It has been established ever since that plants bring good to the world. They release oxygen while absorbing carbon dioxide, keep the environment clean, and serve as food for humans and animals. But aside from those, plants can also help us deal with stress and maintain the well-being of our minds. It’s in the process of planting a seed, waiting for it to grow, and eventually preparing for harvest (for fruit-bearing plants).
It mirrors the process of life and teaches us some essential things that we’ll need along the way. If that has gotten you interested in the ways gardening can help our mental health, keep reading until you find the perfect reason to start your gardening journey.
Keeps You Moving
For a seed to sprout, it needs gentle and consistent care. The initial step of covering seeds with just enough soil does not stop with sitting idly and waiting for it to grow shoots. It needs close attention and meticulous care: from positioning it in a place with just enough sunlight to have the ideal temperature needed to germinate to watering it a couple of times a day. This is perfect for people who need the motivation to get out of bed, especially during sombre days.
During the days when you’re feeling under the weather, having a plant to take care of will give you the motivation to move and even give you a light workout because you are entrusted with the responsibility of helping a living thing grow. It gives you the duty of overseeing your seed’s growth process, which keeps you occupied with thoughts of how to properly take care of your plant, leaving you with no more room for bleak thoughts.
Enhances Your Patience
Seeds take up to one to two weeks and even longer to sprout, and in that span of time, it’s easy to grow impatient and have doubts whether you’re taking care of it the right way or not. Gardening takes a lot of effort, but it also requires you to have faith that your seed will grow. By attending to your seeds and ensuring that everything it needs is provided, you can assure yourself that it will sprout. It’s all part of the process — giving it what it needs, constantly thinking of ways to provide it with a better growth environment, and hoping for it to sprout.
A week or two is a long time, and there’s nothing to do but wait. During that period, though, you are unconsciously enhancing your patience and voluntarily offering yourself positive thoughts, rewiring your thought processes into something better, so like the seed, you are also growing.
Even though the wait is excruciatingly long, what with the lack of guarantee that it will grow, once you see a tiny leaf breaking its way out of the soil, you’ll think that it is worth the wait.
Lets You Focus on Beautiful Things
Aside from the qualities that you can adapt or develop from gardening, This activity also serves as a form of therapy. Looking at beautiful things can instantly put you in a good mood, and appreciating nature will give you a serene and peaceful feeling. Admiring foliage and flowers can be a way to help you heal, calm your mind, and ease away stress. The beautiful colours can make intrusive thoughts disappear, leaving only the ones focused on how vibrant a plant’s shades can be.
You’ll always have the leeway to appreciate your own garden or your little collection of cacti and succulents. Still, you can have skilful landscape designers transform your outdoor area into a garden teeming with flourishing plants and beautiful flowers so that whenever you need a break from something, you can take shelter in your paradise.
Gives You Zest
If you’re familiar with the feeling that you get before, during, and after a vacation, you’ll have an idea of how plants can make you happy and energised. Like how spending time in nature can bring you calmness and happiness, hanging out in your garden or being in proximity of your desk plants can give you a similar effect of taking a relaxing break.
By placing a small plant on your desk, you can experience a boost in your performance coupled with better concentration and focus. With spending most of your time indoors during work hours, you are exposed to high amounts of carbon dioxide. Still, with a plant on your office desk, you get your personal oxygen supply, which helps your brain function better, enhancing your work performance.
Most of the things we need can be sourced from nature, but we must take time and be patient in overseeing the growth process to discover their full capabilities. By patiently watching a plant grow, we can learn qualities that can help us in our daily lives.
