Can gardening improve your mood? Some say it does. It’s called Horticulture therapy and its been used to help people in all sorts of situations — from prisons to care centers.

“It’s true that gardening may help reduce stress and enhance well being. Gardening (and gardens) can be a retreat, a haven and a source of comfort and renewal. It can help whether you are dealing with the stress of everyday life or a traumatic event or illness.”

Here are the ways gardens can be helpful for breaking depression, lifing your mood, or helping you feel more optimistic.

If you live alone – like many elderly do – you may need someone or something to take care of. Plants respond to care – they grow. In the case of growing vegetables you also get a reward for your work – healthy food to eat. This can help you feel competent and useful. It can also be very satisfying to be part of the process of starting from a seed and watching something grow into food.

It might be from being outdoors or maybe it’s the work but gardening can help relieve feelings of anxiety and anger. Sometimes it’s just the feeling of something bigger than yourself that helps. Gardening in groups are a good way to build community and the exercise is also benefitial.

My uncle finds a lot of satisfaction helping with his local community garden. It brings refugee families together to become more self-sufficient and strengthen ties. It helps him feel needed and that he’s doing something good. All these things are helpful and I can’t help but think of how just being unplugged from TV, iPods, the computer and everything else we have running is good. It causes us to slow down and be in the moment. It can be healing.

“Several small studies suggest that hospital patients who either had access to scenic views or gardens or had plants and flowers in their rooms recovered from surgery more quickly and have less pain and anxiety than those without such access.”

If you’re not sure where to start, look for gardening clubs or register for training through your government extension service.

Read the original article:  Smell the roses: how gardening can improve your health article on myOptumHealth.com

Related articles by Zemanta

• Gardening Tip: Plant Tomatoes Early with Wall o’ Water (rubberecycle.com)