Most of us think that dirt under the fingernails means that someone has poor hygiene but according to scientists that is also a mark of good health. That is because there are so many good bacteria in the soil that we don’t even know about. Those good bacteria are one of the reasons gardening will improve your immune system. It will help you get sick less and your body to be stronger and fight off anything bad.
Gardening Will Help Your Body Fight Many Diseases
We are more like plants than we might realise. Our bodies are also capable of photosynthesis, which is the process where plants turn sunlight into food. What people aren’t aware is that our skin uses the sunlight to create the nutrients that we need better known as vitamin D. There have been so many researchers that have found that only half an hour in the sun will create between 8,000 and 50,000 international units of vitamin D. All depending on how much clothes you have and what colour they are as well as the colour of your skin. What people don’t know is that vitamin D is responsible for hundreds of body functions and straightening your immune system is just one of them. Another fascinating thing that studies have shown is that being in the sun will help lower the risk of developing diseases such as breast, bladder, colorectal cancer, multiple sclerosis as well as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
So many people are just now aware of how important vitamin D is for our bodies. If you are low on vitamin D there is a bigger chance of getting dementia, psoriasis flares and diabetes. Another important thing you are getting from the sun while you are gardening is increased calcium levels which will benefit both your immune system as well as your bones. But these factors have to be balanced out by the risk of skin cancer due to overexposure to the sun. Keep in mind that a little sun goes a long way and that sunscreen is your best friend when you are spending time in the sun.
Gardening Protect Your Memory as You Get Older
Another interesting thing that doctors have found is that exercise will improve the cognitive function of your brain. Even though there is still some debate over if gardening is active enough to shut the growth of the memory-related nerves there is new evidence. Recent researches have proven that the physical activity that is associated with gardening is helping with lowering the risk of developing dementia. There are two separate studies that have proven that people in their 60s and 70s who regularly gardened had up to 47% lower risk of dementia than ones who didn’t do gardening. They even took a wide range of other health factors into consideration. Because dementia is such a life-changing disease, the prevention of it is very important.
Gardening Will Help You Builds Strength, Promotes Sleep as Well as Helps with Maintaining a Healthy Weight
But recently the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that gardening does count as exercise. Activities that are categorized under moderate accessories are things like cutting grass and raking but digging, shovelling and wood chopping can be considered to be vigorous exercises. No matter which ones you do, gardening will use almost every muscle in your body. So, waking up sore after gardening is something to be expected. Studies have also shown that the physical extortion you get from gardening can set weight gain no matter how old you are. Another research has proven that if you do gardening you will be able to get a better night’s sleep.
Gardening Can Act as A Mood Booster
So many studies have been discovering that gardening will improve your mood as well as increase your self-esteem. When you are someone who struggles with anxiety, gardening will help you love the anxiety levels as well as feel less depressed. After years of research, a study has proven that people that struggle with depression really benefit from gardening. After 12 weeks of participating in gardening people who have struggled with mental illness, such as depression and anxiety found that their mental health has improved. But after not gardening for a month their mental health went back to what it was before.
Gardening Will Calm You Down After Stressful Events
As most of us know being physically active after something stressful will help you recuperate. Because of that studies have proven that gardening is one of the best activities for calming down. They have tested stress hormones in people’s bodies and found just how effective gardening is for calming down. There is just something relaxing about using your hose spray guns and looking at the water drizzle on your plants as well as getting all your anger by doing some raking or shovelling.
Gardening Will Help You If You’re Recovering from Addiction
Because Horticultural therapy has been around for a very long time it is not a big surprise that working with plants can help you overcome addiction and make a full recovery. There has been one study where researchers found that plants provoked just positive feelings in people who are struggling with recovering from addiction. In another study people who were given the opportunity to partake in a natural recovery program were given the choice of picking from the art of gardening therapy. Those who chose gardening have completed their rehab program at a much higher rate and had a better experience than ones who chose art.
Family and Community Gardens Will Promote the Feeling of Connection
There is a reason why there are so many schools, family and community gardens. A lot of people aren’t aware that those gardens are flourishing because people there are working together and connecting with both plants and each other. One study has proven that those who participated in taking care of a garden in school learned things like forming relationships and having a sense of well-being as well as how to take care of a living thing.
Gardening Will Increase Your Hand Coordination and Strength
Having a powerful and firm grip is more than being able to go rock climbing or intimidating people when shaking their hand. But if you think about it a bit more, you need to have a powerful grip to do all the daily tasks. You need it for opening jars, picking up children or heavy boxes. Gardening is the perfect combination of developing fine motor skills and engaging all of your muscles. But you have to be careful because if you overdo it you can strain your muscles and end up hurting yourself. But working in a garden is something that will provide many benefits for people of all ages.
Gardening Helps You Burns Calories
What many people just don’t realise is that gardening can be quite a hard workout. Even if you do little things for one hour you will burn up to 330 calories. But if you garden for three hours you can easily burn as many calories as you would working out in a gym for an hour. You can burn that many calories by doing the thing that you would normally do in garden synch as raking leaves, mowing the lawn or even trimming hedges. That is why professionals recommend doing 30-45 minutes of gardening up to five days a week.
Gardening Will Help You with Nutrition
When you are planting your own produce, you will eat more if it is right in your backyard. On top of it being right next to you at all times, there is no vegetable that will be fresher and filled with more nutrients than those in your backyard. That is also why plant-based diets have so many health benefits. There is nothing more pleasing than eating things that you grew by yourself.
Gardening Will Lower the Heart Health and Stroke Risk
As we have said before gardening will provide you with moderate exercising and if you do it for about two and a half hours it will provide you with so many amazing benefits. A study has shown that doing gardening regularly will lower your chances of getting a stroke or any kind of heart disease up to 30 per cent for people who are over 60. They have also found out that if you have raised beds you will be able to save your joints as well as make the whole gardening experience more comfortable. But in order to experience only the benefits of gardening, you will also need to pay attention to things such as when you are going out and avoid getting sunburned. It is really important to be aware of how long you are spending outside because you want only the benefits of the sun. By getting vitamin D you are rescuing the risks of getting osteoporosis, cancer and heart disease. People who have low vitamin D levels are more likely to develop heart disease. All you will need to do in order to lower your chances of developing heart disease you will need to do at least thirty minutes a day of gardening.
Gardening Will Decrease the Chance of Osteoporosis
As we have mentioned before, gardening will lower your chances of osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is a disease that will make your bones weak and make them much easier to break. That is why gardening is so amazing because you are doing repetitive tasks which will make your major muscle groups get a good workout. That is what helps you decrease the risks as well as getting a daily dose of vitamin D.
Gardening is truly a magical thing. You are not only getting the exercise you are also growing your own food and saving the environment. When you are harvesting, digging and hauling things around your yard you are making your immune system stronger by experiencing all different benefits of gardening.
