If you have been wondering why those green thumbs always seem to be so happy and mentally stable, it is time to explore this phenomenon. In the following article we will take a closer look at why gardening has all the mental health enthusiasts so excited.
1. Provides A Strong Sense of Purpose and Responsibility
When you have a garden, you have something alive and beautiful that relies on you for its existence. This makes you a more responsible person. Gardening requires focus, patience, a sense of timing and a heap of responsibility. If you were to forget to water those gardenias for a week, you will return to dry withered stalks. This gives the gardener a sense of purpose and a great opportunity to focus the mind on something that can be controlled and improve their mental health.
2. Brings You Closer to Nature
For a wide variety of reasons, a garden allows you to spend plenty of time outdoors. Hardly anybody has to go outside for anything anymore, most errands are run indoors and from your front door to your car or UBER is really not that much time outside.
But gardening means you will be in the sun at least an average of an hour each day, depending on the size of your garden. This means you will enjoy a healthy dose of VIT D from the sunlight. Did you know that vitamin D is as potent an antidepressant as any other you will find on the market?
Staying indoors all the time is a recipe for depression and poor mental health. But there are significant benefits that can come from being close to nature, out in the sun and in the splendid company of blossoming flowers, little green shoots and majestic trees.
If you don’t have a garden to care for, you can also take part in an urban community garden. This amplifies the results you can expect from the practice of gardening with a healthy heap of community spirit. Your depression and anxiety won’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.
3. Helps Deal with the Stresses of Illnesses
It is very common for those recovering from a serious illness like cancer or infertility, or those who suffered a debilitating injury to fall into a deep depression.
Gardening is a great way for these very people to deal with the feelings of depression and helplessness that can affect their life.
Gardening allows people to take their minds off the illness and their conditions and think of something positive and creative. Those who garden can also eat what they grow, which is typically healthier than the produce you will find at your market.
4. Tending to Another Life Improves Your Life
The process of nurturing and caring for another life will provide a feeling of accomplishment like no other.
One of the most common mental conditions that plagues modern society is that it can create negative thought patterns. Gardening makes it so much easier to occupy the mind and keep them from falling into negative patterns.
Gardening allows the individual to connect to the world in a very deep way and this provides an important perspective. It reminds us all that we are never truly alone in the universe. Furthermore, there will always be times when plants die and gardening plans fail, but you will always have the chance to try again and your patience will pay off in the long run.
5. Prevents and Treats ADHD
Other good news is that many studies have shown that gardening can be a suitable treatment for the rising plague of ADHD prevalent in young people. There are so many cases where ADHD requires medical treatment which is only marginally successful in addressing this condition.
The CDC has noted that only 2.5 hours of gardening activities can provide the optimal amount of physical activity that is required to address this condition and reduce the harshest symptoms. Paired with a healthy lifestyle and diet, gardening can do wonders for improving your health.