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Stress Relief How to get started

Better mental health


Why Gardening is Good For Your Heallth

Nutrition Exercise Brain health

2. Two group of people instructed to read indoor and either gardening for 30 miutes 1. Study in the Netherlands- gardening can fight stress even better than other relaing leisure activities. 3. The group that gardened being in better mood than the reading group. Also have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Proves:

Stress Relief Human have a finite capacity for the kind of directed attention required by cellphones, email and this cause irritable, errorproe, distractible and stressed out when the capacity get used up.

Trading Blackberry for balckberry bushes is an excellent way to fight stress and attention fatigue, taylor says as the rhythm of the natural environmental and repetitive, soothing nature af many gardening tasks are all sources of effortless attention.

The breeze blows, things get dew on them, things in flower; the sounds, the smell = all of these draw on that form of attention.

Researchers of University Michigan 1980an= stated that we can replenish ourselves by engaging in involuntary attention an effortless form of attention that we use to enjoy nature.

Help improve depression symptoms.

Study conducter in Norway- people had been diagosed with depression persistent low mood, or bipolar II disorder spent six hours a week growig flowers vegetables.

Better mental health

After three months, half of the participants had experienced a measurable improvement in their depression symptoms. What's more, their mood continued to be better three months after the gardening program ended. The researchers suggest that the novelty of gardening may have been enough to jolt some of the participants out of their doldrums, but some experts have a much more radical explanation for how gardening might ease depression. Christopher Lowry, Ph.D., an assistant professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has been injecting mice with Mycobacterium vaccae, a harmless bacteria commonly found in soil, and has found that they increase the release and metabolism of serotonin in parts of the brain that control cognitive function and mood -- much like serotonin-boosting antidepressant drugs do. Digging in the dirt isn't the same as taking Prozac, of course, but Lowry argues that because humans evolved along with M. vaccae and a host of other friendly bugs, the relative lack of these "old friends" in our current environment has thrown our immune systems out of whack. This can lead to inflammation, which is implicated in a host of modern ills, from heart disease to diabetes to depression. "By reintroducing these bacteria in the environment, that may help to alleviate some of these problems," Lowry says.

Gets you out in the fresh air and sunshine and also gets your blood moving.

A lot different of movements in gardening give you some exercise benefits out of it as well. Said by William Maynard, the community garden program coordinator for the city of Sacramentos Department of parks and recreation.

Gardenign is hardly pumping iron, and unless ypure hauling wheelbarrows of dirt long distances evryday, it probably wont do much for your cardiovascular fitness.

Exercise

"It's not just exercise for exercise itself, which can become tedious," says Katherine Brown, the executive director of the Southside Community Land Trust, a nonprofit that supports community gardens and other urban agriculture in and around Providence, R.I. "It's exercise that has a context, that reinforces the limberness of your limbs and the use of your hands. You've got a motivation for why you want to grip. You're not just gripping a ball, you want to pull a weed."

Digging, planting, weeding and other repetitive tasks that require strength or stretching are excellent forms of low-impact exercise especially for people who find more vigorous exercise a chllenge, such as those who are older, have disabilities or suffer from chronic pain.

As a pleasurable and goal-oriented outdoor activity, gardening has another advantage over other forms of exercise: People are more likely to stick with it and do it often.

Brain health Some research suggests that the physical activity associated with gardening can help lower the risk of developing dementia.

Brain Health

Two separate studies that followed people in their 60s and 70s for up to 16 years found, respectively, that those who gardened regularly had a 36% and 47% lower risk of dementia than non-gardeners, even when a range of other health factors were taken into account. These findings are hardly definitive, but they suggest that the combination of physical and mental activity involved in gardening may have a positive influence on the mind.

The sights, smells, and sounds of the garden are said to promote relaxation and reduce stress.

for people who are already experiencing mental decline, even just walking in a garden may be therapeutic. Many residential homes for people with dementia now have "wander" or "memory" gardens on their grounds, so that residents with Alzheimer's disease or other cognitive problems can walk through them without getting lost.

." Nutrition The food you grow yourself is the freshest food you can eat. And because home gardens are filled with fruits and vegetables, it's also among the healthiest food you can eat. Not surprisingly, several studies have shown that gardeners eat more fruits and vegetables than their peers. "People who are growing food tend to eat healthy," says Brown. "The work that we do here with kids demonstrates it on a daily basis, throughout the seasons

I've watched a lot of cooking and gardening classes with kids," Palmer says. "It's amazing how many of them will try things like radicchio or some kind of unusual green that has a pretty strong flavor, like arugula, and they'll say, 'Wow, this is good.'" Not to mention that homegrown produce simply tastes better. "It's incomparably more delicious to eat something that's fresh," Brown says. Health.com: 11 fresh fruit and veggie recipes

Studies of after-school gardening programs suggest that kids who garden are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables. And they're a lot more adventurous about giving new foods a try, says Anne Palmer, who studies food environments as the program director of Eating for the Future, a program based at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Center for a Livable Future, in Baltimore.

How to Get Started

You don't need a big backyard or a green thumb to benefit from gardening. If you have very little space or experience, you can start out with just a few houseplants, or you could even try gardening in containers. "You can grow a wonderful crop of cherry tomatoes in nothing more than a five-gallon bucket that you've cleaned really well and put holes in the bottom of," Brown says.

For novices who want to learn the basics of gardening, a huge -- and somewhat overwhelming variety of information is available on the Web and in bookstores. But one of the best ways to g started is to meet some other gardeners, who can be found in local garden clubs and commun gardens in just about any town or city.
For some great gardening tips, just start up a conversation with one of the gardeners next time you are passing by a community garden. "Most will love to share their gardening savvy," Brown says. "That's a really nice way to start."

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