Homeschool Garden Club - Improving Your Mental Health Through Gardening
Here are a few top tips for improving your mental health through connecting with nature for Health and Wellbeing.
1. Connect With Other People
Growing with the Orchard Training Homeschool Garden Club, or in your own garden or local allotment. It will provide a sense of belonging and self-worth through sharing experiences and having a positive impact on you and beyond.
2. Being Physically Active Is Good
We already know in the Orchard Training Health and Wellbeing Club that exercise is good for you and may lower anxiety and help with depression. But did you know that getting out in the garden for just 30-45 minutes can burn up to 300 calories? Even low impact activities as sowing seeds or raking leaves involve focus, balance and coordination. Regular gardening as a form of exercise is extremely beneficial to your mental and physical health. Research suggests that people who garden are less likely to suffer from depression, anger and stress.
3. Learning New Skills
Growing plants is a biology where you can experiment, source, create, inspire and learn. You can grow food and cookwith fresh home-grown produce in the Orchard Training Cookery Club, or design your own beautiful Eden in your backyard with Design and Technology. It might inspire you to paint or even lead to a new career or hobby. The tomatoes you grow might be smaller than the ones in the catalogue picture, or they might never turn red because it was too late to plant them, but you can make delicious green tomato chutney out of it, thus saving money are taking part in our Young Money program through citizenship. Creative learning will increase your self-esteem and sense of achievement and purpose.
4. Give to Others
Why not share the bounties of your garden? Random acts of kindness such as giving a bunch of flowers or a lettuce or even a pot of that green tomato chutney grown in your garden to your neighbour will create positive feelings and help build community around you, touching on both PSHE and Ciztenship. If you don’t have a garden, your elderly neighbour will appreciate a hand to maintain their own.
5. Pay Attention to The Present Moment (Mindfulness)
A garden (it doesn't have to be your own backdoor garden) is a feast to the senses. The smell of lavender in the morning, holding a silky lamb’s ear leave between your fingers, bees buzzing in a hot summer day, nibbling some peppery rocket just harvested, witnessing a flock of jackdaws heading to their perching tree before dawn – all these experiences will help ground you in the present and your mental health. Being in nature can be a form of mindfulness that will contribute to heightening your awareness, enjoy life more and positively change the way you feel and how to approach challenges.
