art as a representation of healthy and sick body to art as a therapeutic tool, to accommodate an ecological conception of human-environment dynamics and becoming “context” in hospitals and healthcare facilities. In recent decades it has received more attention and art began to be the action of changes which follows the state of health, as it has been defined by the WHO (World Health Organization): not merely the absence of disease and infirmity, but a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing. The growing awareness of the social dimension of experiencing art and participation in culture, generated artistic proposals in illegitimacy areas and they became vehicles for the interpretation and transformation of the human and social reality. Interactions thus generated have opened different paths and contexts of meaning capable of building a new paradigm of reality’s knowledge. Artistic and scientific exploration have contributed to emergence of a culture of health that attempts to overcome the diversification and geographic, demographic and social stratifications of wealth. The Culture conceived in this way is a guide of public and private decision-making process, in which everyone has the opportunity to make choices towards healthier lifestyles. This metaphorical reorientation of the categories of thought and ideologies has placed art and culture as a point of interest, in an international context, of different systems: economic, political, educational, technological. In the Italian, cultural system seems to have fully transposed this paradigm shift, becoming an active subject. In a world in which the arts are increasingly forced to justify their shrinking funding, against public accusations of elitism, it is comforting to take note of insights and planning actions that museums and various cultural institutions are producing as a coherent response of “civilization” to an attentive reading of needs.
Does Culture makes us happier – and healthier?
People’s happiness and wellbeing are undoubtedly at the center of today’s modern life – we could even dare to say that our generation is obsessed with the pursuit of happiness, with finding the perfect balance between our inner desires and the lives that we actually live. Nevertheless, we know very little about what truly makes a human being happy. We read tons of self-help books, we go to courses, and we talk to counselors. But the truth is – we very rarely dig deeper into the scientific causes behind human happiness and wellbeing. We may even be surprised to know that, in fact, there are very solid scientific causes. And among those causes, culture lists as one of the main ones. In order to better understand this, we need first to define what we mean by wellbeing and by culture.
