Every spring my husband, Shahrouz Aliabadi, cannot wait to put in a garden. Tomato, cucumber, eggplant and pepper are the staples of our plot. The Georgia climate bodes well for a plentiful supply of organic veggies all summer and into the fall. Gardening has become a spiritual ritual for my husband who loves to commune with nature. He claims to get a great sense of peace and satisfaction from watching these small plants flourish and tending to their success. Gardeners like my husband reap many benefits from their gardening hobby.
Gardening obviously has benefits for the body from the aerobic and physical exercise, which benefits the muscles and bones, as well as the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. Gardening can help improve strength, endurance and flexibility helping to prevent things like heart disease, obesity, diabetes and osteoporosis.
Gardeners also tend to eat more fruit and vegetables than non-gardeners, even if they don’t grow the produce themselves. Fruit and veggies are essential components of a healthy diet and organic gardens provide an even healthier intake without chemicals and pesticides.
According to Dianne Murphy-Rodgers’ article, “Health Benefits of Gardening,” she stated, “Added to this is the fact that physical exercise releases endorphins, which help to alleviate stress and its negative results. Studies have shown that simply being in a garden lowers blood pressure. A healthy dose of gardening will also stimulate the appetite and foster a good night’s sleep.”
The mental benefits of gardening are described similarly to those of meditation. A WebMD article stated, “One reason nature may be so successful at reducing stress is that it puts the mind in a state similar to meditation, according to Clare Cooper Marcus, MA, MCP, professor emerita from the University of California at Berkeley, and one of the founders of the field of environmental psychology. ‘When you are looking intensely at something, or you bend down to smell something, you bypass the [analytical] function of the mind.’ You naturally stop thinking, obsessing, worrying. Your senses are awakened, which brings you into the present moment, and this has been shown to be very effective at reducing stress, says Marcus drawing on her own observations.”
My husband seemed to unknowingly unlock the secret of gardening for years. As he cultivates his garden, he is actually also tending to his soul.
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