3 New tricks for old dogs …the benefits of environmental volunteering for older people
Dr Mardi Townsend, Associate Professor in the School of Health and Social Development at Deakin University and a speaker at the forthcoming Inaugural Healthy Parks, Healthy People Congress in Melbourne, writes especially for FriendsNET on the benefits of involvement with Friends Groups for older persons.
There’s an old adage that says ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’, but is it true? Is it possible that we could, in fact, encourage additional older people to join our Friends groups and become active environmental volunteers? I turned 60 in 2009, and therefore fall into the category of ‘older people’. Although recent research on volunteering has classified older people in a range of different ways (over 55, over 60 or over 70), the categorisation of people over 60 here in Victoria as ‘seniors’ suggests to me that 60 is broadly accepted as the milestone for being an ‘older person’.
But there’s good news for people my age and older! Some research I did in 2007 with Liz O’Brien from UK Forest Research and Matt Ebden from Deakin University’s Warrnambool campus showed that there is lots of scope for teaching old dogs new tricks — engaging new people, including older people and people who have never had any involvement with the natural environment, in environmental volunteering. Not only is it possible; it is also beneficial for our groups and for the people who become involved.
Other research supports this claim. Longitudinal research in the USA in which people aged over 60 in 1986 were subsequently followed up in 1989 and 1994, found that ‘volunteering contributes to better mental health in the older age group, and at the same time reduces the pace of functional decline’. Another American longitudinal study, involving a large sample of over 70s, found that ‘more frequent volunteering is associated with delayed mortality’. Yet another American study examined how much volunteering people do, and concluded that a high level of volunteering — defined as volunteering with two or more organisations — was associated with a 44% reduction in death rate. According to the researchers, ‘volunteering in two or more organisations … offered a persistent protective effect against mortality in an elderly population’.
But if that is true for volunteering in general, is it also true for environmental volunteering? A growing body of research indicates that contact with nature is restorative, improving mood and alleviating stress. Hands-on environmental volunteering, therefore, has the potential to combine the benefits of volunteering (good mental health, maintenance of functionality and delaying of mortality) with the benefits of nature contact (positive mood and reduced stress) and of physical activity (improved mental health and cardiovascular health). The multi-dimensionality of the benefits of environmental volunteering was summed up by one of our UK research participants:
First of all there’s fresh air and physical fitness. And also … I can sit on the hillside for ten minutes and it can be as effective as a Prozac.
And we found that you can teach old dogs new tricks! As one older participant commented:
Usually they say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks but that’s wrong … because Harry has learnt a lot of things, and me as well. …This is great … it’s really made him feel better, and me as well.
All of these benefits can be accessed and enjoyed by people with no history of environmental volunteering (or even volunteering of any kind.
I had a year off after working nearly 40 years with rarely a break. And then I thought ‘I need some structure’, and someone happened to knock at the door recruiting for The Wildlife Trust. People only need to be asked!