TIPS ON HOW TO MINIMIZE STRESS BY GARDENING

Relieve & Minimize Stress

As outlined by a short article by Laura Drotleff from Greenhouse Grower Magazine in February, 2016, “Gardening is a stress-buster and offers an ideal break from technology.” She discussed that once our opportunity to focus on our technologies reaches up to a saturation point, we are more vulnerable to blunders, distractions, and emotional stress. She states this attention fatigue is often reversed by participating in a new type of attention, named “involuntary attention”, as opposed to the hassle and stress-filled forced attention necessary to fully understand technologies. These replenishing kinds of of attentions are the type we usually use to enjoy nature. Therefore, relieve and minimize stress by gardening.

Reduce & Minimize Stress Through Gardening

She goes on to proclaim, “Gardening may be even a more effective stress buster than other leisure activities.” She noted a study carried out in the Netherlands (as reported by CNN) which contributes to our understanding of precisely how much gardening plays a role in our peace and contentment. Groups of students that had just finished a stressful task were then divided into one group that did some recreational gardening and another group that did some recreational reading. The group that gardened were then found to have “lower levels of cortisol, the stress hormone.” Objective proof that gardening reduces stress! An excellent illustration of how gardening helps relieve stress would be the story of my mother. When my father was in his late 70s he had a huge stroke, which left him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life and could not take care of his garden (that had been legendary). My mother’s life utterly changed from having the role of wife to now having the role of full-time nurse as my father was totally dependent on her. My mother learned to love my father’s garden as it became her sanctuary as well as a place of solace. Her garden was thought of as holy ground, and she was the new master of it. Though she continued to grow similar vegetables my father grew, she offered the garden her own master’s touch by mixing roses, irises and daisies in between the mounds and rows. After my father died, the garden went on to help my mother by giving her the chance to cope, conquer depression, and giving her strength in body, mind and spirit.

The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul. Alfred Austin