We can grow better health
There’s nothing more satisfying than a hard day’s work in the garden. Do you know the feeling? It’s the one you get when you’re covered in dirt with sweat across your brow. Your body aches but you push on. And then the Doctor — that fresh sea breeze — blows into town. Ah, relief! You sit down to admire your handiwork — it’s the best.
The therapeutic benefits of gardening are well known. Since ancient times, patients have convalesced in garden environments. In medieval Europe monastic hospitals grew plants for healing and medicinal purposes. And Japanese Zen traditions have practised nature-based therapies for thousands of years. Dating back to as early as the 6th-century BC, temple gardens were established as sanctuaries for serenity, pleasure and contemplation. Even Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, espoused the role of nature in human health.
Plants are obviously essential for life — we rely on them for food, shelter, clothing, breathing, medicine and fuel. And we are biologically wired to co-exist with nature.
Did you know that the human eye detects green more than any other colour? Scientists have revealed that seeing green relaxes the retina and soothes the nervous system. This is one reason why it’s often used in hospital design. So, it makes sense that spending time in green spaces greatly reduces stress. And in doing so boosts oxytocin (the love hormone) and reduces cortisol (the stress hormone). It also creates a sense of psychological safety and stability.
But the act of gardening offers other benefits for alleviating mental distress and disease and improving physical wellbeing. These include reduced anxiety and depression, increased physical activity, better nutrition, lower heart rate and greater overall happiness. Furthermore, gardening in community settings also reduces isolation, cultivates friendships and improves social cohesion.
For some the simple act of gardening can be life-saving, literally. It can provide protection against the onset or relapse of mental illness. Since the 1970s, numerous empirical studies have explored the psychotherapeutic benefits of eco-based interventions, though most horticultural therapy programs lack standardisation and critical evaluation. And further research is needed to assess the long-term impacts for mental health recovery across different demographics.
We know nature heals. But we’re divorced from our roots. Although Perth maintains a relatively high number of public parks private green space is shrinking. Grandma’s garden is becoming a distant memory. And along with it, the intergenerational skills for growing food, plants and trees in our climate are also fading. Backyards are being replaced by concrete for higher-density living.
While the argument for reducing urban sprawl is clear, other health implications need to be considered. City-dwellers experience higher levels of anxiety compared with country folk. And depression is 39 per cent higher. Schizophrenia is also double in urban environments. The pandemic also showed us just how vulnerable we are without room to grow or the basic horticultural skills to do so.
Schools and community groups are doing their bit to keep the garden alive — the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation is a great initiative. But we need to do more. We must design urban landscapes, hospitals and healthcare settings with the human-nature relationship in mind because healthy built environments that place regenerative wellbeing at the centre of policy and planning help create healthy people.
Like bad concrete architecture, living with persistent mental illness can be absolutely brutal. And whilst gardening may not be for everyone, being connected to nature is. Gazing at greenery or planting a tree can sow an internal seed of hope — and that is something we must hold on to.
This article was first published in The West Australian in Renée Gardiner’s weekly column in Agenda, 17 April 2021.