Garden for Your Mental Health

What was that? You thought gardening was just about growing yummy plants that you can eat again and again? Gardening is actually great for both your mind and your stomach. When you plant a garden, you can literally grow your own happiness.

(Prefer to listen? Check out this episode on the Grow Your Self podcast here.)

Before I go any further, I want to say that if you are struggling with harmful thoughts, with suicidal thoughts, or with serious depression, don't be ashamed about it and please, please reach out for help. The Suicide Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. Please stop right now and call them to get help. Don't do anything that would keep you from growing with us tomorrow. 

Gardening Mental Health Benefits in a Busy World

We all have our ups and downs, and we all have days where our thoughts are challenging and hard to control. I've had my ups and downs in my own life, too. But it seems that so many of us have been struggling more since the pandemic.

The garden can be part of the healing that our minds need in this current day and age. 

I'd like to share an excerpt from my book, Kitchen Garden Revival:   

Why kitchen garden? Mental health is quickly becoming the key indicator of overall wellbeing—depression, anxiety, stress, and burnout are all serious in themselves, but those challenges are also linked to cancer, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

Our minds and bodies are connected in ways we're just starting to understand, and in this fast-paced and demanding world, we've got to find ways to slow down, reconnect with nature, and care for ourselves again. When you learn to grow yourself, you literally grow your self. The biggest reason to have a kitchen garden is for your happiness.

Stepping outside into the garden each day has been proven to help do just that. And there is no more practical way to push you outside than if the tastiest parts of your dinner are growing right in that spot. You've got to eat anyway, so why not pursue a mindful activity that not only feeds your mind and soul, but also fills your stomach?

A kitchen garden may just be the most practical hobby you can pursue. You'll learn skills, get a little exercise, wake up your senses each time you step outdoors, and return with an armload of fresh food.  

Why Is Gardening Good for You?

I tell people that I sell happiness in a box—a raised bed kitchen garden box full of soil and plants and seeds. It seems like I'm pedaling the garden, but really, what I'm trying to sell is happiness. Deep down, I believe that there is happiness sitting outside your door, waiting for you to grow it yourself.

When most people think about gardening and farming, they view it as something we've outgrown as a society. Think of how many movies you've seen where the protagonist's main goal is to leave the farm behind? I was met with some disdain when I went into the field of gardening. Obviously, we all still want to be able to eat the things that farmers grow, but it's like we believe that once we're educated, we should have a desk job—digging in the dirt would just be a waste of our time and schooling.

I would like to push against that belief. If you look back over the evolution of the human species, it's the cultivation of the ground and the growing of food that really helped us become who we are now. Every time people settled down and began to grow crops right where they lived, that's when their civilizations really began to thrive.

Growing a bit of our own food is a piece of our humanity that we should maintain in some form. I'm not saying we all need to be farmers, or even homesteaders living off the grid and providing all of our own food, but I do think that gardening, even in the smallest container, is vital to our happiness. It's in our DNA to be connected to soil and seeds because it was tied for so long to our survival.

Connecting Yourself to the Food You Eat

I first woke up to this reality when I moved to China and lived in a rural area. I grew up in the throes of the feminist movement, which I'm thankful for, but it meant we had tons of frozen and packaged meals because women were supposed to be getting out of the kitchen. SnackWell's cookies, Frosted Flakes, and Rold Gold pretzels were my snacks every day after school. I was pretty disconnected from the source of my food throughout my school years. Food was just about opening up the package and taking a bite. 

When I moved to China, I realized that every bite was connected to a physical activity outdoors. In the early morning, villagers awoke and headed outside to gather materials for the fire. They would pick some greens, pull leftovers from the evening before, and start to put together their first meal of the day. By the time they ate, they had already been working for a couple of hours. They labored throughout the rest of the day before it was time to gather the materials for that evening's dinner, which was often a soup made of grains, a bone for flavor, and a wide variety of fresh vegetables. 

This was the first time I saw the connection between physical movement, outdoor time, and fresh harvests for eating. You couldn’t just open a cupboard and take a bite. You couldn't just unwrap a package or head to the store—you had to move your body and gather materials. You had to work before you could eat. Growing your own food not only connects you to what you're eating, it's good for your brain and your body.

I want to show you how just the smallest amount of gardening can do so much good for your head, whoever you are. Here are seven reasons why gardening is good for your mental health.

Gardening Gets You Outside More

We know we need to get outside more, but it's easier said than done. Some psychologists and doctors are even writing their patients "park prescriptions" or "park Rx" for those struggling with mental health or chronic conditions like hypertension and type 2 diabetes. They're not just prescribing medicine. They're saying, "Hey, try getting outside for at least 20 minutes a day.” 

Just 20 minutes outside per day can improve your happiness in spades, and of course, like I said in my book, there's no better reason to step outside than if you have to go out there to get some things for dinner. When I first started gardening and had four young children, stepping outside to harvest some leaves for a dinner salad allowed me space to breathe and come to my senses. I would always feel better after.

There's a reason why they say you need a breath of fresh air, right? 

People Who Spend More Time in Nature Are Healthier Overall

Eco therapy studies the effects of time spent in nature and how it reduces stress, anxiety, and depression. Research continues to find that people who spend more time outdoors are healthier—not just physically, but also mentally. I can relate to this because the years that I struggled most with depression and really hard feelings were the years I spent the most time indoors, mostly with my books and my computer, in college. I also experienced depression again when I had my first children and spent all my time cooped up indoors. I even felt a change during winters in Chicago when I couldn't spend as much time outdoors to clear my mind.

Being outside is therapeutic. Fresh air, sounds from nature—these things can help with people’s blood pressure and cortisol levels. 

And having a garden is one of the best excuses to get outside more.

Gardening Is Exercise

Michael Otto, a professor of psychology at Boston University, said, “People know that exercise helps physical outcomes. There's much less awareness though of the mental health outcomes and much, much less ability to translate this awareness into exercise action. But the link between exercise and mood is very strong. Usually within five minutes after moderate exercise, you're going to get a mood enhancement effect.” 

Exercise releases endorphins, it gets our blood pumping, and those things help our mind feel better. Gardening is a great form of exercise. Don't get me wrong—it’s not going to replace your Orange Theory class or your five-mile run. It's not a high-cardio workout where your heart is pumping and you're sweating. It is a slow form of exercise. 

Gardening is purposeful exercise, so you'll end up doing it for longer than if you were running or doing the elliptical. You're taking care of business, which can help distract you from the physical exercise side. Studies have shown that when people garden, they keep their heart rate moderately high for a much longer period of time than someone who just shows up at the gym for a 30-minute workout.

Studies show that we need to burn about 2,000 calories a week with exercise. I don't know about you, but I'm always discouraged when I go for a run and see that I’ve only burned 200 calories. It's kind of a bummer when you realize how much work you have to do to burn calories, and if you're just doing these short little spurts of aggressive exercise, then you're rarely going to hit your 2,000 calories. However, with the slow burn of garden exercise, you can burn about 300 calories an hour doing things like weeding, trimming, and raking. You'll also build muscle tone.

Our Bodies Are Meant to Move to Find Food

For thousands of years, humans had to move their bodies to eat. Gatherers had to walk miles to find berries; hunters tracked prey through forests. When we spend so much time indoors and put food in our mouths whenever we want, I think a part of our brain says, “Something is wrong here.” We want to feel like we've earned that bite.

I love stepping outside to tend my garden and coming back with a little bit of food.

Gardening Gives You a Sense of Accomplishment 

One of the reasons having a pet makes people happy, according to an article I read, is because they spend so much time nurturing that pet and then they get to watch that pet thrive. When you care for a dog or cat, you see the results of what you do. The article actually compared that to gardening. You nurture those plants, you water them, you prune them, and then you get to see them grow into food that you can eat. It makes you feel like you did something that matters.

Our brains long to feel accomplishment and a sense of purpose. Having a garden gives you a reason to get out of bed and step outside each morning. You have to go take care of your plants. They need you.  

That has been a huge part of my growth over the last ten years and what has kept me coming back to the garden. It’s also what's pushed me into my profession of setting up kitchen gardens for clients and starting my businesses. It’s that feeling of accomplishment and of pride.  

A Garden Is a Reason to Get Out of Bed in the Morning

Have you ever heard about the idea of blue zones? These scientists studied cultures where people seem to live a lot longer than they do in other parts of the world. As you can guess, one characteristic of these people is that they garden, but another characteristic that I thought was so interesting is that they can readily articulate the reason they're getting up in the morning.

People in these cultures have purpose-imbued lives that give them clear roles, responsibility, and feelings of being needed well into their hundreds. The study says, “Most centenarians from the Okinawan communities grow or once grew a garden. It's a source of daily physical activity that exercises the body with a wide range of motion and helps reduce stress. It's also a near-constant source of fresh vegetables.” 

When you read about the characteristics of these people who have lived a long time, you notice things that are interconnected. They eat mostly plant-based meals, they wake up with purpose, they spend lots of time outdoors, and they garden. You can see how all those things work together.

Gardening Alleviates Boredom

Think back to the beginning of the pandemic when we were stuck at home for months. Were you bored? Did it feel unnatural?

Humans were never bored throughout most of our time on this planet because we were always working to stay alive.

I think boredom is probably one of the worst foods that you can feed a depressed mind. We shouldn't wake up and have nothing to look forward to. A garden gives you something to look forward to. A garden is dynamic and ever changing.

There are ornamental landscapes with things like boxwoods, hedges, bushes, and trees. Those definitely have their purpose, but one of the reasons I dedicated my work 100 percent to kitchen gardens is because of their dynamic nature. Many of the foods that can be grown in the kitchen garden begin and finish their lifecycle in less than 90 days—some in just 45 days. These plants are literally changing overnight, and that is not an exaggeration. A boxwood might not change much over the course of ten months, but a carrot plant can change every single minute of every single day—to me, that is a cure for boredom.

The garden was that for me when I was first home with my four kids. For the most part, my day was filled with changing diapers, calming tantrums, nursing, and cooking. There were days when a big part of my brain was super bored. Of course, I loved nurturing my children and I wouldn't take that time back for anything in the world. But there were certainly pieces of me that were spinning in a circle, always trying to find something interesting to focus on. The garden ended up being my escape. It truly was the cure for my boredom. 

Gardening Is Meditative 

Have you ever been told you should meditate or pray or get quiet with your thoughts? I grew up in the church, and I was taught to pray every morning. My mind is like a squirrel brain, going in all kinds of different directions from the minute my eyes open, and I always felt frustrated with myself that I could never sit still or let my thoughts be still. Later in life, I was introduced to the idea of meditation, which made me feel even guiltier for having a busy brain.

That is, until I discovered that working in the garden worked like meditation for me.

Both meditation and prayer are a way of clearing your brain, taking time to observe your thoughts and what's going on inside your head as though from an outsider's perspective. I've always had trouble doing that, especially when I’m just sitting still, but I found that the garden actually allows me to pray, meditate, and clear my head. I actually need to be doing a mindless activity in order to calm my head down. For my mom, it’s folding laundry, but I don't like to fold laundry. 

Picture thinning a row of radishes. It's just going one by one and pulling the extra plants. Pretty mindless. I don’t need a college degree to do this activity; I don’t even need to understand the complexities of the radish. Yet that busy part of my brain calms down because it's distracted by the radishes. 

Then I can go to that deeper part of my brain and have clear thoughts. I have to say, some of my best thoughts have come during my time working in the garden. So many of my ideas, including my business ideas, have come when I am in that meditative state. 

The Garden Brings Healing 

During my first year of business, a lovely man named Andrew hired me to do a consultation for him and ordered a beautiful stone garden that's actually in my book. It’s three gardens in a circle that we created in honor of his three daughters. Andrew had just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and he ended up passing away about a year and a half after I got to build the garden for him.

During that time as he struggled through his diagnosis and his treatment, I would often arrive at the garden and see him coming out to water it, tend to it, and pull from it. He texted me often and said that he saw the garden as part of his therapy in his treatment and his healing. He also saw it as a lasting gift he would give his beautiful wife Shana. 

I've been hired frequently by people who have just survived cancer or lost a loved one or who are going through something really difficult.

I've never seen that be so true as when I've gotten to work with clients who are struggling with pain and loss, and I think it's a beautiful way to work through a hard time. 

Gardening Builds Communities

One of the worst feelings is to feel like you're alone. At the beginning of human civilization, the only way that humans stayed alive was if they stayed together. It was impossible to be out on your own and make it. You needed to be with a tribe. The tribe protected you.  

Whether it was posting someone to keep a lookout while everyone else was sleeping, or taking care of the babies while others found food, humans stayed alive by sticking together. Being alone so much is not good for us.

The garden is a great place to come back together. Gardening connects you with other people in your community. Every time I'm out in my garden, my neighbors come by and talk to me and ask me what I'm growing, and it starts up so many great conversations. You're also going to harvest so much that you'll get to share with others, which makes you feel good that you have something you can contribute to other people.  

Gardening Connects Us

There is an amazing study that said the benefits of gardening on happiness are similar across all the racial boundaries and between urban and suburban areas. Whether they were low income or high income, educated or less so, the joy and the happiness that participants had was the same.   

When we have our hands in the dirt, we feel at home.   

The researchers in this study also found that the level of emotional wellbeing or happiness reported while gardening was similar to what people got when they were working out, and that is the only activity of the 15 activities studied for which women and people with low incomes actually got higher emotional wellbeing than men and medium- and high-income participants.

Gardening can connect us across racial boundaries, across economic boundaries, and across our city's boundaries. I can't tell you how many times I drove into places I never would have gone when I was sourcing materials in Houston for my clients. Some of the best growers and soil providers were in some of the harder spots of Houston, and by buying from them and by connecting with them, I was supporting their hard work, and also finding this basic connection that we already had but I had never discovered before.  

Gardening connects you with people. Whether you're sharing a really delicious bite or watching a vine take off up the trellis, it's so powerful. 

Now You Know Why Gardens Are Important, Go Outside and Get Your Hands Dirty

Gardening is good for your head. Your stomach is still going to get to enjoy the fruits of your labor, but it's our mental health we really need to take care of.

Listen, when I try to get you to start a garden, I'm really trying to get you to be happier. I think that our future depends on us learning how to be happy in the simplest ways. Gardening is very simple. It is the thing that can give us a simple pleasure and that happiness that we're longing for.   

Resources Mentioned in This Article: 

• Spending Just 20 Minutes in a Park Makes You Happier
• Sour Mood Getting You Down? Get Back to Nature
• The Exercise Effect
• Green Therapy: How Gardening Helping to Fight Depression
• How to Be Mindful While Gardening
• Grief Gardening
• Research Shows Gardening Boosts Our Mood as Much as Exercise
• Is Gardening Associated with Greater Happiness of Urban Residents?