Ways Gardening Improves Your Health

Being healthy is important. The water we drink, the food we eat, and the amount of exercise we choose to get has a direct correlation to how you feel on a daily basis. One of the ways you can satisfy two of those needs is to have a garden.

Gardens are a great way to improve your health, in more ways than one. Of course, unless you live in an area of the world that has great soil and appropriate weather year round than your gardening activities might be secluded to a certain time of year.

Gardening; image source: pexels.com

Some folks reading this might have access to great weather but not own a yard at all or the one they have may not be conducive to growing a garden. Maybe it’s too shady or just a slab of concrete.

Never fear. The availability of gardening is open to everyone with indoor hydroponic gardens. If you have never heard of a hydroponic or Aerogarden you can check out the details here. These little devices enable folks of all walks of life to keep a garden year round.

Once you start keeping a garden you will find that the health benefits we listed below will infiltrate your life and the positive effects to be astronomical. Let’s get started.

It’s good for Your Brain

In 2006 a group of scientists kept tabs on nearly 3,000 people ranging anywhere from 16 years old to 60. They wanted to find out if gardening had an effect on dementia. The study found that the risk of developing the cognitive disorder to be lowered by nearly forty percent.

Brain; image source: pixabay.xom

Gardening doesn’t just help dementia patients, the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease reported that gardening can help reduce a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s by half.

It Reduces Stress

Keeping a garden can deplete your body of all that stress that the ups and downs of everyday life can have on our bodies and minds. If you can get outside and stick your hands in the dirt you’ll find that you walk away from it feeling far more relaxed and ready for another day.

Image source: pixabay.com

On experiment had one group of subject’s garden for an half an hour while another group read. Afterward they found that both groups were less stressed than when they started their activity but the gardening had a greater impact than reading.

It Lifts Your Mood

You might suffer from anxiety or depression, although it’s obvious that with one comes the other. More and more studies have shown that these types of affliction can be battled with gardening. It keeps the blues away by giving the sufferer a creative outlet in which to work and ends up leaving them satisfied with their accomplishments.

Lifting the mood; image source: pixabay.com

If you have children who tend to be depressed or anxiety helping in the garden could benefit their disability greatly.

You Get Exercise

This especially applies to outdoor gardens when you are lifting bags of soil and digging holes in the ground.

Watering the garden; image source: pexels.com

The simple act of keeping your garden will force you to use muscles in your body that you haven’t used in a while, unless you are one of those people who is devoted to working out every part of your body.

You Get Vitamin D

Another benefit to an outdoor garden is the sunshine that you obtain when you are out in the yard. Of course, too much sun is no good so be sure to wear your sunscreen. Still, as protected as we need to keep ourselves from the harmful rays of the sun, it isn’t good to avoid it altogether.

Milk, a source of Vitamin D; image source: pexels.com

Getting some sun on your skin is good for your mood, your health, and your bones. This is all do to the vitamin D that is supplied by the sunlight. Of course, there are other ways to get your daily dose of vitamin D, which are the vegetables you are growing in your garden.

It Helps You Sleep Better

All of that great exercise and sunlight will have an even greater impact on the way you sleep at night, which also has a direct connection with how you feel when you wake up.

Cat sleeping; image source: pexels.com

Folks who toss and turn at night don’t get the opportunity for their bodies and minds to repair themselves, which can lead to all kinds of health problems. Working in a garden regularly will tire you out and enable you to catch that must needed rest.

You Eat Better

When you bring in a bounty of vegetables you are forced to eat them. No one wants to spend time working in a garden only to have the produce rot or given away.

Vegetables from the garden; image source: pexels.com

When you grow a garden you are making sure your kitchen is constantly filled with fresh herbs, fruits, and vegetables.

This way you eat healthier and so does your family.

Conclusion

These are only a few ways in which gardening can help you be an all-around healthy person. After you read them it’s amazing how, like our bodies, everything we do affects another.

Our health is so intertwined with our actions it’s amazing. So get your garden started and set out on the health track of a lifetime.

About author:
This article was contributed to healthiack.com by a guest author.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here