BY KATRINA HALL
Gardens and gardening make us feel better – that’s a fact. Anxiety, bereavement, stress and serious injury: real-life issues that can be devastating. Yet gardening has come to the rescue for many people confronted by these challenges.
Gardening boosts your mental and physical health in a variety of ways. Being outside, watching and listening to the calming sounds of nature can lower blood pressure and levels of the stress hormone cortisol whilst focusing on plants and gardening helps distract from negative thoughts.
The physical exercise from gardening can help to release endorphins, the body’s natural pain relief, helping you feel happier and relaxed, Vitamin D levels from the sun can also help with seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
Five reasons why gardening is good for you:
- Improves your mood
- Calms your stress and anxiety levels
- Gets you fitter and more active
- Provides a sense of purpose and responsibility
- Sense of achievement and self-confidence
At the age of 37, Lynn Heslop underwent surgery and subsequent recuperation not knowing if her test results would be benign or not. During this period gardening became her solace. She said,” I started to realise that my garden was one of the first things that I thought of in a morning and I wanted to get out of bed and go outside to see what had changed overnight. Had my seedlings emerged, was the first flower out on the delphiniums for example. I started to take notice of the smell of newly cut grass and the birds that visited my garden each day. I remember noticing the fresh look of a garden after a long awaited rain shower.”
Gardening can provide a sense of purpose too. Caring and nurturing for a living thing, watching it grow and thrive provides a sense of achievement and boosts self-confidence. Lynn decided to change career in order to keep experiencing this new found pleasure every day and enrolled to study on an RHS Level 2 Certificate in Horticulture to challenge herself and move forward after her traumatic experience. She said “On the course I met so many inspirational people that shared a passion to learn about gardening and they had their own stories for being there too”.
If you are interested in improving your gardening skills for pleasure or career change, then the RHS offer Practical and Theory courses which can be studied on a part-time basis. See the website for more details and approved centres where you can learn. rhs.org.uk/qualifications