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More Than Veggies and Flowers
Does gardening help our emotional health?
A few days ago, someone asked me why I thought everyone was so angry and unhinged all the time and I said that I thought it was because they weren’t spending enough time getting their hands dirty.
There’s science behind the idea of the emotional benefits of gardening. Scientists have long wondered whether humans boast this kind of magnetoreception like animals do. By exposing people to an Earth-strength magnetic field pointed in different directions in the lab, researchers from the United States and Japan have discovered distinct brain wave patterns that occur in response to rotating the field in a certain way.
These findings, reported in a study published online March 18 in eNeuro, offer evidence that people do subconsciously respond to Earth’s magnetic field — although it’s not yet clear exactly why or how our brains use this information. Digging in the garden, we ground ourselves into that magnetic field.
Gardening offers numerous psychological benefits that can improve mental and emotional health1234. These benefits include anxiety and stress reduction, attention deficit recovery, decreased depression, enhanced memory retention, and improved attention.
Gardening also promotes self-esteem and promotes creativity.