Benefits of Living in a Healthy Community: The Start to a Sound Life
From your childhood and teen years to your adulthood, there are crucial factors that can affect various phases of your life. Factors like the people around you, your home, and your community.
This is where being part of a healthy community comes in—amongst a plethora of living options. A filthy or unhealthy environment can not only harm your emotional and mental health but also wreak havoc on your overall well-being, your loved ones’, and even neighbors’.
The prosperity of a community relies on the ways and mindsets of its inhabitants. So, living with the right community members will lead to a great boost in growth and development.
Quality education, suitable job opportunities, easy transportation, tasty food, and excellent healthcare services are just a few examples of the many benefits of living in a healthy community. Below, you will find some of these benefits better explained.
Top 7 Benefits of Living in a Healthy Community
Below we will cover what we believe to be the top 7 benefits of living in a healthy community. Although you may have your own opinions on this, which is great. We would welcome your additions to this blog if you have suggestions - so please contact us.
You may also like our blog on ‘Social Innovations Driving Positive Change’ if you are interested in the benefits of living in a community.
1. Access to Favorable Educational Prospects
The amount of good educational opportunities and prospects available depends on the state and type of community you are in. A healthy society manages and updates its schools’ buildings, facilities, and resources properly, thanks to its high socioeconomic status.
Plus, a higher quality of life is easy to obtain with an exemplary education. You have access to high-paying jobs. There's less drug use. And life expectancy tends to be longer. The peaceful atmosphere of these schools and tertiary institutes would affect the learning conditions as well. It’s obvious that crime, violence, and other social vices can negatively affect learning.
Thus, shared living favors better educational opportunities. To enjoy this, however, you need a prosperous community with high socioeconomic status.
2. Access to Excellent Healthcare Services
Nothing beats being physically active and, at the same time, having stable mental health. These are important aspects of living a healthy life. Well, the goal of any society is to improve the general well-being of its people.
With enough funds, members would be able to afford health insurances that allow adults and children to have preventive healthcare and wellness checkups. And with such a healthy lifestyle, you can in turn contribute to the community and gain the feeling of worth and purpose.
Besides, when most community members are healthy, you can expect the number of people who need healthcare services to be a few. This low demand means available clinics can better improve their services without growing in number.
3. High Productivity
Joyful people are the most productive in any society. When your community and its environments are clean, nice, and safe, you can expect yourself and those around you to be in good spirits.
With all pessimistic feelings and viewpoints gone, you get to transform your well-being and be more productive. You can now expect your personal life and community as a whole to grow exponentially.
So the more productive the community members, the more overall productivity throughout the community. An unhealthy community will see low productivity and lack of enthusiasm, thereby driving individuals to little or no growth.
4. Increase in Physical Activities
It is well-known that regular participation in physical activities is essential. It contributes to the prevention of chronic illnesses and leads to positive self-development. Constant engagement in such activities helps to reduce the possibility of having a stroke, high cholesterol, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc.
Physically active individuals are the most beneficial contributors to the growth and development of their community. And people tend to be more active if their community supports the activities they are interested in.
Healthy communities often provide well-lit streets, parks, bike and jogging trails, recreational facilities, and sidewalks. All have low traffic, low crime rates, and are in excellent condition.
5. Availability of Nutritious Food
Children living in poor homes and societies tend to be more obese than those who live in healthier ones.
This is according to the RWJF 2009 Assessment Report.
The problem of poor nutrition often arises when a community lacks markets and stores that can supply fresh fruits and vegetables. Instead, such a society offers loads of fast-food outlets and eateries. Because of this, community members have a high risk of developing obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic illnesses.
Healthy communities, in comparison, give you access to nutritious meals. This encourages you to live a healthy lifestyle, benefitting the growth and productivity of the community in return.
6. Increased Growth and Development of Local Assets and Resources
Community members will see their socioeconomic status increase with the rise in growth and development of the community. This leads to more valuable public facilities and amenities.
Entertainment centers and sports facilities are just a few of the extras that a well-developed and healthy community can have. Moreover, the positive growth of a community is a direct result of the high productivity, great well-being, and healthy lifestyle of its people.
7. Improved Quality of Life
People living in a healthy community often witness a new and improved state of mind. That’s only logical since individuals live comfortable lives when the socioeconomic status of their community is high.
Ease of purchasing nutritious foods, adequate healthcare services, educational opportunities, and transportation. These are components of a high-quality, healthy lifestyle. And with such a quality of life, you can find individuals happy with their communities without having to look at other living options.
What are the Disadvantages of Living in a Commune?
Granted, there are more benefits to relish while living in a healthy community, above are some of the most obvious ones.
Communal living, however, isn't without its cons. The idea is to strengthen your mental health, be physically active, and surround yourself with like-minded community members. But the downsides stem from this same like-mindedness.
Here are a few cons of living in a community no matter how healthy:
● There are some restrictions and curfews you must follow
● The difference in the views and diligence of community members can lead to serious issues
● Similarly, the distribution of household chores may lead to arguments (i.e., the difference in how each member cleans, cooks, or provides childcare)
● You have to share living costs with others, which may cause conflicts if other members are not pulling their weight
● Invasion of privacy, especially if the commune is densely populated
Still, communal living is worth a try, whether you've been looking for living options for a healthy lifestyle or not.
How Can You Use Time Banking to Create a Healthy Community?
Time banking is a way to bring people together in a community with a common goal. That common goal is to earn time credits and use them to swap with others within the time banking community. It is incredibly useful to be a part of such a network for several reasons.
You can donate your time and earn time credits
You get to meet people in your community you would never usually meet
You get to help other in the community
You have the opportunity to volunteer for community projects
You can spend your time credits on things you need
One of the great things about a time banking community is being able to reply on the help of others and not have to worry about paying cash for someone’s services. For example, maybe your children need extra tuition for important up-and-coming exams or because one of them fell behind for whatever reason. You can hire a teacher to come and help and pay using time.
Now here is the cool part to all of this. The teacher needs vital plumbing done in her home. The teaching hours now allow her to hire a plumber within the time banking community. The plumber needed someone to take a meal to his elderly mum every day while he works and he uses the time banking community to do this. The carer needed her car fixed and used the hours to have a mechanic work on her car.
In the end, the community grows stronger not because they are swapping time as such, but because they are helping each other, and without the need for cash. In the above scenario, these services were ‘real needs’ by ‘real people’. Fortunately, because they live in a healthy community that requires time banking, they could reach out to their community members within their time bank to get these jobs done where they may not have had the cash to pay for these services.
Use the Nomos App To Become a Part of a Healthier Community!
The Nomos app is a way to get in touch with time banking communities near you. Often where there is a time banking community, there is a healthier community at work. You may not even notice it at first, but once you join a time banking group, you will open up to a new world that you never knew existed. Check out the Nomos app here.
It is free, and it is certainly worth trying to see if a time banking community can help you give back to your community.