Bo Richardson

What if your backyard could be beautiful while your mental and physical health improves? It seems like a weird correlation and an unlikely proposition, but I am going to explain why gardening is the answer.

It might surprise some people, but gardening can be beneficial to your mental health. Sources say that planting, tending, and harvesting a garden can contribute to lower levels of stress and anxiety. Being involved in a gardening community can also help bring social connection into your life while you grow in gardening knowledge and experience together. Gardens require consistent care, and having routines in life helps us to be structured and can improve mental health.

Additionally, gardening can be beneficial to your physical health. Spending time outdoors has proven to help people breath deeper, and according to mayoclinichealthsystem.org, “This helps to clear out the lungs, improves digestion, improves immune response and increases oxygen levels in the blood.” Gardening is also a quite physically demanding hobby. You have to bend over, dig, plant, lift, kneel, and do many other physical activities which provide you with a great source of exercise. This helps you become stronger, healthier, more flexible, and have better balance. Growing your own food and becoming knowledgeable in the science behind the food you grow can help improve your nutrition and diet as well.

While gardening can be very beneficial, it can also be quite difficult and, at times, discouraging. Gardening isn’t just watering and waiting. There are an uncountable amount of variables that play into the success of your crop, and because of this, it is very easy for a plant to fail or die. Not achieving your goal or not successfully growing anything can be very disappointing and discouraging. While I would argue that the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages, I must also mention that gardening, while not always, can be quite expensive. Once you get going, many people will end up saving money through gardening and growing their own produce, but this isn’t always the case, and start-up costs could get a bit hefty for some. Gardening, as mentioned before, can be physically straining. As much as this could benefit you, it could also hurt you in certain circumstances, and most people just don’t consider the physical demands of gardening.

Overall, gardening is an amazing hobby with a wide range of mental and physical benefits that I would heavily recommend to absolutely anyone.