“Thou­sands of tired, nerve-shak­en, over-civ­i­lized peo­ple are be­gin­ning to find out that go­ing to the moun­tains is go­ing home; that wild­ness is a ne­ces­si­ty” John Muir, Fa­ther of the Na­tion­al Parks.

Trinidad & To­ba­go has a sig­nif­i­cant in­ci­dence and preva­lence of chron­ic dis­ease, men­tal dis­ease and sleep­ing dis­or­ders which all trans­late in­to a re­duced do­mes­tic prod­uct and sig­nif­i­cant health­care cost be­cause of the mor­bid­i­ty and mor­tal­i­ty of these con­di­tions. While the main fo­cus is on phar­ma­co­log­i­cal treat­ment, we may be miss­ing the boat by not ap­pre­ci­at­ing the link be­tween our health and de­ter­mi­nants of it, such as; na­ture, cul­tur­al her­itage and his­to­ry.

Jalaludin Khan, di­rec­tor of ‘In Di­ver­si­ty Group’ (a pop­u­lar well­ness ad­vo­ca­cy group) has rec­og­nized this. His group or­ga­nizes tours based on this health re­ju­ve­nat­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. He states that we in T&T, and by ex­ten­sion the wider Caribbean, have the rich­est di­ver­si­ty of na­ture, cul­ture and her­itage. To ex­pe­ri­ence this and to yield the ben­e­fits for holis­tic well­ness, one can be in this di­ver­si­ty while en­gag­ing in walks, hikes, dri­ves, boat­ing or bat­ing ex­pe­ri­ences.

Such ex­pe­ri­ences have been shown by re­search to im­prove one’s over­all health. The ben­e­fits are mul­ti­di­men­sion­al, as it tack­les health is­sues form a phys­i­cal, so­cial, men­tal and spir­i­tu­al per­spec­tive:

Phys­i­cal:

It low­ers blood pres­sure, re­duces the risk of obe­si­ty, di­a­betes and heart dis­ease. Brisk hik­ing can help burn as much as 500 calo­ries per hour.

The body’s con­di­tion­ing for phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty is im­proved thus yield­ing fur­ther health ben­e­fits through ex­er­cise.

So­cial: It al­lows for so­cial­iza­tion and com­pan­ion­ship.

Men­tal:

It im­proves mood and de­creas­es anx­i­ety as it re­leas­es en­dor­phins that makes us feel good about our­selves.

It re­stores our cir­ca­di­an rhythms or in­ter­nal nat­ur­al clocks and helps us go back to our nat­ur­al sleep­ing pat­tern

Spend­ing time out­doors in­creas­es at­ten­tion span and cre­ative prob­lem-solv­ing skills by as much as 30%

Spir­i­tu­al: This is best ex­plained by the en vogue Japan­ese con­cept of “Shin­rin-yoku” which fo­cus­es on the per­spec­tive of sim­ply be­ing in na­ture, con­nect­ing with it through our sens­es of sight, hear­ing, taste, smell and touch. Shin­rin-yoku is like a bridge. By open­ing our sens­es, it bridges the gap be­tween us and the nat­ur­al world.

Such health ben­e­fits have been rec­og­nized by the Unit­ed Na­tions La­bor Or­ga­ni­za­tion, as it has in­clud­ed such pro­duc­tive health re­ju­ve­nat­ing ac­tiv­i­ties as a uni­ver­sal la­bor right. This right specif­i­cal­ly fo­cus­es on the need for rest, re­lax­ation through va­ca­tion from work that im­proves health which would re­sult in a more pro­duc­tive em­ploy­ee.

The In Di­ver­si­ty Group has for a long time now been en­gag­ing in ac­tiv­i­ties that in­cor­po­rate these as­pects of the Caribbean’s na­ture, cul­tur­al her­itage and his­to­ry. There are a mul­ti­tude of na­ture hik­ing trails on the North­ern Penin­su­la such as the Covi­gne riv­er trail through the gorge, Edith falls, Bam­boo Cathe­dral trail to the satel­lite sta­tion, Mac­queripe beach and Down the Is­land boat­ing ex­pe­ri­ences. The cap­i­tal of Port-Of-Spain of­fers tours through the Botan­i­cal Gar­dens, the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah and a look at his­tor­i­cal build­ings. Cen­tral Trinidad of­fers many nat­ur­al, cul­tur­al and spir­i­tu­al op­por­tu­ni­ties with the Ca­roni Bird Cen­tu­ry, the In­di­an Cul­tur­al Mu­se­um and the Tem­ple in the Sea in Wa­ter­loo. San Fer­nan­do and en­vi­rons of­fer a rich cul­tur­al, his­tor­i­cal and cui­sine per­spec­tive with­in the town it­self, south­ern towns and vil­lages in its vicin­i­ty and a Caribbean gas­tron­o­my ex­pe­ri­ence based in the culi­nary arts of the de­scen­dants of the In­di­an in­den­tured la­bor­ers. Tours based on T&T’s rich fes­ti­vals can al­so be had e.g. the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture’s Di­vali Na­gar, Ram Lila, tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val and Chi­nese Dou­ble 10 and Drag­on fes­ti­vals. Ge­o­log­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ences like mud vol­ca­noes, pitch lake, salt ponds and oth­er nat­ur­al ge­o­log­i­cal for­ma­tions unique to T&T are in­deed amaz­ing ex­pe­ri­ences. Night walks that fo­cus on star watch par­ties, tur­tle watch­ing and as­tro­nom­i­cal events are cer­tain­ly an ex­pe­ri­ence to be had. Spir­i­tu­al tours that fo­cus on mu­sic, yo­ga and nat­ur­al herbs are quite a unique ex­pe­ri­ence. We must not for­get our sis­ter isle To­ba­go whose land­scape epit­o­mizes a trop­i­cal Caribbean ex­pe­ri­ence with sites like; Store Bay, Pi­geon Point, Ar­gyle falls, Lit­tle To­ba­go and the many trop­i­cal reefs. Even vis­it­ing our re­gion­al Caribbean is­lands of­fers a ten-fold ex­pe­ri­ence.

Re­gard­ing health, there is even a big­ger pic­ture in all of this. As Trin­bag­o­ni­ans and Caribbean peo­ple, such ex­pe­ri­ences of na­ture like beach­es, wa­ter­falls, bird watch­ing and wildlife tours, ge­o­graph­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ences that ap­pre­ci­ate our unique land­scape, her­itage and his­tor­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ences re­gard­ing our fes­ti­vals, cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties and build­ings, do more than in­crease phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty and re­lax­ation. They in­cul­cate an em­pow­er­ment in our sense of iden­ti­ty and gives us a feel­ing of in­clu­sion un­der the ban­ner of Trin­bag­on­ian. This is an es­sen­tial so­cial de­ter­mi­nant of health called So­cial In­clu­sion and be­long­ing. It goes a far way in im­prov­ing health and well-be­ing.

Now that we are in Stage 4 of rolling back of lock­down due to Covid-19 and many have ven­tured out, let’s be pro­duc­tive in avail­ing our­selves of such won­drous ex­pe­ri­ences on­ly T&T and the Caribbean can of­fer that yields count­less ben­e­fits to health. Good footwear, con­ve­nient cloth­ing, a com­fort­able back­pack and you’re pret­ty much ready to go on a path to seek­ing good health. Look out for such health ini­tia­tives com­ing so on the Face­book page Dr. Visham Bhimull Pri­ma­ry Care Physi­cian.

Dr. Visham Bhimull

Pri­ma­ry Care Physi­cian

MBBS (UWI)

Diplo­ma in Fam­i­ly Med­i­cine (UWI)