Enrichment For Humans
A Basic Need of the Human Animal
"The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology."
- E.O. Wilson
(Dog)Fish Outta Water
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 65 million households in America have dogs. According to the American Pet Products Association the dog industry is projected somewhere in the neighborhood of $143 billion dollars in 2023 with an estimated $41 billion of that being dog training. You read that right. It seems that lots of dogs are having issues adjusting to a type of life they weren't really meant for and haven't had an opportunity to properly adjust to. Interestingly, dogs are experiencing issues like anxiety, that you might not traditionally associate with our canine friends. While most of us lean to obedience training as the answer, it might not be the ability to follow ill translated human rules but instead a lack of enrichment. Behavioral enrichment is most commonly used is a form of psychological and physical stimulation provided to animals in captive environments.
When animals are removed from their biological environment they are granted some measure of safety in terms of their physical needs being met. They do not have to search for food, water, shelter, or mates. All of the these are provided artificially by the caretakers who govern the environment. The trade-off (and there always is one) is that many of the psychological and emotional mechanisms that have evolved as ways to navigate the natural environment grow stale and get expressed in numerous ways that are disruptive to their new environment as well as their own well being. If we revisit our friend, the domesticated dog, lack of enrichment gets expressed in many neurotic and destructive behaviors that range from incessant barking, chewing, and general hyperactivity all the way to obsessive/compulsive behaviors and aggression.
Standard welfare in zoos involves providing animals challenge and stimulation that mimics their interaction with their natural environment. Animal behavior experts and zookeepers create puzzles and regularly make changes to the surroundings of animals to keep them psychologically stimulated. Research on this topic has clearly established that animals who receive this kind of behavioral enrichment are more engaged with their environment and exhibit far healthier and more natural psychological behavior. They get sick less, get along better with their peers, and are less destructive overall.
What the heck does that have to do with human health and performance? More than you might think. People are animals too. We share core behavioral drivers with all mammals and we have some additional needs that are more sophisticated as a species and as individuals. In other words, you need enrichment too.
When we see a fish gasping for air on the deck of a boat, we don't question its behavior because it's out of its biological environment. However, when we (or our children) have ever increasing experiences of anxiety we give it a diagnoses and throw a pill at it without ever considering the cost of "paleolithic emotions" operating in a fundamentally unnatural environment. While parts of our conscious brain recognize that yes, the house I live in is my environment, the deeper parts that form the majority of our behavior are inundated with information that overwhelms our biological systems. To compound that fact, much of the modern world do not meet some of the most basic biological requirements we need in order to thrive, adapt, and live well.
Fundamental Needs
One of the most lacking sources of behavioral and environmental enrichment for the human animal is being outdoors. Other than the physiological components of getting Vitamin D and stimulating healthy circadian sleep behavior with sunlight are the myriad of psychological benefits that come from engaging in some form of outdoor activity. Exercising outdoors has been shown to offer relief from acute mental health challenges and encourage feelings of well being, relaxation, restorativeness, and general positive affect. This is why having access to open outdoor recreational areas is an important metric when measuring the health of a city.
Some of these things might seem like "duh" items but I for one need reminding of them from time to time. I get locked into cycles, rhythms, and modes where I look up to realize I've been locked in on work for hours on end. Luckily, my wife is a woodland sprite who drags me into the forest to stomp around and pick berries. As many times as I've begrudged being broken away from work I've never felt worse after a walk in the trees.
While getting outside offers a myriad of benefits, isn't the only way to get fundamental enrichment. Any number of games, projects, activities, or challenges can offer ways for us to interact with our environment(s) in ways that are fun and stimulating. Engaging in meaningful social interactions with peers (a core component of health in general) can also be a path towards the benefits of enrichment.
These don't have to be performed as fifty separate things by any stretch of the imagination. Go for walk with your spouse. Train your dog to do something cool outside (you'll both get some enrichment). Join a kickball team or start training jiu jitsu (I'm definitely biased to the latter). The method isn't nearly as important as the action!
Be More Human and Be More You
Enrichment isn't just about your needs as an animal. Getting outside, moving around the environment, and being social is important but human beings can have pretty complex personal needs that require some expression. As an anecdote I had a client who was insanely job focused to the point of only being home to sleep and eat or be in the work environment.
One one hand this level of singular focus helped this person develop an incredible level of expertise but on the other hand they were pretty miserable. After years of repeating this cycle, they finally got out of the loop. Physically traveling outside of their normal environment with an abundance of available novelty proved to be just the enrichment they needed.
Enrichment can also be signing up for a new learning experience like a pottery class, taking an online course, or taking on a project on your home. What's important is becoming more aware of internal friction and outward frustrations we may be experiencing and then engaging is some ways of actively engaging in enrichment if we're feeling a bit stuck.
Tools like mindfulness and even reliable personality tests like the Big Five can help us get better insight into what underlying motivations and interests we might pursue in an effort to keep ourselves more involved and engaged in the world around us and within us.
Keep the Windows Open
A fundamental law of biology is use it or lose it. Biology is all about being energy efficient so if you don't use a faculty with regularity your body will slowly and surely take it off the menu. Getting out of your box and into novel situations, contexts, and environments stretches our minds in important ways that are not just philosophical in nature but also carry legitimate neurological weight.
"In adults, quantity of dendritic spines, postsynaptic thickness, and cortical thickness and weight have been shown to be influenced by environmental enrichment modification (Mohammed et al., 2002), and may encourage neuroplasticity, thereby facilitating recovery from stroke (McDonald et al., 2018)."
Stale overly repetitive environments encourage our brains to become fragile as we age. There is growing evidence that environmental enrichment may be a useful tool for improving the symptoms of neurological developmental disorders, relief of anxiety and may even be a helpful tool to fight cognitive degeneration as we age.
While the research on this is still developing one thing is to be certain the general tendency is for the doors of our capacity to shrink. Entropy is real and requires direct effort to combat lest our biological vitality shrinks to zero with rapid effect. Forcing ourselves to try new things, solve problems, and navigate the novel is good for us as human animals.
Additionally, understanding and working to satisfy our own needs as an individual human being is important to stay psychologically healthy. Many of us have deep psychological and emotional needs that often go unrecognized let alone met. Getting to know ourselves better is an act of maturity as is advocating (often to ourselves) for those needs.
Creating opportunities to explore enrichment can be a fun source of enrichment in and of itself. None of it need be fancy. Try different things, see what sticks. Keep it fun, keep it challenging, keep it continuous and you will perform better, longer.
Thanks for reading,
Rob
Citations:
Animal Enrichment
https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/animal-enrichment
Human Enrichment
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00466/full
Get Outside
Coon, J., Boddy, K., Stein, K., Whear, R., Barton, J., & Depledge, M. (2011). Does participating in physical activity in outdoor natural environments have a greater effect on physical and mental wellbeing than physical activity indoors? A systematic review. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 65, A38 - A38. https://doi.org/10.1021/es102947t.