Healthy Garden, Healthy You! How Gardening Improves Health

Posted on Mar 20, 2013  | Comments (2)

It’s officially springtime! And although you may not be feeling the warmer weather yet, you can still plan for brighter days.

Why not start with a garden? Besides looking nice and providing healthier foods, maintaining a garden can also improve your health. Working in the garden on a daily basis has been proven to relieve stress, improve mental health, boost exercise, and improve nutrition.

How does it work?

Allowing your brain to focus on natural environments and repetitive, soothing actions are sources of effortless attention and immediately lowers your body and mind’s stress levels. Gardening provides time outdoors, away from technology and other stress triggers. The sights, smells, and sounds of the garden are said to promote relaxation and reduce stress.

Working in your garden also gets your blood moving. There are many different movements required to maintain a healthy garden, and these movements create many exercise benefits as well.  Digging, planting, weeding, and other repetitive tasks are the perfect low-impact strengthening and stretching exercises for seniors.

Gardening is a great goal-oriented activity. People are more likely to stick with this activity knowing that the end goal is a beautiful garden filled with flowers and delicious produce.

For our aging loved ones, some research suggests that the physical activity associated with gardening can help lower the risk of developing dementia.

According to CNN Health, two separate studies that followed people in their 60’s and 70’s for up to 16 years found that those who gardened regularly had between a 30-50 percent lower risk of dementia than non-gardeners.

You don’t even need a lot of land to start a garden – start with a few houseplants or some soil in a bucket. Enjoy the spring fever and start a garden today!

Happy Spring!

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