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Good-for-you gardening: Enjoy the many benefits of tending to the garden
By Erin Feitsma, Times Total Media Correspondent
If you’re the gardening type, you already know that the benefits of spending time in the garden are myriad: You can grow your own crops and blooms, take pride in cultivating the natural landscape and get very good at intimidating the squirrels and other critters that try to eat the collard greens your husband planted (I may or may not be speaking from personal experience). But did you know that gardening can have positive effects on your mental and physical health, as well as the environment? Here, we detail even more reasons to get your green on.
Physical benefits
Working in the garden can be a very physical pursuit. The vigorous work it takes to cultivate a garden, like weeding it so your plants can grow, can be good for your heart. One UNC Health physician reports that the manual labor of gardening can provide cardiovascular benefits. It can also be a good way to burn calories. The average American man 20 years old or older will burn 360 calories during one hour of general gardening work, while the average American woman in the same age range will burn 312. If you’re actively digging and tilling the land (go, gardener, go!), that total jumps up to 450 calories for men and 390 for women over the course of an hour.
Grab your sunglasses, sunscreen and very fashionable, very widebrimmed sun hat and get out there: According to UNC Health Talk, the exposure to sunlight that gardening provides may be able to help you get an adequate amount of vitamin D, which can increase your calcium levels and help both your bones and your immune system. Psychology Today also states that gardening can help improve or preserve your cognitive functions, so know that when you’re out tending to your
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