The Top Health Benefits Of Gardens For Body And Soul
Garden design is more than just an aesthetic enhancement to your landscape; it can also be good for your health. Spending time outdoors and in nature is good for you, and your garden can become a wellness retreat with the right design.
With the right layout, you can experience garden health benefits as frequently as you need, and Landesigns is here to make it a reality. We create dream outdoor spaces and work with some of the best designers in the business to make visions come to life.
In this post, we share the top health benefits of gardens that we can all experience by creating a welcoming, attractive, and thriving outdoor space.
Mental Health Benefits Of Gardens
There are several ways your garden can benefit your mental health and promote better wellbeing, such as:
Reduced Stress And Anxiety
One of the best health benefits of gardens is the way they impact stress and anxiety. Spending time in nature, breathing in fresh air and being surrounded by greenery can be incredibly calming for your body and mind.
Time in nature has proven to reduce cortisol levels, which is the stress hormone and is primarily responsible for the symptoms of anxiety. A combination of the visual and auditory elements of gardens can help you feel calmer and more in control.
These benefits can be enhanced by including running water features or bird baths in the garden. The soothing ambient sound of water can enhance the tranquillity of the space, and attracting birds not only offers visual pleasure but also allows you to hear birdsong every time you step outdoors.
Mindfulness And Connection
Mindfulness is hailed as a great treatment for mental health issues, and the garden is a great place to engage in this. Mindfulness encourages us to slow down, focus on the present moment and take time to regulate our breathing.
The combination of fresh air, greenery, and natural sunlight organically encourages slower movement. Sitting in the garden, whether for dedicated meditation or simply to relax with a cup of tea, can help you take a break from the daily stressors of your routine and be present for a moment.
To ensure your garden evokes this sense of calm and tranquillity, have plenty of plants around. Whether in flower beds, plant pots or in the ground, greenery in all forms creates a soothing environment and can be adjusted to suit your unique design. Likewise, having comfortable, accessible garden seating makes it easy for you to take a break outdoors whenever you need it, such as built-in garden benches.
Cognitive Development And Creativity
Outdoor play is vital for children’s development, and families with small children should consider upgrading their outdoor space to allow more health benefits of gardens to be experienced. Encouraging your kids to play outside is not only a great way to activate their imagination, but it can also contribute to skills in problem-solving, resilience, and creativity.
If you are concerned about your kids’ screen time, creating a fun and engaging garden can help reduce this. With an environment that allows them to run wild, burn energy and engage in imaginative play, you will find that your children want to spend less time indoors on a screen. They can have more fun in the garden and experience the health benefits of gardens for themselves.
This can help make children happier, as well as play a vital role in their development. Outdoor play can improve concentration and make it easier for kids to focus once they have let off some steam.
To create a fun outdoor environment for your kids, make sure your garden is zoned. Create a separate play area, lawn space, and add plenty of colour in the garden to get children excited and engaged.
Social Interaction And Community
With the right garden design, your outdoor space can become a great setting for all occasions. From family barbeques to outdoor dining and playdates, your garden can encourage social interaction between people of all ages.
Community is vital for our mental health and overall well-being, but with our busy schedules, it can be difficult to maintain. Whether you struggle to arrange time to meet with friends or have yet to introduce yourself to the neighbours, your garden can make things easier. With the right design, your garden can always be ready for an impromptu visit from loved ones, encouraging you to make the effort more often.
Likewise, spending more time in the garden, tending to your plants, or just enjoying the landscape, can encourage you to connect with neighbours who are doing the same thing around you. Building a sense of community and ensuring there is social interaction in your daily routine can greatly benefit your mental health, and the garden is where it all starts.
Physical Health Benefits Of Gardens
As well as providing a mental wellbeing boost, gardens can play a role in our physical health with benefits such as:
Improved Air Quality
Fresh air has long been hailed as a cure for ailments. Treating everything from a cold to a bad day, fresh air can give you a wellbeing boost and is available right on your doorstep with the right garden design.
Especially if you live in a highly polluted urban area, greenery in your garden can improve air quality and give you health benefits. These benefits come from the fact that trees and plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while simultaneously releasing oxygen, creating cleaner air.
Fresh air can contribute to mental health benefits, as well as an immune system boost, lowered blood pressure and cleaner lungs.
Better Quality of Sleep
With our screens and artificial lights, the body’s circadian rhythms (also known as the internal body clock) are often out of sync with nature. This can lead to poor sleep, as our body does not get the signals to indicate when rest is needed.
Spending time in your garden or other outdoor spaces can contribute to better sleep hygiene by regulating these internal systems. Watching the sunrise or sunset from your patio, deck or garden benches gives the body a chance to realign with its natural rhythm and provide better sleep symptoms.
It should come as no surprise that the more time spent on screens and around harsh lighting can reduce your quality of sleep. Not only does nature encourage you to align with organic patterns, but gets you away from these screens so you can truly rest.
Vitamin D Boost For Bone Health
Natural sunlight is the best source of vitamin D for people, yet many of us struggle to get enough, even during the spring and summer seasons. As most of our lives are spent indoors, working or tending to our families, we miss out on these vital nutrients, which can be provided to us for free simply by stepping outdoors.
Vitamin D is an essential nutrient for the body as it contributes to bone, teeth and muscle health. It can also contribute to a better immune system and brain function, especially in young children, so encourage your family to spend as much time outdoors as possible, while also practising safe sun.
How Garden Design Can Boost Health And Wellbeing
Having a garden you love offers more than just pride, as it can also contribute to your health and wellbeing. Both these mental and physical health benefits of gardens can be accessible to you every day when you have an outdoor space you want to spend time in.
This is where garden design and landscaping come in, as these are the tools needed to renovate your outdoor space. Landesigns is a leading design and construction company, working to bring your vision to life with our expert skills.
We partner with leading garden designers, who create outdoor spaces designed for maximum enjoyment, visual appeal and wellbeing boosts. Working with your needs and requirements, we implement these designs to create an outdoor space you’ll love.
Gardens designed with plenty of plants, seating, and space for entertaining can contribute to better health and well-being by offering a range of benefits. Your garden can be primed for social interaction, imaginative play, and fresh air simply through the design, and our team is here to help make this a reality.
Conclusion
There are various health benefits of gardens that you may not be aware of. While fresh air is known to be a great well-being boost, outdoor spaces can also offer perks in terms of immune system health, reduced anxiety and cognitive development.
Creating an outdoor space that is primed for these benefits, as well as being an accessible environment for the whole family, is easy to do when working with professionals like Landesigns. Our team offers the insight and professional knowledge needed to make the most out of your garden.
Contact Us Today
Are you ready to transform your garden? Contact the team today to request a consultation or to learn more about our services.
