Living together with wood brings benefits to man and environment
Cladding and furnishing homes and offices with wood bestows several benefits to the environment and to human health. This, according to the studies accomplished by ISDE Italia – Doctors for Environment, association born in 1989 from a group of physicians aware of the fact that, in order to take care of everybody’s health, they have to take care also of the conditions of the world we live in. As practitioners and as inhabitants of the Earth.
Thanks to the use of wood, Doctors for Environment, which cooperates with Itlas, states that there are many assets, above all as far as environment is concerned:
- Increase of thermal insulation and energy efficiency
- Improvement of air quality through restraint of humidity
- A good natural shield against electromagnetic radiation
- Good sound absorption properties
- Long-term storage of carbon, a real help in fighting climate change
Moreover, wood is an ecological, completely renewable material. Processing it requires a very low power consumption, definitely inferior to that required by the production of other synthetic or composite materials.
From a physiological and psychological point of view, living in a home furnished with wood contributes to the reduction of heart rate, of blood pressure and stress levels; it helps improving emotional state and level of self-expression; it increases the perception of comfort and warmth.
But what is environmental comfort? It is the state of psychophysical well-being of those who live in an environment such as their own home or office. A state that depends on the environmental conditions, largely measurable, such as temperature, humidity, luminosity, materials used in the building. According to research on biophysical interactions with the materials used, the perception of comfort is influenced also by the quantity of the substances. Tests carried out in “indoor” spaces demonstrate that people tend to choose for their home materials that balances their character and emotional state, compensating a more or less active/reactive nature in the room itself. Men and women have their perception of environmental comfort improved, if furniture is made with wood.
And if one chooses a wooden flooring? To all psychophysical and environmental benefits listed above, you can add a structural advantage and an asset for health.
A wooden floor is an earthquake protection. Wood has an inner stability – earthquake protection, even if not directly related to the flooring, which complies to Italian and Europeans laws regarding structural and anti-seismic calculation. The stability of wood is due to three fundamental aspects: lightness, high ductility and dissipative capacity. Properties that, thanks to the excellent relation between strength and weight (with respect to ceramics, for example) contribute to undergo the effects of an earthquake. Furthermore, the wooden slats are connected by deforming tongue and groove joints that, if properly sized, allow the wooden floors to have a ductile behaviour, ideal for resisting dynamic actions.
Walking barefoot on a parquet – the best and most waited-for moment after a long day far from home – helps to find again the correct posture, allows the muscles of legs and feet to relax (avoiding swelling) and helps the blood circulation, allowing blood to flow more easily and oxygenate more. The muscles of the arch, the ankle and calf can be rebalanced and the pressure on all the nerve endings of the sole of the foot stimulates the internal organs. Not only: walking barefoot on a wooden floor is also a wonderful feeling, because the naturalness of wood conveys well-being in all seasons.
