Gardening Benefits for Mind and Body: Why It's the Perfect Activity for Health and Wellness
What’s your new years resolution?
As seen in Tunbridge Wells Business Magazine January 2025
Join the gym, be more sociable, give up alcohol, rekindle old friendships, learn how to play the piano, book a holiday, just get fit!
After all those Christmas dinners and parties I suspect a lot of us will be looking to shed a few pounds! Probably the best and most rewarding resolution could be to re-engage with the garden.
It’s a physical and mental work-out that most gyms would struggle to compete with, a place that rewards your labours with delightful vistas and experiences, and an experience that reconnects you with nature and relieves all that tension and stress we all build up in the working week.
what are you waiting for?
January is a great time to start.
Here are some things you could be focusing on . . . .
Give the garden a good tidy up, clear any tree debris and leaves that have gathered over the late autumn and winter. They’ll be lying on your lawn and littering the borders.
Cut back, or better still dig up any ingress of brambles or nettles that have found their way into your garden from the neighbours, or the adjoining countryside.
Sweep the terrace and pathways.
Spike the lawn with a fork to improve drainage, and brush lawn sand into the holes.
Cut back old leaves and dead growth from perennials and oriental grasses taking care not to damage any new shoots.
Dig over and weed your borders ( taking care not to disturb any bulbs) ready for the new season and any new planting.
Clean up your pots and tools ready for Spring
Book the lawn mower in for a blade sharpen and service and check over any other powered tools.
If you have a vegetable garden area consider covering the freshly dug over ground with polythene to help warm the soil ready for your new planting.
Repair any fencing, gravel board edging, or worn pathways.
Tackling just a few of these challenges should get the heart racing and muscles burning!
What a great start to 2025.
Keeping active and engaged in the garden will boost your fitness and improve your wellbeing. Experts suggest that gardening can be a great alternative to joining the gym and it costs zero! The more time you spend in the garden the fitter you get.
It works on all your major muscle groups and helps stimulate the heart.
Combined with a calorie controlled diet, it can help you shed pounds.
You’ll be amazed how much your step count increases, in just one day last August mine increased from a sedentary 3,000 to over 10,000 steps a day in our garden.
Walking around the garden is key factor in the improved physical effects. It keeps you on the move.
Various gardening tasks help improve flexibility and build muscle strength. By stretching, bending, lifting, pulling and pushing you engage all the core muscle groups. So next time you reach for the weeds or extend a rake remember you are stretching!
Back in the greenhouse sowing seeds help improve concentration and your dexterity.
Pushing the mower around, or a wheelbarrow full of soil will increase your heart rate and help build your stamina.
Gardening helps with your mental wellbeing. It allows you to focus on the task in hand, thus increasing mindfulness.
It takes you away from the day to day work pattern and stress, working at computer screens, driving in traffic, and routine work related tasks.
It has a positive effect on mood and evidence suggests that people who spend more time outdoors suffer less from chronic diseases and therefore live longer.
It can be a sociable activity, with tasks and garden projects shared with family and friends.
If you have a shared garden, or better still allotment it can be a way of making new friends.
So engaging with the garden this year can have a really positive effect on both your mind and body, so why don’t you make a resolution get out there, start digging, and discover the gym on your back doorstep!