New research suggests that many people can reap mental health benefits from working with plants, even if they’ve never gardened before. In a study published in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists at the University of Florida found that gardening activities reduced stress, anxiety, and depression in healthy women who attended gardening classes twice a week.
None of the study participants had worked in the garden before. “Previous studies have shown that gardening can help improve the mental health of people who have problems or existing medical problems.
Our study shows that healthy people can also experience a boost in mental well-being through gardening,” said Charles Guy, lead researcher on the study and professor emeritus in the UF/IFAS department of environmental horticulture.
The study was co-authored by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the department of environmental horticulture, the UF School of Medicine, the UF Center for the Arts in Medicine and the UF Wilmot Botanical Gardens, which also hosted all of the treatment sessions. of the studio. Thirty-two women between the ages of 26 and 49 completed the study.
All were in good health, which for this experiment meant screening for factors such as chronic health conditions, tobacco use and drug abuse, and having received prescription medications for anxiety or depression. Half of the participants were assigned to gardening sessions, while the other half were assigned to art-making sessions. Both groups met twice a week for a total of eight times.
The art group served as a point of comparison with the gardening group. “Both gardening and artistic activities involve learning, planning, creativity, and physical movement, and both are used therapeutically in medical settings. This makes them more comparable, scientifically speaking, than, say, gardening and bowling or gardening and reading,” Guy explained.
In the gardening sessions, participants learned how to compare and sow seeds, transplant different types of plants, and harvest and taste edible plants. Those who participated in the art making sessions learned techniques such as papermaking, printmaking, drawing and collage.
The participants completed a series of assessments that measured anxiety, depression, stress and mood. The researchers found that the gardening and art-making groups experienced similar improvements in mental health over time, with the gardeners reporting slightly less anxiety than the art-makers.
Given the relatively small number of participants and the length of the study, the researchers were still able to demonstrate evidence of what clinicians would call the dose effects of gardening—that is, how much gardening someone has to do to see improvements in mental health. .
“Larger-scale studies may reveal more about how gardening correlates with changes in mental health,” Guy explained. “We believe this research holds promise for mental wellness, plants in health care, and public health. It would be great to see other researchers use our work as a basis for such studies.”
The idea of using gardening to promote better health and wellness, called therapeutic gardening, has been around since the 19th century. But why does being around plants make us feel good? The answer could lie in the important role of plants in human evolution and the rise of civilization, the study authors explain.
As a species, we may be innately attracted to plants because we depend on them for food, shelter, and other means of survival. Whatever the deeper reasons, many of the study participants left the experiment with a newfound passion, the researchers noted. “At the end of the experiment, many of the participants not only said how much they enjoyed the sessions, but also how they planned to continue gardening,” Guy said.
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