Planting your own flowers and vegetables means you can have decorations for the table and healthy food. But, there are other ways that gardening can benefit your life, specifically your health.
Reasons Why Gardening Is Healthy For You
- Self-Esteem: It feels good to accomplish things, and gardening fits nicely into these accomplishments. Creating, planting, nurturing, and harvesting can make you feel good about yourself. When you are happy, you are healthier.
- Heart Health: Gardening gets you moving and any activity that burns calories and increases blood circulation supports your heart.
- Lower Stress: Being outdoors in the fresh air and sun naturally increases your mood. Additionally, tending to plants gives you something to focus on and serves as a distraction from daily stressors. Watching plants grow and thrive also reinforces the positivity in life so gardening can help reduce both anxiety and depression.
- Hand Strength: Digging, planting, pulling weeds, and other gardening tasks will increase your hand strength. This fun and simple activity also help keep your hand and wrist joints strong which can help prevent arthritis in your hands.
- Happiness: Being outdoors boosts your mood and the sunlight increases vitamin D and serotonin in your body. It also feels good to get in the dirt and dig around like when you were a kid. Plus, there are also types of soil bacteria that have been shown to increase serotonin and reduce anxiety.
- Family Fun: Gardening is great for individuals but even better when the whole family gets involved. Make a day of it with friends and family, sharing the fresh air and the harvests. When you share this with loved ones, you relieve stress and increase happiness. Gardening is also great for kids, getting them outside and engaged and they learn the responsibility of taking care of something. Plus early exposure to dirt can help reduce allergies and boost immune health.
- Eat Healthier: When you grow your own veggies, you eat better. There are no risks of pesticides or other potentially harmful chemicals when you are in charge of your own garden. You get fresh, cheap, delicious vegetables (and fruit) anytime you want. And organic foods are better for your overall health.
Conclusion
One of the best parts of gardening is that it can be done year-round. There are plants, shrubs, fruits, and vegetables that can be grown for each season. So plan your garden carefully to keep the bounty coming all year. Not only will you get beautiful flowers and plants and healthy food, but your happiness and health levels will be elevated too.
