Benefits of Gardening
Living in a city, there’s always low exposure to nature, which is why people can’t stay healthy for a long time. Not everyone can afford to strengthen their bond with nature by going on expensive trips. But, don’t worry! Outdoor gardening has a plethora of benefits for both your physical and mental health. In this article, we are going to go over all the benefits of gardening, which would leave you in wonder.
1) The Basic Advantages of Natural Envirornment
Nature and humans share an indestructible bond. This bond becomes perpetual when we give it the required amount of love, affection, and concern. The excellent way to keep it alive is to install different plants and make a wonderful garden for yourself and your loved ones.
Many pieces of research have shown that breathing in a fresh environment not only makes our physical health strong, it also lowers the level of stress.
As we all know that nature plays a significant role in refining air and water from pollution, then why not use gardening as a tool for it? Not only this, we can make the environment much fresher and cooler by this act.
2) Gardening as a Moderate-Intense Exercise
Moderate-Intense activities are those activities that get you moving faster and, in consequence, your muscles become strong. As per Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition, adults need 150 minutes per week of exercise for healthy living.
You can burn over 300 calories by daily gardening as your muscles become activated when you get engaged in reeking, trimming, and weeding activities. Make a schedule that suits you. Take out at least an hour from your busy routine for yourself. Go under the open sky, sit on a comfortable chair, breathe in the fresh air, and start planting new plants.
3) Gardening as a Tool to Grow Your Own Food
The significance of eating healthy is incomparable. Everyone adores leading a life involved with minimum diseases. To do this, the prospect needs to toil harder. Apart from the other benefits, growing our own food is no lesser.
We can grow our own vegetables, such as lettuce, green beans, radishes, peppers, tomatoes, and carrots. It can incentivize us to add vegetables and fruits to our daily meals. Vegetables and fruits are significant sources of vitamins, fiber, magnesium, zinc, phosphorous, and folic acid.
4) The Positive Effects on Cognitive Skills
For making cognitive skills vigorous, gardening is the best tool we can have. On hitting 40, your brain drops its volume and weight up to 5%. As a result, you will become less capable of performing mental activities, remembering things, etc. Gardening is, therefore, super beneficial for cognitive skills. It reduces the ratio of any sort of anxiety, depression, or stress.
5) Gardening Is Profoundly Beneficial To Patients
Interaction with nature and a simple view of greenery can perk up a patient. Patients who had undergone surgeries recovered faster than other patients; they took fewer pain-killers and antibiotics.
According to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/, there is increasing evidence that exposure to plants and green space, and particularly to gardening, is beneficial to mental and physical health, and so could reduce the pressure on NHS services. Health professionals should therefore encourage their patients to make use of green space and to work in gardens, and should pressure local authorities to increase open spaces and the number of trees, thus also helping to counteract air pollution and climate change.
Gardening also supplies motivation to eat healthily and live healthily. Many types of research have shown that patients who were dealing with depression took part in taking care of a plant. Within a few courses of months, they were feeling well and relieved.
Despite what many may think, mental health problems are common in the United States and around the world. Mental health issues, much like other health issues, can be mild, but can also be life altering, affecting the emotional, social, and psychological well-being of the person. Common types of mental illness include mood disorders, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and personality disorders. Although symptoms of mental illness differ depending on the type of illness and seriousness of the problem, common symptoms of mental health issues include changes in sleeping and eating habits, social withdrawal, feelings of hopelessness, anger, and prolonged sadness, suicidal thoughts, and substance abuse. In 2018, it was estimated that around 26 percent of those in the U.S. aged 18 to 25 years and 23 percent of those aged 26 to 49 years suffered from some form of mental illness in the past year.
6) Gardening is a Great Source For Human Interaction
Gardening plays a salient role in packing people together. It is a source we can use to interact with our loved ones in our tough schedules. In today’s world, when every single person seems to be busy with their phones, tablets, or laptops, gardening helps us to explore nature and get engaged in contact with our family and friends. Parents can make their children plant something and take out time to look after it.
7) Gardening as an Income in Covid-19
A July 2020 survey conducted in the United Kingdom revealed that outdoor gardening has gained popularity among British consumers during coronavirus lockdown, as more than a third of the respondents have bought outdoor plants and compost. Seed purchases made by approximately a quarter of consumers closely followed this. Least popular gardening and outdoor products were BBQ equipment and garden games/activities.
Covid-19 did massive damage to the economy. Hundreds and thousands of people around the world had to deal with unemployment, which deprived them of buying healthy food. Because of strict lockdown, people got bound to their homes. And they lost their jobs.
In these tough times, some individuals came up with the idea of selling plants, vegetables, and fruits online. Through gardening at their own homes, they were able to make a living, and people who couldn’t go out because of lockdown were still able to make purchases online.
There are still more benefits of gardening, which we have yet to discover in our own ways.
