New Life Foundation | Gardening and Mental Health
by Susan Munro
Hither at the center nosotros have quite a large garden. Information technology is filled with a whole rainbow of tasty delights, including sweetness dragonfruit, shady banana groves, crisp salad vegies, and noisy ducks. Naturally, all of this must be tended. Food from the garden is prepared in our kitchen for our whole customs. Equally a function of our program hither at the middle, we participate in morning working meditation (with volunteers besides working in the afternoon.). This entails applying our mindfulness meditation techniques, learnt at the middle, to our work. This practice is useful every bit a bridge between our everyday lives and our sit-down meditation practice, proving that our skills can be used actively in our twenty-four hours-to-day existence to amend focus and clarity of thought.
Furthermore, working in the garden helps instill and so re-inforce our connectedness to nature, something so alien in the modern globe. Multiple studies take shown how a connection to the natural environs are practiced for health and well-being. One such study, completed in the netherlands, revealed that gardening lowers the cortisol (stress hormone) response in the brain, stimulating serotonin (which produces a feeling of well-being) response. Some other study suggested a link between the bacteria plant in soil and an antidepressent response in mice. Activities such as weeding, tilling, and fifty-fifty polishing eggs are inherantly repetitive, inducing a kind of alpha state, which is ideal for working meditation. Once this state is achieved, we are better able to maintain a serene, calm country of awareness, assuasive us to become aware of our mental processes and focus.
Ultimately, meditation at its cadre allows united states a better view of who we are at center, allowing greater levels of intuition, higher levels of self-awareness, and better stress-management practices. Combined with the sense of connection with the planet we get from working in nature, and its anti-depressant properties, produces a powerful outcome. In addition, if nosotros instill a good working meditation practice in our daily lives here at the centre, we accept dwelling house a valuable skill for everyday life – assuasive ourselves to achieve more with through higher levels of personal focus and residuum.
Source: https://www.newlifefoundation.com/th/gardening-mental-health/