Gardening For Health and Wellness

Gardening For Health and Wellness

We all love fresh produce from the garden, but did you know that gardening also produces a whole host of health benefits for our minds and bodies.  These benefits can ultimately reduce the cost of our health care!

Gardening can improve your mental and physical health!

* In studies, gardening is shown to significantly help to reduce stress, depression, physical pain, and improve sleep. Simply viewing plant-life reduces peoples stress and boosts recovery times from illness. But working to grow plants, and getting to touch, smell, taste and feel them on a weekly basis creates a raft of positive effects in our brains and bodies.

* Even just touching soil can boost our health! The microbes present in healthy soil are the same microbes that our bodies need to function completely. In today’s world, many of us don’t get enough exposure to these little helpers on a regular basis. But when we garden, we encounter them. Studies demonstrate how this probiotic effect can increase our mood through serotonin creation, and has been likened to a natural anti-depressant!

* Growing food is empowering.  Gardening requires care, attention and responsibility. Gardening stimulates creativity and brings a sense of accomplishment.
* Gardening is a superstar strategy to manage weight, providing both exercise and healthy produce! Getting enough fresh produce and exercise is also important to prevent cancer and heart disease, and decreases risk for many other chronic diseases.

* Gardening is a great mild exercise that can help increase joint flexibility, fine motor skills, and even burns calories. Gardening movements can also build strength and endurance, to aid physical rehabilitation, and helps to stave off osteoporosis.

And the benefits last…many of these studies show that these effects tend to last, even months after the last gardening activity was done!

Community Gardening has even more benefits!

Community gardening provides a great opportunity for social connection, which is a key factor in our happiness and health: Our social connectedness actually influences our blood pressure, immune responses, our stress levels and our rates of chronic illness.  Community gardeners are also more likely to eat more vegetables even than home gardeners. Most of all, community gardening is FUN…Come garden with the Hub!

We are looking to host a Gardening For Therapy Club.  If you are interested in participating, please contact Kendra