Many people imagine gardening as a tedious activity one could endorse in their free time. However, the truth's completely different. Gardening has far too many benefits to be dull or boring. Not only will it boost your health, but you'll have some fun, too. Not to mention that you'll enjoy the fruits of your labor in the best possible manner. Also, making a garden on raw land is one of the best things you can do and one of the top uses for raw land in general. Today, we'll focus on the "health" part. In other words: we'll show you the seven ways a garden on your land will improve your health. Once you're done reading this text, you'll have an idea of why gardening is such a fantastic activity!
#1 Physical exercise
There is no such thing as gardening from your couch or something similar. You have to really get your hands dirty and do some good work to maintain it. It's a great physical exercise that most people wrongly don't see as such. As we're sure you know, any form of physical activity has some benefits you'll be able to see pretty soon. For instance, there's a good chance that you'll notice how your sleep has changed for the better. Also, you might even see some weight loss since gardening will help you burn some calories. For example, when you're storing gardening equipment. Carrying all that gardening equipment to storage to protect it adequately is a thing of its own. All in all: don't ignore the "physical" side of caring for your garden.
Never underestimate the value of physical exercise that goes hand in hand with gardening.
#2 The valuable lessons of gardening
Needless to say, there are a lot of things you can learn from gardening. To phrase it differently: once you introduce gardening to your life, you'll become a better person. Looking for some examples? Here they are:
- Gardening will teach you acceptance. Even though you can do a lot to make your garden more resistant to all types of damage, Mother Nature will beat you in the end (if that's her wish, of course).
- Gardening will help you tame your perfectionism. There isn't such thing as a perfect garden, as you'll find out pretty early in your gardening adventure.
#3 It will help you steer clear of diseases
Did you know gardening equals spending a lot of time outside, surrounded by fresh air, and out in the sun? Just like your plants will need those very same conditions to grow, you'll also have some health benefits from this. Via sunlight, you absorb vitamin D! Here's another interesting fact: spending about half an hour in the sun each day will produce 8-50k IU of vitamin D. You'll want to know that vitamin D is essential to our bodily functions. It strengthens your immune system and helps keep your bone health in check. Also, research studies have shown that many forms of cancer can be prevented, among other things, by healthy vitamin D intake. It dramatically reduces their development risk. A quick disclaimer: overexposure to sunlight isn't good; check the UV index and use your trusty sunscreen before getting down to work on your garden.
#4 Therapy time
Gardening has proved to be a great therapeutic activity for many recovering from various ailments. Enjoying the natural process of growing plants does wonders for our brains. It will keep you focused. That's right, keeping your thoughts focused on one thing over time can be excellent. In other words, your land will improve your health in the long run. The color green is nature's stress-relief medication; all that green will calm you down (aside from making your yard more eco-friendly and verdant). Studies have shown that plants boost our endorphin levels. Creating a garden on your land guarantees a stress-free zone you can enjoy anytime you want.
Gardening will help you battle the stress of everyday life.
#5 Gardening helps protect memory in old folks
During the past few decades, there has been debate about whether gardening can boost specific cognitive skills such as memory. Today, we know that gardening and gardening-related activities might influence growth in our trusty brain's memory-related centers. Korean researchers wanted to discover the impact gardening has on our mental activity, so they experimented with this. They've given some gardening activities that lasted about 20 minutes to folks with dementia. Once the test subjects planted and raked in vegetable gardens, the scientists noticed some positive activity in their brain's memory centers, both males and females. Another study in 2014 proved the same thing.
#6 Gardening boosts mood and self-esteem
Another set of studies has shown that gardening significantly boosts mood and self-esteem. Your anxiety levels will considerably drop by spending time inside your garden, whether working or just chilling. There was research published ten years ago. People with depression were given something you'd call a gardening intervention over twelve weeks. Once the whole thing was over, researchers measured certain aspects of their mental life (including depressing symptoms) and found that all of them had significantly improved. Here's the most interesting fact: the test subjects were examined a couple of months after the whole experiment was over, and the results were still there.
Various studies have proved that gardening is a solid mood booster
#7 Increased sociability
Last but not least, we'll look into the social side of this human activity on our list of seven ways a garden on your land will improve your health. There's probably no need to mention this, but having a garden will significantly boost your social life. Spending quality time with your friends surrounded by the fruits of your labor sounds like the perfect afternoon. The better your social life, the better your mental picture.
The bottom line
These are the seven ways a garden on your land (that you can buy here) will improve your health. Now you're well aware of the facts behind the idea that gardening is one of the best activities you can try out!
