Cultivate Your Mind: The Mental Health Benefits of Gardening
It’s National Gardening Week, the theme this year is of course the Coronation but I want to use the week to promote the benefits of gardening to your mental health. Engaging with nature, nurturing plants, and immersing ourselves in the beauty of the outdoors can have a significant positive impact on our mental state (Clatworthy, Hinds, & Camic, 2013).
If you’ve read any of my about section you’ll probably know I’m a keen gardener. I love the unknown of what will happen each season, the certainty that bulbs and blossom will appear (unless the mice have eaten them all!) in spring and the calmness that 5 minutes sat amongst my plants can bring.
Getting Down and Dirty with Stress
Gardening has an incredible ability to relieve stress. A study conducted by Van den Berg and Custers (2011) found that gardening for just 30 minutes can lower cortisol levels, a hormone responsible for stress. By reducing stress, you can improve your overall mental well-being and even lower your risk of stress-related illnesses.
Using gardening to lower your cortisol levels has the added benefit of improving physical health, creating a beautiful place to sit and having a clearer mind. While it’s beneficial in short bursts, chronic elevated cortisol levels can negatively impact cognitive functions, such as memory, attention, and focus (Lupien et al 2007). On the flip side when cortisol levels are reduced, it can lead to a more balanced emotional state, allowing us to concentrate better on tasks and goals. This improved focus can enhance productivity and contribute to overall success in various aspects of life, including work, relationships, and personal growth.
Gardening may be a well researched way to reduce cortisol levels and improve productivity but there are numerous other ways; exercise, sleep, reducing caffeine and meditating are just a few. A lot of my coaching clients use a session to discover and develop ways to focus, reduce stress and feel more balanced, you can book a free introductory session here.
Eating vegetables you’ve grown yourself feels amazing
Connecting with Nature to Foster Mindfulness
Gardening’s super powers continue……it also encourages mindfulness. This is the practice of being fully present in the moment, by focusing on the sensations, sounds, and sights around you. Within gardening this might be the sights and sounds of nature, or the hustle and bustle of the street below your balcony, or a combination of neighbourly sounds, road noise and birds chirping. It’s also the feel of the soil and stones between your fingers, the prick of a thorn or the squeaky feeling of a blade of grass. You might smell petrichor, the scent of flowers or the coffee you’re enjoying while taking a break. This connection with the world helps to ground and centre your mind, reducing anxiety and depression (Maller, Townsend, Pryor, Brown, & St Leger, 2006). Try taking a moment right now and practice mindfulness for 30 seconds (or when you’ve finished reading):
notice 3 or 4 different sounds
can you smell anything?
without searching or trying hard, what colours and shapes can you see
Cultivating Resilience through Gardening
OK OK I know I’m beginning to sound like a crazy plant lady here but gardening really does help with all these things! One of my favourite garden related quotes is from Audrey Hepburn, “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow”. It sums up the benefit, and the growth that we can reap from cultivating a garden, whether that’s a grand estate or a few plants on a windowsill. Gardening can teach us valuable life skills, such as patience, resilience, and adaptability.
If you’ve ever tried to grow something from seed you’ll know that patience is a virtue; put a plant 2 feet too far west and it’s almost died, it’s time to get adaptable and change where you thought it would go. Yes it might be very distressing to loose a plant that you’ve spent months cultivating from seed but it’s temporary and doesn’t have a huge impact on anything so we can learn to manage stress and disappointment in a relatively ‘safe’ environment. These skills are essential for maintaining good mental health, as they help us to cope with life's challenges and overcome adversity (Gross & Lane, 2007).
Tending to plants and observing their growth provides a sense of accomplishment, boosting self-esteem and providing a sense of purpose.
Unearthing the Path to Success
Put simply, gardening is a magic want for your mental health. It offers a range of benefits for your body and mind, from stress reduction to fostering mindfulness and building resilience. By incorporating gardening into your routine, you can cultivate not only a beautiful space but also a healthier, more balanced mind. This improved mental health can lead to improved focus, greater clarity of thought, a boost to your productivity and ultimately more success. So pick up a trowel and some seeds, and start reaping the mental health benefits of gardening today.
References and further reading: Clatworthy, J., Hinds, J., & Camic, P. M. (2013). Gardening as a mental health intervention: a review. Mental Health Review Journal.
Gross, H., & Lane, N. (2007). Landscapes of the lifespan: Exploring accounts of own gardens and gardening. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 27(3), 225-241.
Kingsley, J., Townsend, M., & Henderson-Wilson, C. (2009). Cultivating health and wellbeing: Members' perceptions of the health benefits of a Port Melbourne community garden. Leisure Studies, 28(2), 207-219.
Maller, C., Townsend, M., Pryor, A., Brown, P., & St Leger, L. (2006). Healthy nature healthy people: 'contact with nature' as an upstream health promotion intervention for populations. Health Promotion International, 21(1), 45-54.
Soga, M., Gaston, K. J., & Yamaura, Y. (2017). Gardening is beneficial for health: A meta-analysis. Preventive Medicine Reports, 5, 92-99.
Van den Berg, A. E., & Custers, M. H. G. (2011). Gardening promotes neuroendocrine and affective restoration from stress. Journal of Health Psychology, 16(1), 3-11.
Lupien, S. J., Maheu, F., Tu, M., Fiocco, A., & Schramek, T. E. (2007). The effects of stress and stress hormones on human cognition: Implications for the field of brain and cognition. Brain and Cognition, 65(3), 209-237.