The benefits of gardening are rich and plentiful. Not only does it enrich our homes, but it can provide an interesting hobby and even a healthier lifestyle. By tending to your plants daily, you physically exercise which is always a good thing. Not only that, but gardening can reduce your stress and anxiety levels, not to mention that you get fresh and natural products to consume. It’s overall good and beneficial for our well-being, both physical and mental. If you’re currently in-between deciding if gardening is something you should do, now is the right time to decide in favor of it.
Want to learn more? Keep reading the article!
It’s proven: gardening not only beautifies our environment, it’s also good for our health, for many reasons.
Do you like gardening? Great news! An American researcher, Jill Litt, has been studying the implications of gardens on the health of residents for over ten years. Her findings are in line with those already published on the subject: the physical exercise provided by this activity keeps those who practice it in good health. This good health is reinforced by the fact that they eat fresh and natural products. Gardeners eat more fruit and vegetables and are 30% more active. These are not the only benefits attributed to gardens. Growing flowers and vegetables encourages us to look to the future. Better still, gardens are often inter-generational places where everyone meets. The English have understood the virtues of gardening so well that in 1950 they created “therapy gardens”. In their country, horticultural therapy has become an effective alternative to traditional care for patients, especially those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. But the principle does not only apply to physically or psychologically fragile people. The garden is beneficial for all of us, and not only for the physical exercise, but it also requires. Depending on how you manage your crops, it can stimulate each of your senses: hearing, thanks in particular to the birds that frequent it, smelling through the scents it diffuses, seeing through the colors and shapes of the plants, and tasting through the edible plants, berries, and vegetables that you harvest. Some researchers emphasize the fact that gardening encourages us to “let go”. There is no question of controlling everything. Nature has a free will linked to the weather and forces us to accept the fact that many things can be out of our control. The experience is rewarding…
All gardeners know, whether they are amateurs or professionals: contact with nature brings incomparable well-being. The energy expended makes us lose calories in the process, our bones and muscles are strengthened, and exposure to the sun fills us up with vitamin D. In short, by grabbing your pruning shears or your spade you can combine the useful with the pleasant while freeing yourself from a good part of your stress and leaving your worries at the gate… All good reasons not to deprive yourself of them!
