Why does gardening seem to be so beneficial to health? It combines physical activity with social interaction and exposure to nature and sunlight. Sunlight lowers blood pressure as well as increasing vitamin D levels in the summer, and the fruit and vegetables that are produced have a positive impact on the diet.
Working in the garden restores dexterity and strength, and the aerobic exercise that is involved can easily use the same number of calories as might be expended in a gym. Digging, raking and mowing are particularly calorie intense; there is a gym outside many a window.
The social interaction provided by communal and therapeutic garden projects for those with learning disabilities and poor mental health can counteract social isolation. Furthermore, it has also been reported that the social benefits of such projects can delay the symptoms of dementia (an effect that might be partly due to the beneficial effects of exercise). Patients who are recovering from myocardial infarction or stroke find that exercise in a garden, using constraint therapy of a paretic limb, for example, is more effective, enjoyable and sustainable than therapy in formal exercise settings. For some patients, gardening can even lead to employment. There are also successful schemes that involve volunteers to help older people who cannot manage their gardens, with both the volunteer and the owner benefitting from the social interaction and from the produce and a shared interest.
Intelligent Health points out that the pandemic of physical inactivity is the fourth leading cause of premature death, and contributes to preventable physical and mental disorders. The Department of Health calculates that an increase of only 10% in average exercise by adults would postpone 6000 deaths and save $500 million annually. Regular moderate intensity exercise may reduce the risk of dementia, mental health problems, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer of the breast and colon, and in an Australian study, gardening was found to be more effective than walking, education or maintaining alcohol intake at moderate levels in protecting against dementia. It enhances self esteem and alters the EEG. Similarly, moderate exercise in leisure time is associated with increased longevity, regardless of weight, particularly if combined with exposure to natural scenes, although some studies have suggested that exercise declines with reduced cognition; a reverse causation bias.
Thankfully, high intensity exercise is not needed to obtain these benefits, which is perhaps as well given that the uptake of cycling- and gym-based exercise is poor in the older population, and that these activities can be expensive. Gardening or simply walking through green spaces could therefore be important in preventing and treating ill health.
The Five Year Forward Plan for the NHS54 emphasises the potential importance of prevention in reducing the mounting pressure on the NHS and on social services. There are 152,000 strokes annually and a total of 1.2 million stroke survivors in the UK.55 Also in the UK, a quarter of a million patients are admitted to psychiatric hospitals each year and dementia is predicted to affect a million people by 2025.
Few complementary therapies have been convincingly shown to be effective, but gardening and nature, which are alternative therapies, offer a proven, cheap and nearly universally available means to improve the nation’s health. Although there is evidence that knitting can also help!
