You may think of gardening as just a relaxing hobby, but it is often so much more. Aside from the obvious advantage of growing nutritious fruits and vegetables, it also offers an effective physical workout. As you stand, bend or squat, plant seeds or pull weeds, you’re working most of your major muscle groups, including your arms, shoulders, back, legs, and abdomen. This gentle working and stretching improves joint flexibility and muscle strength, as well as burning calories.
Gardening is also beneficial for mental health. In today’s fast-paced, buzzing world, it provides a relaxing break from life’s pressures, helping to calm and clear your mind.
Research shows that gardening is an excellent stress reliever. A Dutch study found, for example, that gardening for half an hour following a stressful task not only improved mood but also lowered levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, better than spending the same amount of time reading indoors.
Gardening also lets you explore your creativity. Planning and maintaining a garden is a constant process of deciding which plants to put where, which directly involves your imagination. And as well as visualising how the garden will look, you need to use logical deduction to decide which plants go together, which should not, which need sun, which need shade or protecting from the wind, and so on. As with any mental activity this creative reasoning helps to keep your brain sharp, particularly in later life.
You may find that getting to grips with your garden also benefits your spiritual wellness. It’s easy to spend a great deal of time cut off from nature, in your home and place of work, walking paved streets and driving through busy cities. It may sound clichéd, but gardening really does provide an opportunity to reconnect with nature, and remember that we are just one part of the diverse ecosystem that makes up our planet.
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