How gardening can fight stress, improve your health and make you a happier person
- Gardeners tell why the hobby puts them in a positive frame of mind, helps them relax, and gives them the chance to reconnect with nature
- According to science, a microorganism found in soil has the same mood-boosting effects as antidepressant medication
When business owner Tasneem Noor is not at one of her restaurants or her artisan bakery or dessert shop in Singapore, she can be found tending to her plants in her home garden. The 38-year-old loves nothing more than getting her hands dirty as she plants seeds, harvests vegetables like aubergine and lady’s fingers, and transfers precious medicinal herbs from their pots to the ground.
Besides the satisfaction of caring for her plants and watching them bear fruit, vegetables, and flowers, the busy mum-of-two appreciates the relaxing quality of gardening, saying that the activity is one in which she can be fully present.
“Everything I do in my garden, from digging and weeding to planting my seedlings, engages my senses and puts me in a relaxed and focused state. Being surrounded by all this green also has an incredibly soothing effect. Every time I tend to my shrubs and trees I feel like I’m strengthening my bond with them – it’s wonderful helping them thrive.”
There may be another reason why the garden is Noor’s “happy place” – Mycobacterium vaccae, a microbe naturally present in soil, which is thought to have antidepressant qualities.
A study on an experimental treatment for lung cancer, conducted by oncologist Dr Mary O’Brien at The Royal Marsden Hospital in London, noted that lung cancer patients who had been injected with the bacterium reported feeling happier and expressed more vitality and better cognitive functioning.