The Great Outdoors & Mental Health

When it comes to mental health, there are a lot of things that you can do to try and maintain a delicate equilibrium and improve your health in general. Gardening is one of those things. It doesn’t matter if you have a more extensive garden, and allotment that needs tools and extras like something from https://www.fertilizerdealer.com/ or a smaller little plot, you can get great benefits. Regular gardening can reduce high blood pressure, improve overall fitness levels and reduce depression and anxiety.

But what else can you get from gardening?

Therapy

Green therapy is a big deal now, and in fact, for many years the act of merely walking in green open spaces improves your mood. Instead of focusing on the things that are making us worry, like bills, work stress, relationship worries – you can get busy. Weeding, turning the soil, chopping wood, winding up rods and of course watering your plants give you something else to focus on for a while.

By encouraging you to live in the moment, and look to the future, you won’t be continually looking to the past for answers. Mindfulness is often associated with a sense of peace and calm, gardening is the perfect way to cultivate that. You will be in tune with the seasons, both for growing and consuming. You will be among the flowers and birds almost every day, tending to your own crops – and there is a lot of peace to be found there.

Ever had a day you are so frustrated you’d like to throw a cup? Or shout into a pillow? Well, how about taking the shovel and digging up some mud. You can vent the same frustrations but in a very controlled and positive way.

Control

Something that can cause a lot of frustration and anxiety is the lack of control we might feel we have in everyday life. However, you have a straightforward control over everything that happens in your garden. You can plant seeds, arrange the patches of vegetables as you see fit, decide how tall the vines of tomatoes can grow and you choose when everything is picked and eaten. The satisfaction you can get from a garden that is growing in the exact way you have designed can be significant.

You’re also be gifted with the feeling of responsibility, but not in the way that you may be used to. Instead, you are directly responsible for maintaining plants. Waters, trimming, repotting, and protecting them from adverse weather conditions.

Health

Got a gym membership that you just aren’t using? Well, cancel it and enjoy your work out in the great outdoors instead. Three to four hours of tending to your garden can be the same regarding calorie burn as an hour at the gym. You will get the same lovely released of the happy hormone – endorphins. Regular exercise is linked to sleeping betters, and when you sleep better, you feel more rested, more rested people have lower blood pressure. To it is a great cycle to get into.