Gardening is one hobby that no one regrets having. Planting fruits and vegetables can fill your dining table with luscious treats while growing flowers can make your front yard an eye-pleasing delight. But those are just the obvious benefits of gardening. There are many other positives underneath this visible layer, specifically associated with your health.
Growing and caring for plants is an extremely healthy hobby and has a bunch of good effects on your well-being. Many people have taken up this hobby during COVID-19 as a way to tackle the lockdown and lack of social activities. They’ll all tell you only good things about it and how happy they are with the decision of taking it up. So gather up your shovels and tools and get ready to transform your front porch. Here’s how working with plants will benefit your health in the long run:
1. Burns your calories
Gardening is an exercise in itself with moderate intensity. You can burn approximately 330 calories in a one-hour session of light gardening or yard work. This will help you stay physically fit and serve as an alternative for brisk walking. So if you want to lose weight or reduce your BMI (body mass index), gardening can be specifically helpful to you. Tending to your plants for a few hours spread around the day or for even one long session will burn a lot of calories for you.
2. Reduces stress
Gardening can help in minimizing symptoms of anxiety and depression. A meta-analysis on the health benefits of gardening suggests that it is contact with nature that has a long-lasting and deep impact on health and directly tackles depression and stress.
Gardening puts your mind to work and sets a goal for it, distracting it from all the other depressing realities. Seeing your plants grow and thrive provides you confidence and gives you a sense of control when you might feel helpless. Also, learning a new skill is a great feeling that satisfies your mind to an extent that reduces stress.
3. Can help lower your blood pressure
Digging and planting seeds and tending to them are physical activities that have a strengthening effect on your heart. Gardening and raking leaves for 30-45 minutes is a moderate-level physical activity that can prevent and control high blood pressure. Dividing these 30 minutes into shorter periods can also be equally helpful. So it’s a very doable activity that doesn’t require a lot of effort but provides you very important cardiovascular benefits and saves you from related diseases.
In case you do get high blood pressure or any other sickness for an unrelated reason, you should always go to your doctor and immediately get your prescribed meds. Buying prescription drugs can be quite expensive though, especially if you’re in the United States. So it’s a good idea to save money and order from Canadian Pharmacies online. PricePro Pharmacy can provide you top-quality meds while saving up to 80% of your money on a prescription drug.
4. Provides Vitamin D
Spending time outside exposes your skin to sunlight. This causes your body to produce vitamin D. Sunlight even helped older people achieve adequate amounts of vitamin D upon exposure. This vitamin helps in increasing calcium levels in your body that strengthens your bones and immune system. Sunlight may also help lower the risk of several types of cancers; such as breast cancer, prostate cancer, and bladder cancer. But overexposure to sun’s rays has a risk of getting skin cancer. So you should balance that out by applying sunscreen if you plan to stay out for longer periods of time.
5. You can eat home-grown healthy food
Growing vegetables and fruits in your garden provides you fresh produce that hasn’t been through factories and various types of pesticides. Your body needs a specific quantity of necessary nutrients every day in order to stay healthy and reduce the risk of chronic disease. But according to CDC, only 1 in 10 adults in America get enough fruits and vegetables in order to meet that requirement of nutrients. So at least you’ll be that one out of ten people that eats natural and healthy enough food.
A significant side benefit of eating home-grown food is the amount of money you can save compared to buying from your grocery store. You and your children can eat natural for free and try foods that people don’t normally eat, but are more beneficial to health.
6. Builds your confidence
Gardening is a whole skill that can build your self-esteem once you acquire it. You might think that you’re not the right person to grow and take care of living and breathing plants. But once you get into it, digging, weeding, nurturing, and harvesting plants will reap very fulfilling results. You’ll feel a sense of accomplishment as a person who can grow and take care of a small natural ecosystem.
Getting this feeling of achievement for the first time will motivate you to get into this activity more. You wouldn’t want your beautiful little family of plants to weaken or die. So you’ll dedicate yourself to this hobby with fresh confidence in your ability. This confidence will help you out with getting into other skills as well.
7. Strengthens connection with family and community
Gardening provides an opportunity to bond with your family and neighbors. School, community and family gardens are being nurtured everywhere. The human interaction taking place while looking out for plants is always positive and has a sound effect on the well-being of people involved.
This activity provides relaxation and stress relief and is quite suitable to be shared with loved ones, as everyone can partake in it. So it’s a great idea to involve your family and community members in gardening. Working with people of different ages and backgrounds expands your knowledge and social circle.
8. Makes you happier
Spending time nurturing and caring for your plants can help boost your mood. Gardening enhances your quality of life and reduces mood disturbances. You get a different outlook of life as you are growing something green and alive while keeping your hopes high. So gardening will make you an overall happier person by cultivating feelings of creative calm, connection, and empowerment.