Your Garden as a Hospital
My eyes fell on our garden as I walked by. It is too early to plant most things, but it started me thinking about gardens and how they affect our health.
By Cindy Williams, RN
Coordinator, Health Ministries
The sun was shining, there was not a cloud in the blue sky, the birds were singing, and my jacket was at home. It was a beautiful early spring day. I love spring and summer with warmer weather, longer days, and sunshine! My eyes fell on our garden as I walked by. It is too early to plant most things, but it started me thinking about gardens and how they affect our health.
Richard Thompson, past president of the Royal College of Physicians, wrote an article that was printed in the Clinical Medicine journal in June 2018. The article is titled “Gardening for health: a regular dose of gardening.” He cites concerns about the inability of the National Health Service (Britain) to cope with the health needs of a larger and aging population and the increasing expense, side effects, and relative ineffectiveness of pharmaceutical drugs. He then looks at research on therapies that involve exposure to plants and gardening. These studies show physical and mental benefits from the simple act of observing nature, even in pictures. The more involvement the subjects had with nature, hands-on especially, the more benefits they experienced.
Benefits included less depression, anxiety, and stress, a lower prevalence of dementia, better strength, balance, and dexterity, lower blood pressure, weight control, and improved relationships due to increased social interactions.
This should not surprise us. God planted a garden on the newly created earth as a home for Adam and Eve. The first job ever given was to “dress and keep” the garden. Every day our first parents were immersed In God’s wonderful creations, being drawn ever closer to Him through observing His works. What a job! I would love to work alongside them.
Ellen White wrote that “Nature is God’s physician. The pure air, the glad sunshine, the flowers and trees, the orchards and vineyards, and outdoor exercise amid these surroundings, are health-giving, life-giving.” Could all of us experience these benefits, even in this crazy, busy world we live in? Even those who live in an apartment or a city? Why not? That will be the subject of the next health tip.
References
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6334070/
Genesis 2:15
Ministry of Healing page 263
This article is part of a continuing series of health during these COVID times. For other articles, please see www.uccsda.org/healthministries.
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