The Dr. Josh Axe Show - How Modern Architecture is OPPRESSING You

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

Is your environment oppressing you? On today’s episode, Dr. Josh Axe explores how the structured spaces we inhabit can negatively impact mental health and diminish human dignity. We’ll uncover how the rise of ubiquitous, utilitarian design in modern architecture parallels declining societal emphasis on meaning, craftsmanship and the human spirit. Dr. Axe traces the shift from awe-inspiring cathedrals to soulless office blocks, probing questions of motivation and morality in the buildings we construct. Dr. Axe reveals how: Modern architectural trends reflect decreased value assigned to human uniqueness Declining religious influence relates to minimalist, cookie-cutter built environments Natural materials and spaces uplift the human spirit Preserving beautiful, meaningful designs counters dehumanization Tune in as Dr. Josh Axe investigates how to reverse architectural austerity through advocating for nourishing environments that elevate your soul. You’ll walk away reconsidering how buildings betray priorities and how you can promote designs that dignify. Want more of The Growth Lab with Dr. Josh Axe? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram Twitter Facebook Tik-Tok Follow Leaders Instagram Twitter Facebook Email Newsletter Links:  https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2850&context=cmc_theses https://religionnews.com/2014/01/27/great-decline-religion-united-states-one-graph/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You are being oppressed with modern-day architecture, and you don't even know it. Government buildings, they're the most oppressive. And when you look at governments, when they're trying to create something, again, a lot of times today it's about power and efficiency, not about inspiring humans to rise up and be the best they can be, because a lot of governance about, I want to keep you lowly because I want to control you. Buildings in your environment, they're either pro-human inspiration, they're pro-god, or they're anti-human.

You know, cities were initially designed where the most important thing was the tallest building in the center. And that used to be the church. God has been displaced by materialism. The divine has been placed by money. And so, again, I think a lot of times we've lost over to this stuff and we think, well, maybe that's a coincidence or maybe that's not important. but I think when you look at the deeper things going on in society today, this is what's happening, what's at the center? Everyone up, Dr. Josh Axe and welcome the show.

I'm especially excited for today's episode because this is not something I talk about a lot, but it has a massive impact on the health of your body, but also your mind and your soul. And what I'm going to talk about today is how your environment, everything from architecture to a book sitting on your shelf and the fengue of a room you're in, can impact your health and especially your mindset. And I'm going to go through a couple studies today as well as some examples of things you can do to elevate your mindset,

nourish your soul and spirit, and improve your physical health, all with your environment. Now, here's the first thing to know and the first thing I really want to dive into has to do with buildings or the space that you're working out of. Now, have you ever walked into a hospital and you kind of had a feeling or a vibe when you walked in there,

walked into someone's home and you had a feeling or a vibe. It touched you emotionally. It touched you even spiritually, either negatively or positively. You know, I can remember, you know, we've all experienced this, right? Maybe we've gone back. I remember going back to my parents' home, you know, where I grew up in Troy, and walking in after I hadn't been there in a few years and feeling maybe a sense of nostalgia and safety and security and reminiscing.

just warmth in that home, right? I know that I've, again, I've walked into hospitals, and a lot of times I've walked in there, and I had a feeling of a little bit of death and decay and oppressiveness walking in there. And so the space that you're working in, your work environment, your home environment, those buildings you walk into, they all do something to you emotionally according to science as well as spiritually and physically. And so here's the reality, the first thing I want to get into here is that when you think about architecture, when you think about going back to ancient Greece or Egypt or even places Okinawa, Japan, Rome, or Jerusalem, when the architecture was created in a lot of these areas, it was meaningful.

Things were meticulously sculpted. They were inspiring. They were made of things that are natural. Today, when you go into a lot of buildings, some of these modern buildings and architecture and the environments within the buildings, if you go into a work environment and you've got the, well, formerly asbestos ceilings,

but those panels, and it's made of plastic and carpet and glue and in these fake materials, there's a level of it being oppressive and lacking purpose, and you may not realize how much that affects you emotionally.

I remember the first time I started working in this sort of office building that I worked out of for a time, and they had these fluorescent lights coming down. And again, was just like stucco and just other fake materials. And I felt by the end of the day, I was like, I can't wait to get outside because I just felt compressed and confined in the space I was in.

And again, according to science, what that does is that increases your anxiety levels. It activates something called your sympathetic nervous system, putting your body in a fighter flight state where you don't feel safe, you don't feel secure, you don't feel inspired. And so this is really an important topic that I'm going to go through on this. video of how you can elevate your space in your environment to improve your health, body, mind, and spirit. And so I want to get into a little bit of this right now, and then we'll go into the solutions here at the end. But, you know, when you start, when I think about architecture today, you know, I think about a place Chelsea and I love to visit like Florence, Italy. And when you

go to a place like that, you look at this classical architecture and you're just inspired. In fact, A lot of times the architecture of a city, it defines the culture and what's important to the culture. And, you know, by the, by the, what I think about this with churches, one of the things that I love is Chelsea and I, as we've visited and gone all over the world. I've been to churches in China and in Uganda and Ethiopia and South America. I've been to them all over the place, okay? And one of the things I love most especially about Europe is I go into certain and see certain churches there. And they're just, they're inspiring. You go in there and you're moved spiritually and emotionally.

But something happened in the 1950s specifically, I want to mention here. Beginning of the 1950s, a program accelerated something called ugly church buildings. By the way, have you ever seen just an ugly church building? I know we all have. And this happened in Europe and North America. And part of that happened is a lot of them were also created in conjunction as bomb shelters, at least in Europe. And there's this sort of spirit, though, as well of efficiency and functionality that sort of overtook this idea of creating something that was beautiful. Okay, so functionality overtook beauty in a space.

And by the way, if you ever ever in a space that's just purely functional, it lacks any emotion. It lacks any sort of anything that would stir a man's soul. And if you go into a space, though, that's decorating the right way that has a sort of unique dish to it, it creates a really specific type of environment. You know, this is something I think writers understand. You know, writers will go out in places like nature or go and get a cabin somewhere or go to a place where they can be inspired and it affects their writing, whether it's an author writing a book or somebody writing a song or somebody doing a piece of artwork, right? You need to be around other inspiring things that inspire you to write something inspiring. And so I want to talk about this today of how we are being oppressed. By the way, here's something you may not realize.

You are being oppressed with modern-day architecture and you don't even know it. Have you felt that? If you go to a big city, like when I go to certain cities today, especially urban areas, and I go into a city and it's just all this kind of sane, boring architecture, there's trash on the reads, it's beat up, you go through there. It just doesn't make you, it just doesn't make you feel well. Versus if you go into a place that is beautiful and inspiring, it really does something to move you and really to nourish your soul. Now, I want to go back and say this, back in the 1950s, is this new wave of architecture started coming about. This happened because people started moving

away from God. So it's not going to be a big thing today, by the way, when people move away from the divine and from God, that's when it lacks any inspiration whatsoever. And the people who started the sort of modernist architectural movement, they were not religious

believers or Jews or Christians. They were agnostic or atheist. So humans generally have been healthier when they build environments that contain a variety of, like, uniqueness, independent shops and building rather than these generic cement buildings that are repetitive stores all in a row.

You know, a wide variety of unique buildings and shops. What they'll do is they'll stimulate the mind. They draw you in. And there's something that just sort of captures your attention there. And I want to go to a study here now to talk about why this is so important. You're like, Dr. Axe, why is the building I'm in or the artwork in my home or office building in the city I'm in? Why is that so important? Well, listen to this. A study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, this is a 2019 study discovered this in relation to buildings today, that if you're in a room that feels more enclosed, the space feels less beautiful.

Okay, so if you're in a space where it's a tight lower ceiling, smaller walls closed in, the space is less and feels less beautiful when it's less open and spacious. The next part of the study found that you have less pleasure and arousal in linear rooms with little design. So again, if you're just in a box room versus if it has a level of intricacy and beauty to areas of the room, even the design of the four walls that you're in, it feels more beautiful, which is more inspiring. They also found that there is, the furniture influences brainwaves. And so the way that you decorate an office, it could be everything from an office of your company to your own workspace at home, to just your home in general, and actually impacts your brainwaves. Okay. And specifically what they found is that when you're in a room that is decorated in a way that's very inviting and warm, it actually activates what are called your theta brainwaves. So if you've ever, if you're ever meditating on something or you're coming up with your most creative ideas, you often earn in these state of brainwaves.

So if you're ever doing again, whether it's a yoga class or, you know, a Christian meditation or Buddhist meditation for that matter or any sort of meditation where you're kind of get in this zone where you're just thinking creatively and innovatively, those are theta brainwaves. So listen, if you're working in an environment that is a mess with enclosed walls and everything else, it's not to say you're. can't be creative. It's that you have less capacity to be creative, to be innovative, to actually sometimes spiritually thrive as well when you're in that type of space. But again, theta brainwaves, you have different brainwaves, but those theta waves are like, if you listen to the sound of the ocean crashing, it's that sound of nature if you go out there and sit in a forest or walk in a forest, a lot of these are activating these state of brainwaves. But your furniture, in your house or office, the pictures you have on the wall, you know, I love my space here.

So I've got like a bonsai tree here for me. That's very meaningful. I've got, you know, I've got some of my favorite books. I've got some cool architect here, something my, I have a family member that made here for me. So I have a lot of things in my spaces that are really meaningful. Think about this with Christmas time, right? If you put up a Christmas tree or you're decorating for Thanksgiving or forth a giant, whatever it is, it inspires you. in some way and it has a level of meaning to it. Well, if you're in a building that's just four concrete walls, there's no meaning. And in a way, it makes your work and to a degree that even influences your life, there's less meaning that's there. The other thing I want to mention here

this study was natural materials like wood reduced your autonomic nervous system, your heart rate, and lowered levels of anxiety. So if you're in a space that's mostly made of, of, again, plastic and stucco and just fake materials that don't look real, it actually increases your, increases anxiety and put your body in a fight or flight state. Versus if there's natural materials, if there's plants in the room, if there's wood, if there's stone, if there's natural materials, marble,

it all endues a sense of calming your nervous system as it would be if you went out in nature, whether it's standing by the ocean, listening to the waves crash or walking through the forest, hearing the sound of the burst chirp and just that quiet, serene sound. It's a very same thing with what you're putting yourself into. I want to say, I think there's something deeper going on here, even in society. I think when you have more oppressive political parties and oppressive people get into power, they want architecture. They want everything to be the same.

Listen, this is a really important thing to get. The spirit of evil wants everyone to be the same and look the same. actually part of this inspiration around even communism. Everything should look and be the same. There's no uniqueness. There's no specialness. This is why we even see even in gender today, why everyone can kind of like, men are women and women are men and like trying to reduce the significance of the differences of sex. This is part of the evil spirit that's on us today. It's very impressive that everything and everyone should look and feel the same. The walls, the buildings, everything you're in, and it's incredibly oppressive and in a way it's evil.

And this emphasis on just purely functionality has led to a lack of character and meaning in our environment today, including the buildings we're walking into. You know, spiritually and religiously, as we're talking about history, you know, spirituality and religion historically influenced grand architectural design, right? religious beliefs used to drive architectural magnificence. Think about the grandeur of St. Peter's Basilica or even the serenity of Buddhist temples, if you go into this architecture today, it does something to your soul. Today we've gone from this transition from this craftsmanship, focused on this sort of,

you know, this meticulous design to like walk into an Apple store, right? It's like everything is saying, everything looks and feels the same. And this lack of character and awe-inspiring beauty in this modern architecture, it's oppressive versus if you're going into the pantheon or Byzantine churches, you walk in there and you were just wowed by. I remember Chelsea and I taking a trip to Europe and going through places like the Sistine Chapel or walking through and standing outside the Duomo. I remember going to these places and just thinking, I am so inspired. You're like, I wanted to write. I wanted to read. I wanted to experience.

I wanted to, like, it moved me in a unique way. There's a reason why people visit these places as well is because, again, people want to be moved. They want to see something that people did with excellence. And today, this is happening less and less with our architecture today. You know, by the way, here's a picture that I took of Chelsea and I in 2018 when we took a trip to Florence, Italy, and we're standing outside one of the beautiful, beautiful churches there. Here's another picture I took of a ceiling. I believe that's a duguamo there in Italy.

And then another picture here of the Sistine Chapel. You can see here online, there's a picture of Chelsea and I standing next to the statue of David. I mean, think about that. Somebody took a hand and a chisel and chiseled this out by hand. It's absolutely amazing. And there are areas of the Sistine Chapel ceiling that you really can't fully see. And somebody was asking Michelangelo, they said, why did you spend so much time painting that corner that no one will ever see? And he said, because God will see.

And I think that, that in a nutshell, is what we're missing with our environment today. When you look at a lot of our impressive architecture, which I'm going to get into more in here in a minute, is this idea that God sees what I'm doing, right? And so if you have somebody like Michelangelo or the creators of the city of Rome and Jerusalem, a lot of those architects, They believed that God was judging their work. God would see what they were doing. And so they were in a way working for God. They were working to inspire others.

They were working with excellence. They were pouring their heart and their soul and their spirit all into doing this one thing, right? In creating something. And today it's not about that. It's about let's make it functional. It's not God inspired. And because of that, we're living in spaces and buildings in a lot of places today. that cause our anxiety to rise, activate our nervous system that is responsible for our body's stress response,

and really make us feel more oppressed in a way. Here's another and beautiful building. And when you look in the inside, it's full of so much just beautiful stained glass de Sagrada in Barcelona, Spain. And they just finished this building this year. I don't know the exact number we put up here. I think it, I know it took well over 100 years to, complete this beautiful architecture. And when Chelsea, we're in there,

we were just blown away. Here's another one. Now, this building is not a church. This is a hospital in Barcelona built in 1902. And listen, this creates or doesn't create a healing environment. I mean, I want to, you know, my dad came down with pneumonia a few years ago.

And so he got put in the hospital and then I wanted to visit him. We got him on a whole natural protocol. But when I was in there and I sat with him and talked for a bit, I just, one of the biggest things I felt was I felt oppressed and I felt sick I felt sicker being in there have you ever spent much time in a hospital I mean again listen part of the problem is they're giving you know they're given you know my dad we brought him food from whole foods and you know brought him his own food but it's like you know they were feeding him this pudding and I you know they would have put him pudding and ice cream and all this fake stuff so that's bad enough yeah and then you're in this building that's sort of like Like, just, you know, everything I talked about from that study that's back, in closed spaces, linear corners, it's all about functionality. It's not about healing. It's not about growth. It's not about rejuvenation.

You know, versus you go to a hospital where you can walk outside in the beauty of a garden and the rooms are beautiful in a way. Now, listen, I know one of the arguments might be, well, obviously, that costs more money. It does, but I think it's worth it. I think it's worth it. I think it's worth it. I think, in a way, I think, here's the other thing is I think it will last longer. You know, when you look at a lot of these buildings that were built in ancient Rome or, again, even places like, you know, areas of the Middle East or Egypt or, or as we've been talking about Europe, they're still around. They've been around a long time. And there's a reason because they were created with divine inspiration. they cared about the materials they used.

They wanted these buildings to last for thousands of years. And so the thing is, it's like, well, it's cheaper, but will it last longer? And what are the side effects of cheaper? Here's another beautiful building. And you look at these buildings compared with some of the modern architecture today, whether it be BMWs, government buildings, often. By the way, government buildings, they're the most oppressive. And when you look at governments, when they're trying to create something,

again, a lot of times today it's about power and efficiency, not about inspiring humans to rise up and be the best they can be because a lot of government's about, I want to keep you lowly because I want to control you. And even the way, by the way, I don't think psychologically they're aware of this, but I am telling you subconsciously that's what's going on, is when you see an ugly government building, the person that created that was out of the thing of, We don't want to inspire people.

We don't want people to rise up and be their best because we want to maintain control over everyone. So again, DMVs, office buildings, hospitals, government buildings, you'll see they almost all lack a uniqueness and are oppressive according to scientific studies and architecture. You know, when you look at again to DMV here, again, this is a classic DMVs like the DMV that I grew up in and go and, you know, in Ohio or whether it's Tennessee now or. or other places I've been and got my license. You know, here's Boston City Hall. I mean, this is another example, just an oppressive space when you're looking at it here from the outside. Here's another one, another hospital again.

You just feel, it feels like sickness and disease, and that's what they continue to breathe there. Interesting note, you know, the third leading cause of death, at least, it might actually be the number one, but the third leading cause of death is medical mistakes. in the U.S. and that's just mistakes. A lot of other people die from,

it's called Iotogenic disease. A lot of other people die from other things. Part of it is due to the spirit that's actually behind these things. Here's another one. Here's a, you know, a church that won't stand the test of time. Here's another example of neighborhoods

where every home looks the exact same. And this is what people wanted as creating to control people, lack of uniqueness there. I don't even, I want to give a, you know, a compare and contrast here to a lot of sort of the modern architecture. one of the newer, newer statues built to honor Martin Luther King Jr. But it's not honoring. It's,

it's ugly. It's weird. It's like, again, compare this statue to the statue of Moses or the Pieta or the statue of David or many of these other brilliant, beautiful statues. It pales in, this pales in comparison to that. And then, of course, you know, one of the things we see here in a lot of other modern architecture is it's meaningless. You know, it's like a jelly bean, a big silver jelly bean. That's not inspiring me. That's not inspiring me. That's not inspiring anybody.

It actually makes us sick in the soul if we surround ourselves with these sort of ugly, plastic, meaningless. And this is actually birthed out of something called relativism, which is there is no truth. There is no meaning. Or Michelangelo and these great artists were saying, no, there is truth. and truth is God. Truth is pursuing a life of making earth into a heavenly place. And is this more heavenly or is, you know, these statues that Michelangelo created? I think the answer is there is fairly obvious.

And so here's the reality of what's happening. We've had really a shift in priority. So here's the big thing to get. Okay. And I'm going to bring this back in the end here in just a few minutes, the things you can do with your own internal environment to make yourself healthier and body, mind, and spirit. But these architectural priorities have shifted from beauty to functionality and in a way from this efficiency where the focus is in on finances. It's all about saving money rather than inspiring people. So listen, the shift is from beauty. It's about God and virtue to efficiency and money. So God and virtue and character to efficiency and money. I think here's the thing to consider that Bill.

Buildings in your environment, they're either pro-human inspiration, they're pro-God, or they're anti-human. You know, cities were initially designed where the most important thing was the tallest building in the center. And that used to be the church, okay? And I remember asking my grandfather this. He would have been over 100 now, but he's 96 years old, and had a chance to sit down with him. And he told me that he lived in the city in Ohio, and he said, yeah, and originally, when people live in the United States, States, they moved there and they would go to a city or build a city based on their religion or their denomination, and the church was in the center of the city. In fact, he lived in this little

city, and I want to say it was a, it was more of like an evangelical, you know, Methodist city, and then my other grandparents moved to city in St. Mary's, Ohio, which was the city, was surrounded by the Catholic Church. And so, you know, my family, half Protestant and half Catholic, they went to and lived in those cities, but again, the church was the center. Today, if you go to a big city, what's the center? It's a big, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's going to be a business center. It's going to be some sort of building that's really a tall skyscraper dedicated to business and commerce, okay, money, all right? And you see this in our society today. God has been displaced by materialism. The divine has been placed.

by money. And so, again, I think a lot of times we've lost over to this stuff and we think, well, maybe that's a coincidence or maybe that's not important. But I think when you look at the deeper things going on in society today, this is what's happening is what's at the center? And I think this has more of a symbolic or spiritual meaning for ourselves is what's at your center? Okay.

And if your center is that I'm called to do things with excellence, I'm called to make things beautiful. I'm called to build things now that could last for thousands of years, and I'm building right now, I'm making Earth into a heavenly place for eternity. If that's at the center of your heart, that you're going to do things with more excellence, create things with more beauty, you're going to create a certain type of family environment and home and all these things, because you know that those things matter. Versus if you're thinking to yourself, well, money and getting ahead and keeping up with the Joneses and all these things are most important, it's going to affect the way you do things, cutting corners, things you buy, the things you spend time on. And so it's really

important to understand what's at your center, what's at the center of your city, but also what's at the center of your heart. And, you know, I want to show you an example of what's happened to this decline since 1952. By the way, you know, around this time when you start to see this decline, this is when God was taking out of the public school system. This is the biggest thing here. Okay. So the great decline over the last 60 years of religion in America, you see it being extremely high and dropping year after year after year after year. And is culture more moral because of it? No, we're less moral. Is culture better for it? No, it's worse off. There's more crime, more gun violence, more all kinds of things. Listen, we don't have more gun violence because people have guns. People always had guns and knives and numbers. My grandfather, same thing when I was asking these questions. He hitchhiked from, uh, From Lima, Ohio, no, from Dayton, Ohio, all the way to Yellowstone National Park, to California, to National Tennessee, to Kentucky, and then back to Ohio. Hitchhike, just picked up, just got picked up along the way.

And people did that normally in those days. I mean, you had a city where you just went and picked up the mail. Nobody was there. You just left the money, and everybody trusted each other. We don't have that today. We have people constantly breaking in buildings and setting things on fire and creating architecture that's depressing and, meaningless. So you can see here since the 1950s, what happened around those 50s, we took God out of school. And so now kids today and parents, everybody's less educated on the

divide. Everybody's less spiritually inspired. And that's led to the decline of our entire civilization. You can see this all happened around the same time. This secular design really influences our environment, which influences our soul. You've heard this statement, you become like those you surround yourself with or those you spend the most time with, okay? You become like those people, and people are even more important than your places, okay? But your place and those things you create also does impact you, inspire you, or demotivate you. So it is important that we create environments that we can be inspired by. You know, Tucker Carlson says, and he has a great segment on this where he says, you know, the modern architecture today that is so oppressive, it says, here's what he says, what it says, modern architecture says, shut up and obey, you don't matter, you mean nothing. And that's what it feels like when you're in these buildings. Again, I mentioned a hospital earlier. If you go to a lot of these hospital buildings, they feel like, well, you're just another number. You don't mean anything. There's not the same level of care and creating a space.

And I know, by the way, the biggest argument against me with a lot of this could be, well, you know, it saves money to just put up four concrete walls and buildings, and it's more economic, and so you can help more people. But here's the thing I want to tell you is that that philosophy and mindset is not true. I want to give you the same mindset. Bill Gates, he's a big proponent investor in a company called Monsanto. And they're really committed to creating something called genetically modified crops. and also crops that are, you know, you just, that you take out every year, then you have to replant these annual crops year after year after year. That's a very fast way to do things. It does seem like it will help the most people, get the most people the most things.

However, it's not the best way to do things long term. It might seem the best way to do things short term, but it's not the best long term. The best way to heal the planet and feed the world long term is to do something called food forest, where you're practicing regenerative agriculture, actually as they talk about the Bible, letting the land rest every seven years, and creating more, having the livestock in with the farming practices, and you can actually create a turn a desert to a rainforest

if you follow these biblical and practices, and you can feed the world this way many times over if you practice the right type of agriculture where you're not genetically modifying, you're not cutting corners, you're not doing the right thing. So here's the reality here. It's immediate gratification monetarily, but long term. It actually depletes and pillages and takes away from the good things.

Again, as we talk about the farming example here, if you are practicing modern farming, where you're using genetically modified crops, whether it be soy or hybridized weed or some of these other products, you are constantly stripping the planet of, carbon and nitrogen and all these minerals in the soil that bring life and health to our bodies. You're depleting the soil when you practice that way. So you might feed the most people that year, but you're actually not feeding the nourishing food, and you're taking away from the earth at the same time. And the same thing goes true for if the only thing you think about or government or others thinks about with money.

And by the way, a lot of this architecture has nothing to do with money it has to do with. And we want everything to look the same. It's subconscious, but we're going to oppress people. The root of all of this is, God has been removed. It's less than our lives. Religion and God has been moved out. It's been replaced with modernism, and that's the problem. So here's the reality.

The goal of modern architecture is this. Get human beings to not care about the environment they're in. You know, it's ugly, and that dehumanizes us. Dehumanizing is the act of convincing people that they don't matter, that they're not unique, and they're not Christian. by God, and modern architecture signals a departure from tradition. There's this whole wave today going on of being anti-tradition, anti-traditional marriage, anti-traditional generals, anti-tradition, everything. When the reality is tradition is a major part of what makes us unique and makes us

who we are. It's part of our identity, who our parents were, and our grandparents, and what they built and what they did. It's still lasting today. It's about legacy. And modern architecture removes all of that feeling in a lot of our environment we have today. You know, there's a study on the psychological effects of living in this sort of cookie-cutter, you know, suburbant landscape that we see today. And this was a study done, a 2015 study done in Great Britain, it said, people who lived in more scenic environments reported better health. This was found across urban and suburban and rural areas. Another study found that employees who had control over the design of their workspace reported higher levels of satisfaction and productivity. So if you allow somebody to be in a more beautiful space and they can actually be part of making it beautiful and inspiring, they're more productive.

They get more done. They do things with more excellence. Research has also shown that well-designed office space can lead to an in, increase in brain function and productivity and workers. So we're also seeing here that it's actually counterproductive when we are in these non-beautiful oppressive spaces. And so here's a few things I would have mentioned that you can start doing it. And last thing I want to say is this.

So much of this is biblical in nature. When you read the Bible, God doesn't have a start off in a building. He has a start off in a garden. And when he tells Adam and Eve, and he says, you're a gardener. you're going to tend to this garden, make it more beautiful. It's in this little area here in Mesopotamia, but I'm going to have you take this. Your calling is to turn the entire planet into a paradise. And we see many years later, one of his descendants, of course, Solomon. And Solomon has this beautiful building, this beautiful place he creates called the Hanging Gardens of Solomon. And it's known

as one of the seven wonders of the world. And when you go back later, later on, when you read the second or one of the two last chapters of the Bible, it says that in the end we'll all be living together those who, those are in heaven, and when they come back here on Earth, we'll be living in a garden city. Okay, so we start off in a garden that's in one little place, and later on, the entire planet turns into a garden city. That's what Solomon was trying to do, is take this, you know, create a garden city in this area he was in in the Middle East. And we're called to do a similar thing. I think in our architecture, I was thinking about this the other day, Chelsea and I've built several homes. And when we've built homes, we don't go and

try and find, you know, the most fake things to make the house beautiful. We try to find the most natural things. We're looking at natural wood and stone and limestone and, you know, all these things that are, make the house very unique and, you know, glass so we can see the outdoors and have plants in the home, right? And so that's what beauty is. It also makes me think of somebody who really also understood this, you know, if you read any J.R.R. Tolkien's work,

like Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit or the Silmarillion, when you read these books, you'll read about places like Rivendell or Laughlorian or Numer or these cities that aren't garden cities. It's a chapter

J.R. Tolkien took right out of, I think it's Revelation 21, right out of the or living in a garden city. It's just beautiful, all-inspiring architecture and the space you're living in, you know. And I think that's what heaven is going to be like, right? I think heaven is going to be, imagine the most beautiful place you can imagine. Imagine an ocean and waterfalls and plants and stone and wood and the most beautiful space you've ever lived in. And you get to live there and you get to help create it, working alongside of God and other people you love. And that's, That very same thing that we should be doing at the end of time, we should be doing now and working towards that right now.

And what happens is that good spirit of good, it inspires us to do that. The spirit of evil oppresses us and says, it doesn't matter. It's just four concrete walls. Everything's the same. It doesn't matter. Therefore, you don't matter. That's the thing we want to stay away from. And so, you know, a few things here that I want to share with you that I want to encourage you to do is make your spirit.

space beautiful. It impacts your health of your body. Physically, we saw it reduces anxiety, according to studies. It reduces your heart rate and it improves your overall health. If you're in a beautiful space. So spend time making your space beautiful. We'll make something beautiful. Things that are natural, things that have meaning to you, things that are, again, of nature. Now, I want to give you some examples here. Again, I've got like a bonsai tray in here. We've got natural plants in my home. I got another plant here. Here's, I got books on my shelf.

This is, you know, part of the, this is the Lord of the Rings. This is a Silmarillion, but this is a book Chelsea got me for Christmas. A few Christmases back at the natural, it's a leatherbound book she has here that I absolutely love, and it's got all these great pictures of it, which inspires me. And so, you know, make your space natural, motivating, meaningful. we all put pictures in places also of people I inspire to be like and that motivate me and I have a vision board, you know, that I've created and all those sort of things. And so I want to encourage you, your space matters, your environment matter. Now listen, people matter the most of people you surround yourself with. But in addition to that, your environment matters. So be meticulous. Be like Michelangelo.

Making a work of art, creating your space and your home and having a place that's really nourishing to your. body, mind, and spirit. And also be aware of what's going on. Be aware when you walk at that DMV or you see those offices buildings and realizing this is a spirit of oppression, of everyone's trying to be the same versus the uniqueness, the way we were created,

and the importance to bring God back and religion back into your life because it will inspire you to greatness of things that won't be temporary, but things that will last internally. as Michelangelo said, God will see. He sees everything, and I'm doing this for him. And so we want to think in those terms here as well.

So, hey, I hope you've enjoyed this episode. I've really enjoyed talking about a lot of things, but really the center of this is our environment greatly impacts us. Everything from the buildings we're in, outside of the buildings we're in, the things that we have in our homes that all impacts us greatly. and it's important to be aware of it and to make your space beautiful. I want to say, hey, thanks so much for listening in today's podcast. Also, if you're not subscribed, make sure to subscribe.

Did you know if you're not subscribed that there's only a small chance that my next videos will come up in your feed? I don't want you to miss one of the great interviews we have coming up with people like Tim Tebow and Mark Hyman and so many amazing leaders that I think you're going to love and some of the other unique things that I'm going to be covering. in the future regarding how to heal yourself, body, mind, and spirit, and how to live the best life possible. Hey, thanks so much for subscribing. And hey, I'd love to hear your comments on. What was the biggest thing to stick out to you about this video?

Do you notice that hospital spaces feel oppressive versus ancient church cathedrals are inspiring? Or what are some examples you've seen in your own life, in your environment? Hey, thanks so much for watching. Thanks so much for sharing. have a blessed week.