The produce you grow in your garden can increase your general dietary health, but gardening also offers benefits to your mental wellbeing and physical health.
Health benefits include:
- Nutrition Gardening allows us to choose organic options. It gives us the opportunity to harvest foods at their peak, plus, when we put the effort into growing, and harvesting our own fruits and vegetables, we’re likely to eat more of them.
- Stress-relief Studies have proved that a period of gardening can reduce cortisol levels otherwise known as the stress hormone.
- Get physical Gardening provides a rewarding motivation to encourage exercise, which strengthens bones, muscles, and joints. It also decreases lifestyle diseases such as obesity, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, heart disease and stroke.
- Exposure to vitamin D Vitamin D increases your calcium levels, which benefits your bones and immune system.
- Hand strength and dexterity As we age, diminishing dexterity and strength in the hands can gradually narrow the range of activities that are possible or pleasurable. Gardening keeps those hand muscles vigorous and agile.
- Social benefits A garden can provide the perfect spot for a social gathering. Gardening clubs and workshops also provide the opportunity for meeting people with like-minded interests.
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Depression and mental health
It is widely reported that gardening is uplifting and generally improves mood. Studies have shown that gardening has shown improvements for those suffering with depression and other mental illnesses.
- Wildlife preservation A garden can create habitats for smaller life forms like birds, insects, and other species. Each creature plays an important role in helping the environment.
"Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized." - Allan Armitage