Gardening Therapy
When doing research about the benefits of gardening, I was intrigued by the number of articles that confirmed How Digging in the Dirt Boosts Your Well-Being.
Reading the articles struck a cord with me and I thought maybe they would do the same for you.
What about this story from the ABC
It is about a lady, who sunk into post natal depression after her second child. Manu couldn’t stop worrying about how to keep their children safe in the world today. Her thinking became irrational.
Fortunately, with help from a clinical psychologist, who was a mad keen gardener, Manu arrived back at a rational thinking state. The final step in the solution was the psychologist bringing in a bucket of compost from her own garden and getting Manu to hold some, a double handful and lift it to her face and inhale the aroma.
In the words of Manu, “That day, I realized that actually I loved that smell. That smell I hadn’t smelled for a while and it made me feel better.”
The story can be seen on the ABC Gardening Australia series titled More Than a Garden.
What an Eye Opener
I was really surprised to find numerous articles extolling the virtues of getting dirt under the finger nails and in the process ensuring your mental health. There were also plenty of articles about the physical benefits of gardening as well.
How I got the Headline
When I first started this article, I was going to use a quote from R M Williams, you know the outback bloke who, with Slim Dusty help build the original Outback Hall of Fame in Longreach. And of course the R M boots and clothing.
More about RM later in the article and his quote.
Asking an Artificial Intelligence.
Because I had come across so many posts about soil and its benefit for health and mental well being, I decided to the make the following request to an AI. (Artificial Intelligence)
Looking for a headline for a post about benefits of a garden for health. I received the following response.
“Discover the Incredible Health Benefits of Gardening: How Digging in the Dirt Can Boost Your Well-Being”. I decided to use the second part of the response. The way things are going we will need to add AI and their offshoots to the transgender alphabet soup. It will look something like lgbtqiaai. Brings a smile to my face.
Links to Headlines
The following links are to headlines on the first page of google when I queried the search term “How Digging in the Dirt Can Boost Your Well-Being”. If you wish to read some, just click on the line and it will open up the article in a new tab in your browser.
Digging In The Dirt Really Does Make People Happier – Forbes
Health Benefits of Digging in the Dirt – Kitsap Sun
Why Gardening Makes You Happy and Cures Depression
Antidepressant Microbes In Soil: How Dirt Makes You Happy
The Health Benefits of Getting Dirty | Eartheasy Guides & Articles
New study suggests digging in the dirt could reduce stress …
Get Your Hands Dirty: 5 Ways Gardening Can Improve Your …
7 Scientific Reasons Why Gardening Is Good for You
Closer to God in the Garden
Did you like the title? It is a quote from R M Williams autobiography that he wrote with Olaf Ruhen. Well I think it was. I have read a number of books about R M Williams and my memory says that it was this one.
Anyway you can go to Booktopia.com.au and click on the book cover of Beneath Whose Hand and it will open up the book for you to have a read. I have just enjoyed ten minutes reading a section of it. For a man who couldn’t read or write when he left home… it is so inspiring.
From the Book
“To read was a necessity in dealing with people. I always had a friend handy who could explain what was what, but under the pressure of needing to know I became conversant with the meaning of words, and the wonder of the printed page slowly opened up a new and exciting world. ”
R M Williams
Boots From One Piece of Leather
“Years passed before I could claim to have read a book purely for pleasure; but the conviction that I must read or forever remain in a dark and clouded world led me slowly into what I now know to be the best thing in life. Reading is a window to the world or, to use a better metaphor, a deep well from which comes the water that lets the flowers of knowledge flourish.
If someone were to ask me, ‘What should I read?’ I would reply, ‘Whatever interests you enough to keep reading.’ I had a son who did not read and showed no interest in books. I had sent him droving, which is a world without books, and expected that he might finish up much as I was at that age. Someone gave him a pile of books that looked vaguely pornographic, and son Kerry became a student overnight. Years later I was amazed to find him reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Truly any road that leads to Rome is worth taking.”
Building the Cottage
RM cut all the stone to build the cottage
I Love Gardening
For me, nothing beats being out in the yard getting my hands dirty and making the yard look better. It certainly makes all the bottled up stuff disappear. And ends with a sense of accomplishment.
Working with quality tools certainly helps. And the tools we use every day and feature on our website like Silky Saws, Okatsune secateurs, hedge shears, and snips, Barebones gardening tools and Castellari Loppers are all used.
It’s hard to write a blog post and not add the tools, so the following should rotate the majority of the tools we use at home. Hope you enjoy having a look at them. Please feel free to call if you want to know more about any of the tools and which ones would be best suited to you.
Thanks for reading this far… Nita
