The Magical Power of Gardening
We all regenerate in body and spirit by walking through a park, taking care of the flowers in the garden, or simply sharpening our eyes between skyscrapers in search of a green glimpse. Undoubtedly, you have already experienced this: it is all thanks to the therapeutic action of plants and flowers.
Why is the sight of greenery, gardening, and flowers therapeutic?
Because flowers, plants, and trees are carriers of "positive vibrations" for the body and the spirit. The flowers act by creating inner harmony, reconciling the three "systems" existing in every human being, which are mind, body, and spirit.
What can be done to experience the therapeutic qualities of flowers and plants fully?
With rehabilitation through nature, we can seek physical and psychological improvement through interaction, even if only visual, with the heart. For example, seeing a green landscape decreases our stress level, improving our mood.
But we can do even more: Benjamin Rush, the father of American psychiatry, claimed that working on the soil benefited mental health. In short, gardening is therapeutic.
But what if we don't have the opportunity to go to the park or work the land every day?
The solution is home gardening and a vegetable garden on the balcony!
Taking care of small aromatic plants or flowers, even on a window sill or in the office, can only help our mood daily.
Multiple studies demonstrate how being outdoors in beautiful places and engaging in activities such as gardening has various beneficial effects on our body and mind that can be summarized, in the context of psychology, in the treatment of depression, in the recovery of one's self-esteem, in encouraging sociability and in the best ability to deal with problems.
Gardening is good for your health. Walking and admiring beautiful gardens, taking care of them, and seeing your plant or even a vegetable grow helps to shake situations of passivity and to fight negative thoughts, providing an inner pleasure that is reflected in a release of endorphins.
Being absorbed by this active practice allows us to suspend our thoughts, especially those repetitive thoughts, which induce worries, anxiety, sadness, or anger; all toxic emotions that poison our organism in the totality of psyche and body. Dedicating oneself to a garden means suspending those circular thoughts constantly repeated for a while and returning invigorated to daily activities.
It means reconnecting with nature and its times. This reconnection allows us to take a closer look at the seasons and climate changes and makes us consider the impact of frosts or lack of rain. It encourages us to observe that little plant that in winter looks like an inert trunk, and instead, suddenly, the first leaves and then the flowers sprout.
What the Garden offers us is a lot: it reconnects us to nature and its rhythms, relieves our load of daily stress, heals our soul, helps the psyche to regain its balance, relates us to our most unconscious aspects, it makes us recover our spontaneity, it facilitates reflection on ourselves and our life, it makes us rediscover our roots.
The Garden, with the many forms and shades it can take, is an exceptional metaphor inviting us to an introspective journey, bringing out and bringing to the surface our most intimate and profound part.
An original idea of home gardening
Pocket Gardens: are small bags complete with flower seeds (or aromatic plants) and soil, ready to grow and easily positioned on the balcony or the office desk to give us small moments of well-being! We can choose from the varieties of kitchen flowers and spices and give them to friends and relatives to offer a bit of therapeutic gardening as a gift, even to those who do not have a green thumb or have little space.
Like all flowers and plants, they need the proper attention, but they will also give us the irreplaceable emotion of growing something of our own, seeing the birth and growth of one of our creatures!
Raised-bed Gardening: this is a form of gardening where the soil is raised above ground level and typically enclosed. Raised bed structures can be made of wood, rock, concrete, metal, or other materials and can be any size or shape. The height of a raised garden bed varies from knee level to standing. This gardening offers the opportunity to grow vegetables, fruit, herbs, and other plants where garden soil is not optimal.
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Peace & Wellness, Dr. Nicole
