It’s the gardening season!
Gardening is an appreciable activity you can get into during the epidemic. Not only is it good for your physical health but your mental health as well. Did you know that it has been found to relieve stress and strain, and even increase self-esteem? If not, you may not be aware of many more advantages it can offer.
So, here we are listing out the top 5 benefits that might convince you to get involved in gardening.
1. Promotes your immune system
- The exposure to the sunlight you get while gardening makes your body generate Vitamin D. It improves bone strength and boosts your resistance to infections and other illnesses.
- Gardening activities will also make you tire out and help you sleep well at night. Getting enough sleep (basically 7-8 hours) helps our bodies to produce antibodies for infection-fighting and important proteins called cytokines, which are necessary for regulating the immune system, sickness, and the formation of blood cells.
- We get all these profits even with short terms of sun contact so remember to take breaks. Rest in a shady area and stay hydrated to avoid heatstroke. Always utilize sunscreen lotions to protect your skin from sunburn.
2. Prevents stress
- The combination of physical activity, natural environment, and cognitive stimulation elevates your emotions and reduces stress. And of course, who can get sad spending time with beautiful flowers and everything just greeny?
- Another factor is a sense of accomplishment after successfully helping plants and flowers. On your mental health, this can have a long-lasting positive effects. If you are prone to depression, experts recommend that you plant a combination of fruits, fragrant flowers, and herbs. This combination nourishes the senses and stimulates thinking.
3. Increases brain health and prevents Alzheimer’s
- Long-term research has found that “daily gardening represents a significant reduction in dementia, reducing the incidence by 36%” (as stated in six unexpected agricultural health benefits, Robin Jacobs).
- While scientists are still learning about this complex disease and how gardening affects its development, they say that it has a positive effect on the brain because it involves many of our critical functions. The garden provides a compilation of strength, endurance, ingenuity, learning, problem-solving, and sensory awareness.
A good gardener must plant indoor plants as well to improve indoor air quality. Here is a list of Top 10 Indoor Plants with Low-maintenance for Clean Air and Decoration
4. Helps in burning calories
This might sound unbelievable, but gardening can really help in burning a lot of calories. You can burn around 300 calories with one hour of basic gardening activities. Moreover, if you spend more time there, the effect can be the same as what you get from gyms in a single hour. Now you will ask why not just spend one hour in a gym instead of spending more on gardening, right? Firstly, no one does gardening to burn calories. It can be seen as a plus point, or say, an extra benefit you get. You can burn down more than 300 calories with simple activities like raking leaves and trimming hedges; no hard work is needed. Secondly, for a working individual, it’s hard to manage time for physical activities and that also away from home. Gardening won’t demand much time and effort but can give you more than it takes.
5. Promotes heart health and reduces the risk of stroke
- Studies claim that regular gardening can actually reduce the chances of heart-related diseases for those adults above 60 years of age.
- It turns out that this type of moderate exercise promotes heart health better than strenuous exercise (such as running) for this age group. However, the garden will suit your heart and mind no matter how old you are. It really strikes having unhealthy isolation habits like staying around all day.
Conclusion
Gardening can offer a lot more benefits than the ones mentioned above. What we find the best is its mind soothing capability. Why? Because this is what everyone needs, i.e., some time away from the hustle and bustle of today’s world. So, if you are having a hard time finding peace within, try out gardening activities. Even if you are a gardener for the first time, that’s a good part cause, what’s the problem with exploring? So, be ready to give a kickstart to this gardening world to avail un-ending benefits.
Good Luck!
