The warmer-than-normal winter and spring weather is beckoning us outdoors. April means gardening season is just around the corner. The spring bulbs have made their way through the winter leaves and traces of snow. The vegetable gardens are begging to be tilled and raked and planted. Avid and casual gardeners are anxious to get their hands dirty and gardens green and alive. When I’m not caring for surgical patients, I’m busy planting, tending and harvesting my 4,900 square-foot garden, followed by hours of canning.
After years of experience as a physician combined with a passion for gardening, I can assure you, you don’t have to be a weekend warrior or extreme athlete to be fit and healthy.
Benefits of Gardening
Gardening provides activity, beauty, relaxation, stress relief, food and a connection to nature, all of which are enjoyable and healthful. The nutritional and health benefits of homegrown produce are beyond dispute. But the health benefits of gardening extend beyond good nutrition. Gardening is also great exercise, with numerous physical and mental benefits.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says gardening is a moderate cardiovascular exercise, citing that 45 minutes of gardening can have the same health benefits as 30 minutes of aerobic exercise. The National Institutes of Health recommends 30 to 45 minutes of gardening three to five times a week as a good strategy to help combat obesity.
Additionally, a recent study out of Sweden shows that for those over the age of 60, gardening and doing projects around the house can be just as good for preventing heart disease and stroke as working out. The study found those who regularly spent about an hour a day gardening cut their risk of heart attack or stroke by more than 25 percent and decreased their risk of dying from other causes by 30 percent, compared to those who were less active.
What’s more, gardening in small increments of time, such as 15 or 20 minutes a couple times a day, has the same health benefits as long stretches of time. In other words, there is no need to carve out hours of time, which can be difficult to find and/or cause fatigue. Just 15 minutes two or three times a day yields extensive health benefits.
Digging, weeding, raking, planting, watering and harvesting provide many of the same movements one might perform at the gym. Just think of all the squats, stretches, balanced stances, upper-body weight lifting, reaching, bending, kneeling and even crawling one does in just one 15 minute segment of time in a garden. Gardening keeps one limber, strong and active.
Because gardening is enjoyable and goal-oriented, people are more likely to stick with it and to it more often than other tedious forms of exercise. For instance, the grip is strengthened by pulling a weed rather than gripping an exercise ball, and the upper back is worked by raking rather than pushing or pulling weights.
Even children benefit from gardening. Studies suggest kids who garden are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables. Gardening teaches collaboration, process, patience, physical skills and more. Teaching gardens are being planted in schools throughout the United States. The American Heart Association sponsors many of these gardens, providing materials and funds.
There is a strong association between doing activities in natural environments, such as outdoors, and overall health and well-being. This nature-based therapy and activity benefits the body, mind and spirit.
Gardening offers a respite from the modern world. Most gardeners view their hobby as an antidote to a too-busy, technology-focused, productivity-driven, dirt-free life. The sights, sounds and smells of a garden decrease stress and promote health, movement, relaxation and even clarity of mind.
The combination of physical and mental activity involved in gardening can have a positive influence on the mind. And for people experiencing mental decline, even just walking in a garden may be therapeutic. Many residential homes for people with dementia now have “wander” or “memory” gardens on their grounds.
Green spaces become a sanctuary – creating beauty, peacefulness and food – for the gardener and others, while providing an excellent avenue for physical fitness and health. Gardening is cheaper than a doctor or therapist, and you get tomatoes! FBN
By Mark Chapman, M.D.
Mark Chapman, M.D., is a board-certified anesthesiologist with Forest Country Anesthesia, specializing in cardiac anesthesia. He is also an avid gardener. His 4,900 square-foot at-home garden yields an enormous amount of produce each year, most of which he donates to those in need. Dr. Chapman is actively involved in his local church and Boy Scouts of America. As a physician who cares for hundreds of patients each year, Dr. Chapman is committed to promoting health through nutrition, physical fitness and mental well-being. Dr. Chapman and his family made Flagstaff their home in 1999.
To learn more about Dr. Chapman and Forest Country Anesthesia, visit ForestCountryAnesthesia.com or call 928-773-2505.
