I enjoy gardening. Full-on: lawns, hedges, pruning, sowing, planting ... I don't use the fashionable and ubiquitious phrase "mental-health'.
But what's so special about gardening? I do other things: painting, cooking, eating, drinking, talking to real people, dog-walking ... Anything with an exercise component that uses ones brain (mindfulness?) does similar.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
I think it depends on your attitude to gardening and your garden. For some, gardening is a constant battle against nature, trying to achieve a neat, tidy garden that involves neither pest nor effort. This can't be good for mental health. However, a relaxed , laissez -faire (ish) attitude coupled with a genuine interest, certainly could be.
I would love to see the evidence that eating and drinking were good for your mental health. The evidence that gardening is good for your mental health, is overwhelming. In good trials, for mild to moderate depression, it is at least as good as antidepressants.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
My understanding of the theory is that gardening involves trusting in the future and planning for it … taking action (sowing seeds, planting etc) that involves looking forward rather than dwelling on the past and present.
Its effect on our mental health is so much more than simply ‘taking exercise’.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Whether it is good for your Mental Health or not can depend on your age and mobility. Enjoying gardening for 50 years or so and then finding that you cannot do a lot of the needed tasks is frustrating in the extreme. If you have little or no help for whatever reasons, it can be more depressing/upsetting than giving you that "feel good" factor. Getting outside is good - getting outside and often only being aware of what you can't manage is not so good.
@philippasmith2 absolutely right Philippa, was a time I would be out there from 7 - 7, everything grown from seed and cuttings, 200 Fuchsias, 50+ tubs, 25 hanging baskets, all that has stopped, now it’s just a nightmare.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
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is this on the right thread?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
But what's so special about gardening? I do other things: painting, cooking, eating, drinking, talking to real people, dog-walking ... Anything with an exercise component that uses ones brain (mindfulness?) does similar.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
For some, gardening is a constant battle against nature, trying to achieve a neat, tidy garden that involves neither pest nor effort. This can't be good for mental health. However, a relaxed , laissez -faire (ish) attitude coupled with a genuine interest, certainly could be.
The evidence that gardening is good for your mental health, is overwhelming. In good trials, for mild to moderate depression, it is at least as good as antidepressants.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Enjoying gardening for 50 years or so and then finding that you cannot do a lot of the needed tasks is frustrating in the extreme. If you have little or no help for whatever reasons, it can be more depressing/upsetting than giving you that "feel good" factor.
Getting outside is good - getting outside and often only being aware of what you can't manage is not so good.
Luxembourg