7 Surprising Health Benefits of Gardening

Did you know that gardening provides many benefits for physical health? Gardening has a significant impact on our health and mind. Here we described the 7 Surprising health benefits of gardening.

Health Benefits for Gardening

1: It Keeps You Fit

Fitness experts advise us to take roughly 150 minutes of exercise per week. That much time can be discouraging for so many people. But by working on your garden, that amount of time is met quite quickly.

Gardening is a great all-around exercise as it works your shoulder and abdomen at the same time. Not only can it help lower the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and other types of disease. But it also allows you to maintain proper bodily function as you age.

2: It Helps Ease Chronic Pain

Gardening and landscaping can act as therapy for people who experience chronic pain. These can be cases of arthritis, tension headaches, and back pain. For people with arthritis, staying active is necessary to help relieve stiffness in joints.

However, this kind of activity might not work for everyone. So, it’s better to ask for your healthcare provider’s advice before doing so.

3: Lose Weight

Weight loss is the holy grail of health for many people and gardening can help you achieve that goal. Gardeners significantly have a low body index and there is a lower chance of being overweight than non-gardeners. Working in the garden will help you in lowering your weight. So, it’s one of the best health benefits of gardening.

4: It Clears Your Head

Studies show that moderate exercise can help lower stress levels. Aside from staying physically active in completing garden tasks. Being close to nature can also help reduce stress, anxiety, and even help with depression.

Gardening can ease your mind while letting you engage in light physical activities. A win-win hobby for both your mental and physical health.

A 2006 study found that gardening could lower the risk of dementia by 36%.

5: It Improves Your Diet

If you are looking for the best ways to add more nutrients into your diet. Cultivating an edible garden can be a great solution. It will encourage you to add more greens and healthy alternatives to your diet.

If you are a parent, it can also give you a chance to influence your kids to eat healthily. Aside from the ability to grow your food, organic gardening gets you closer to a healthy lifestyle too.

6: It Improves Quality of Life

According to studies, gardening leads to a lot of positive health changes. Outdoor activity increases the quality of life satisfaction among the elderly. Elders who garden, lower the risk of falls, stress, and their need for medication.

It gives us a sense of responsibility in caring for living organisms. While satisfying us in return once our plants have bloomed and bore fruit.

7: It keeps your mind sharp

A study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s disease found that various physical activities gardening can cut your risk of Alzheimer’s by fifty percent. Other research finds that horticultural therapy is very engaging for dementia patients and has a positive impact on their overall well-being 3 distressing with nature.

In addition to the distressing associated with the flow, gardening also offers a calming effect. Thanks to the presence of nature. Simply being in nature is known to reduce stress levels. As does coming into contact with plants and the earth cuts your risk of heart disease even though gardening may not be a high-intensity cardio sweat fest.

It’s still providing powerful heart health benefits. In fact, gardening can cut the risk of a heart attack or stroke and prolong life by 30%, according to research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. The benefits appear to come from the combination of physical exercise and stress reduction.

Spending time in the dirt can improve your sleep quality. The physical activity tires you out but more importantly tending to your garden reduces stress and anxiety levels meaning you’ll be able to fall asleep easier and experience sweeter dreams.

Stop overlooking the benefits of gardening and start discovering what it can do to your health.

Some Physical and Mental Health Benefits of Gardening

Raising a vegetable garden offers many health benefits. There are obviously loads of fresh veggies and nutritious greens to add extra nutrition to the table, but the benefits of keeping a garden go way beyond produce. Here are some obvious (and not so obvious) reasons why a home vegetable garden beats even the farmers market when it comes to your health and well-being.

Gardening is very physical. As anyone who keeps the garden knows, swinging around hoses, fertilizing with the hand held spreader, lifting heavy pots, and walking with watering cans full of water is a lot like the newest trend in strength training offered by the toughest gym.

Read: 8 Easy Steps For Successful Lawn Renovation

What makes gardening better than a gym workout is that it happens outdoors with fresh air and sunshine. Whether you are weeding in the downward dug position or going hardcore and slinging backs on soil, a garden delivers the full gym experience, from cardio right down to yoga.

The sugars and vitamins in vegetables begin to decline moments after they are picked, which makes homegrown veggies so full of natural sweetness that the experience of eating them raw may surprise you. Most home-grown crops taste better than store-bought, but no veggie takes this to the next level like sweet peas.

These are some of the health benefits of gardening. It helps in reducing numerous health and mental illness problems.

Reference

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6600618/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335516301401

https://www.healthline.com/health/healthful-benefits-of-gardening