Try gardening as therapy
March 29th 2010 17:22
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From:Times on Line
Green for get-up-and-go. Gardening can reduce your risk of stroke, heart disease and even dementia
The City IT specialist Jane Robertson was earning a small fortune in the pressured world of derivatives markets when she had a breakdown at the age of 27. A spell in a psychiatric hospital followed, then many months “just about existing” in her London flat.
When she signed up to take part in a once-weekly gardening project at Chelsea Physic Garden, it was all she could do to get out of bed to attend. But, three years on, she has passed her horticultural exams and is training to be an arboriculturalist.
“I really wanted to get my life back on track but found it incredibly difficult. Yet I felt a sense of transformation in the garden — it gave me a sense of calm that I hadn’t felt before,” says Robertson, now 32. “I think it was a combination of being outside and having contact with nature. It also helped me to talk about my feelings and difficulties. It was like a door had been held open and I could walk through it on my own.”
Robertson is one of hundreds of people with mental and physical health problems who have been helped by Thrive, the national gardening-as-therapy charity, which will exhibit its first garden at the Chelsea Flower Show in May. Many of the plants will have been grown at the charity’s gardens in Reading and Battersea, southwest London, by people with severe depression or Alzheimer’s disease and those who are recovering from strokes or brain injury or who have learning difficulties.
“There is a massive amount of evidence about the beneficial effects of gardening, ever since the court physicians in the time of the pharaohs used to prescribe walks around the gardens to mentally disturbed royals,” says Nicola Carruthers, the chief executive of Thrive. “But you can have a window box, with one tomato plant, and you will still benefit: that seed needs to be looked after, and by taking responsibility for something you can ultimately take pride in yourself again. We’ve seen people with depression who can’t speak when they come to us, but who have ended up reducing their medication after working in our garden.”
However, we can all benefit from gardening’s unique combination of the physical (fresh air, vitamin D and exercise) and the psychological: the distraction of a purposeful task plus the calming effect of nature. Research has indicated that even looking at nature can result in a fall in blood pressure within five minutes and lower our stress hormones.
Gardening also boosts endorphins, the body’s good-mood chemicals. Other studies have found that an hour of gardening a day reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke and increases bone density more efficiently than aerobics or swimming. One 16-year study in Australia revealed that those who did daily gardening even cut their risk of getting dementia in later life.
“It’s a bit of a cliché to say that gardening is good for you,” says Dr Jo Aldridge, from Loughborough University, who has studied gardening as therapy. “But we were certainly not expecting to see the results that we did: it lifted mood; it was purposeful without being taxing; and it taught new skills. A lot of the people we talked to described it as a bit like the calm brought by meditation. Some said that it should be on prescription — and we found that some forward-thinking GPs were referring patients to gardening projects.”
Professor Michael Hyland, from the University of Plymouth, has a word of warning for the gardening flag-wavers, however: if you think of gardening as a chore you won’t get the benefits. “The big mistake is to think of it as medicine; it’s not. It’s like any hobby, such as pottery or woodwork: if it makes you happy it will make you healthy.”
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Comment by Lester Caudill
Round Politics
I don't have the ability to garden on that scale now, but it is one of the things I enjoy most doing.
It is relaxing, it brings excitement, and a sense of accomplishment. Well I guess my small garden is therapy instead of work now.
Comment by katyzzz
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It's really great to have your comments.
Comment by Wilson Pon
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Comment by katyzzz
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We have gardeners here. That suits me fine.