My Head is a Jungle… a cause for concern 😯
I’ve just spent the weekend volunteering with Oxfam at Reading Festival. I was wrist-banding and stewarding whilst soaking up the festival vibe and spirit. I love festivals! They constitute many things I enjoy including the amazing bands and music, the sounds, vibrations, lights, it really is a sensory rollercoaster! I also love the vibrant atmosphere, meeting new people, being outside in the fresh air all day and night and lots of exercise from walking about an expansive area in the beautiful countryside. Festivals really make me come alive!
However, sadly Reading Festival is known for violent outbreaks amongst its attendees and even tents being lit on fire deliberately. It has a younger crowd, of around 16-19 year olds, and is seen as a place to celebrate after receiving GCSE and A-Level results.
“It just is”
Whilst in a semi-meditative state, in the Radio 1 Dance Tent, watching the graphics and lights, feeling the vibrations through me and listening to MK cover Emma Louise’s song “My Head is a Jungle”, I got thinking about why there are violent outbreaks, and especially why they occur on the final evening. I explained my conclusions to a few people but they dismissed my ideas, saying “it just is”. This seems to be a running theme, not just amongst lay-people but also amongst mental health and medical professionals.
Every action produces a reaction
There is a universal law of cause and effect, which specifically states that every single action in the universe produces a reaction, no matter what.
This is the premise to which I keep coming back about mental and physical health. Mental health specialists and medical professionals seem to gloss over this fundamental principle of science. As a scientist myself, it astounds me that they could be so forgetful, or even negligent, to not turn back to underlying root cause.
“…everything that becomes or changes must do so owing to some cause; for nothing can come to be without a cause.” Plato, 360BC
The law of cause and effect is so fundamental that it has been termed a universal law. Plato said in ‘Timaeus’ (c. 360BC) “…everything that becomes or changes must do so owing to some cause; for nothing can come to be without a cause.”
Indeed, in 1927 Russell Bertrand (a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual) said that the notion of universal causation marks the beginnings of science and philosophy.
So why have we forgotten this?
The causes
My ideas of why antisocial behaviour and violence arises are manifold:
1. The nutrition double whammy
attendees are not eating the proper nutrition and therefore not obtaining the necessary nutrients for basic functioning and repair, and to curb inflammation, so the body and brain are unable to operate correctly;
attendees are eating toxic, ultra processed food that is cooked in highly inflammatory seed oils, they are consuming copious amounts of gluten (which is toxic to every body and brain) and they’re eating pro-inflammatory dairy and high amounts of sugar and starches. The ‘modern-day’ diet, and especially food produced at festivals, is extremely toxic.
This is evidenced by the high level of crime and violence in prison environments where proper nutrition is scarce. When supplements have been introduced in trials, the prevalence of violence has diminished significantly. One such study showed that inmates given supplements committed 37 per cent fewer of the most serious offences, such as violence [1].
2. Brain-altering chemicals
Attendees are almost always ingesting at least one form of brain-altering chemical, and in actuality, usually several. It is widely accepted that humans already use the drugs of caffeine to wake up and stay energised, and alcohol to relax and chill out.
Often people are also smoking and vaping toxic chemicals, especially the latter in this age bracket. This is further exacerbated by illegal highs, like marijuana, cocaine, MDMA, ketamine etc, which are rife at festivals. Some of these are depressants (relax us) and some are stimulants (fuel us).
Many young people nowadays drink less and use recreational drugs more, and often many at the same time, combining both depressants and stimulants. The body is on a chemical rollercoaster!
3. Medication
Attendees may also be taking medication. It has been very difficult to find current data, but Civic Science recently reported that c70% of those in the US are taking regular medication [2]. The below infographic from Statistica shows the percentage of people on medication in the UK, however it is very outdated, being 7-8 years old, and pre-COVID [3].
Very few scientific studies have been carried out on interactions between medication and illegal drugs, in part because we ignore the fact that these illegal highs are actually in wide-spread use.
And what about the chemicals in our food and water supply that they may also be interacting with? Pharmaceuticals and drugs of abuse have been widely reported in UK drinking water [4].
4. Sleep deprivation
I believe I can say with confidence that not one attendee obtained sufficient good quality sleep throughout the festival. For those that aren’t aware, the festival and camping areas are well-lit at night and are extremely noisy with people talking and playing music, generators running, stalls open and all-night events, not to mention the lack of comfort. Deprivation of deep sleep impacts the ability for the brain to detoxify itself and for us to process emotions, as we discussed here.
5. Poor air quality
Tens of thousands of people are packed into small spaces at festivals, such as inside bell tents and in crowds with people exposed to toxic chemicals from smoking cigarettes, vaping, and also effluent from the smoke machines (depending on the type used).
It’s interesting that smoking in public places has been banned and yet people are still allowed to smoke in crowds and ‘open’ tents. It is the smokers that decide who smokes, not the non-smokers.
6. Overcrowding
Interestingly, some studies also show overcrowding leads to violence, and this certainly makes sense having been packed into the Dance Tent with so many other people in close proximity, treading on each other, moshing and being unaware of others around them, or not caring, because of their intoxication.
Looking at studies of violence in prisons, when overcrowding increases, prison violence increases proportionally [5].
7. Age
Attendees at Reading festival, in particular, are young. The majority are less than 25 years old, and the brain is known to not fully mature until around this age. This has always been a concern for me since we consider people to be responsible adults, and incarcerate them accordingly, from the age of 18 [6].
8. Experiences
My final point is that young people often have new experiences at these festivals, whether it be social, physical, emotional or mental events. This includes being away from home for the first time or new interpersonal interactions. This is especially the case after the COVID-lockdowns have interrupted natural adolescent behaviour. Sometimes these can be overwhelming or hard to process. Happily, Reading has recently installed welfare and safeguarding systems, but these are rarely preventative.
Brain inflammation
All of this toxicity (1-5 above) leads to brain inflammation, which is a major cause of poor mental health. In some instances, the result is more serious antisocial behaviour including crime and violence.
Festival attendees are usually exposed to this toxic environment for an extensive period of time, being c 4-5 days, so by the end of the festival, the effects have built up significantly. I believe this is the reason for the violent outbursts at Reading festival, and especially towards the end.
Indeed, anyone who has experimented with any form of high knows that the ‘come-down’ can be hard and long because of the chemical imbalances in the body and the nutrients and repair required to rectify it.
Cause for concern
While festivals are some of my favourite events, and by no means am I condemning them, I do think it’s worth pointing out these observations and highlighting the importance of causal components to mental health problems, and the not-unrelated anti-social behaviour that may arise.
It is time for a change in our approach.
If any of this has impacted you, or you’d like more information, please do reach out for support. We are always here for you.
Well wishes,
Andie. x
Image: Gordon Johnson from Pixabay
[1] Crime and Nourishment. Cause for a rethink?
Ramsbotham and Gesch, Prison Serv J. 2009 Mar 1; 182: 3–9
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4693953/
[2] A Growing Number of Americans Report Taking Prescription Medications Daily
Andrew Gallant, 11 January 2023
https://civicscience.com/a-growing-number-of-americans-report-taking-prescription-medications-daily/
[3] Health in the UK - With age comes wisdom (and prescriptions)
Martin Armstrong, 21 November 2019
https://www.statista.com/chart/20056/prescription-medicine-by-age-group-england/
[4] The detection of drugs of abuse and pharmaceuticals in drinking water using solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry
Peng et al, Chemosphere, 2019 May; 223:438-447.
[5] Do Overcrowding and Turnover Cause Violence in Prison?
Baggio et al, Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2019; 10: 1015.
[6] Maturation of the adolescent brain
Arain et al, Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 2013; 9: 449–461.