Whether you’re growing your own produce or making your outdoor spaces look their best, caring for plants and maintaining your garden can have a surprising number of benefits for your mind and body. At Bittern Garden Supplies, we have all the gardening supplies you need for landscaping your Mornington Peninsula property. Engaging with nature has a huge impact on overall health and wellness, read on to discover a few reasons why gardening is so good for you and the whole family.
Keeps You Fit
Gardening is considered moderate-intensity exercise so maintaining your garden is a great way to be physically active. Whether its strenuous cardio activity such as mowing lawns or gentle movement like kneeling, squatting and reaching to weed and prune bushes, gardening encourages the use of many motor skills, improves your strength, endurance and burns calories – all of this helps you stay fit, and maintaining a good level of fitness is key to overall health and wellbeing.
Promotes Healthier Eating
Dietary Guidelines recommend eating 5 serves of vegetables and 2 servings of fruit per day to ensure you consume all the necessary vitamins and nutrients required to reduce risk of chronic disease and live a healthy life. However, less than one third of Australians meet those recommendations. If you have a vegetable garden or a small orchard to nurture, growing your own produce encourages you to add more seasonal fruit and veg to your diet, inspires you to cook lots of homemade, healthy meals and to top it all off, you’re getting fresh produce that hasn’t been treated with pesticides. Growing your own produce is also great for kids and picky eaters as they may be more likely to try new foods that they’ve helped to grow.
Relieves Stress and Anxiety
Research has shown that gardening is great way to relax and can even help reduce symptoms of stress, depression and anxiety. It provides an opportunity to escape the chaos of everyday life and spend some time outdoors engaging with nature, away from screens, to-do lists and other everyday stressors. Gardening also encourages patience and focus, and teaches a new skill that can build self-confidence. Some hospitals even use gardening and horticultural therapy programs as a form of rehabilitation for people dealing with mental health conditions.
Gives You a Boost of Vitamin D
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 23%, or one in four Australian adults suffer from some form of Vitamin D deficiency. A healthy dose of vitamin D that you can receive while gardening in the great outdoors helps your body absorb calcium, which has huge benefits to your bones and immune system. Just remember to apply sunscreen if you’re planning on spending more than a few minutes in the sun.
Helps You Bond with the Whole Family
While gardening is the perfect solo activity, it is an easy task that people of almost any age or ability can get involved so it’s a great opportunity to bond with your family and friends. Sharing quality time with loved ones boosts endorphins and makes you generally happier and there’s no better activity to share with your family than gardening. It is also a perfect activity for children as early exposure to dirt has been linked to numerous health benefits, from reducing allergies and autoimmune diseases and it’s a great educational activity that can teach them about biology and healthy eating as well as instil practical life skills.
What are you waiting for? Roll up your sleeves and get digging, planting, and weeding – not only will your garden thank you, so will your mind and body. For landscape supplies Mornington locals trust, get in touch with Bittern Garden Supplies today. From mulch to soil and expert landscaping advice, visit us today or call us on 5983 9779.
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