Gardening Lowers Stress, Anxiety, and Depression – Even if You Haven’t Gardened Before



Many seasoned gardeners will tell you that their favorite place to be is in the garden. A recent study found that many people, including those who have never gardened before, may benefit from dealing with plants.

In a study that was published in the journal PLoS ONE, researchers from the University of Florida found that gardening activities decreased stress, anxiety, and melancholy in healthy women who took twice-weekly gardening instruction. None of the study participants had ever cultivated a garden.

"Previous research has demonstrated that gardening can help persons with medical issues or difficulties enhance their mental health. According to Charles Guy, the study's lead author and a professor emeritus in the UF/IFAS environmental horticulture department, gardening can improve the mental wellbeing of healthy people as well.

The report was co-authored by an interdisciplinary group of researchers from the UF Wilmot Botanical Gardens, the UF Center for Arts in Medicine, the UF College of Medicine, and the environmental horticulture department. The UF Wilmot Botanical Gardens served as the venue for the study treatment sessions.

There were 32 women in the research, ages 26 to 49. All of them were in excellent health, which meant that they had undergone screenings for factors including cigarette usage, drug abuse, and chronic health conditions, as well as received prescriptions for anxiety or depression medications. Half of the volunteers received gardening tasks, and the other half received painting assignments. For eight weeks, both groups met twice a week. The gardening group was used as a benchmark in comparison to the art group.

"Art and gardening are both utilized therapeutically in medical settings, and both include planning, learning, creativity, and physical activity. According to science, they are therefore more equivalent than, say, gardening and bowling or gardening and reading, Guy said.

Participants in the gardening classes learned how to select and plant seeds, transplant various plant species, and harvest and taste edible plants. Participants in the art-making courses picked up skills in collage, printmaking, drawing, and papermaking.

A set of evaluations evaluating mood, stress, anxiety, and depression were performed by participants. The study's findings revealed that both groups who engaged in gardening and creative endeavors had improvements in their mental health over time, with gardeners expressing a modest decrease in anxiety.

The researchers were nonetheless able to show proof of what medical doctors would refer to as the dose effects of gardening, or how much gardening someone has to do to notice changes in mental health, despite the relatively small number of participants and the length of the trial.

Guy stated that "larger-scale investigations may reveal more regarding the relationship between gardening and alterations in mental health." "We think that this research holds potential for mental health, the use of plants in medicine, and public health. It would be wonderful to see other researchers build their studies off of our findings.

Therapeutic horticulture, often known as gardening for health and welfare, has been a concept since the 19th century.

But why do we feel better when we are around plants? The authors of the study suggest that the significance of plants in human evolution and the development of civilization may hold the key to the solution. We may have a natural attraction to plants as a species because we rely on them for food, shelter, and other necessities of life.

The researchers observed that many study participants left the trial with a newly discovered passion, whatever the deeper causes may be.

At the conclusion of the experiment, several of the participants expressed their desire to continue gardening in addition to how much they had loved the sessions, Guy added.

By UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 

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