I often have my doubts about the stress relief, but certainly great exercise.
When I was a teen, lo those many years ago, I worked in a pet store for several years. I mainly focused on the aquariums and I had several of my own at home.
I read those studies that said having an aquarium at nursing homes lowered blood pressure and had various psychiatric benefits. This finding was used to recommend that people keep fish to acquire similar benefits.
And I pondered.
And I concluded, the people achieving these benefits from the aforementioned aquatic environments were not the people responsible for caring for them. You know, the ones who worried about what to feed, and how often to change the water, and whether that one had an infection and which filtration method was best and which water chemistry suited all the inhabitants, and...
I think you're quite right. Gardening does induce stress, for sure, what with its overwhelming dependence on the weather, all the different pests you need to watch out for, fight, and often lose to. Right now we've got a really bad weather forecast, with sub-zero temps on Wednesday and a couple of strawberry plants just flowered, not to mention the spinach that's coming out, so tiny and vulnerable, or the damned lice that keep destroying my daffodils every single year no matter what I spray on them. Also, we are being visited by rabbits because we didn't have enough to worry about already. And yet, for what survives, there will be some substantial gratification as I watch it all grow, flower, and bear fruit. Kind of bipolar, this gardening business or any business involving looking after something...
Ah, you're giving me ambitions to get the vegetable garden going again.
It's just been a bare 25' X 25' patch for the last several years. Too busy. Too lazy. Don't remember eating during Covid anyway...
Very happy to hear it. If you've got land, use it. It's great stress relief and good exercise, with a bonus of growing your own food.
I often have my doubts about the stress relief, but certainly great exercise.
When I was a teen, lo those many years ago, I worked in a pet store for several years. I mainly focused on the aquariums and I had several of my own at home.
I read those studies that said having an aquarium at nursing homes lowered blood pressure and had various psychiatric benefits. This finding was used to recommend that people keep fish to acquire similar benefits.
And I pondered.
And I concluded, the people achieving these benefits from the aforementioned aquatic environments were not the people responsible for caring for them. You know, the ones who worried about what to feed, and how often to change the water, and whether that one had an infection and which filtration method was best and which water chemistry suited all the inhabitants, and...
Of course, argument by analogy is always suspect.
I think you're quite right. Gardening does induce stress, for sure, what with its overwhelming dependence on the weather, all the different pests you need to watch out for, fight, and often lose to. Right now we've got a really bad weather forecast, with sub-zero temps on Wednesday and a couple of strawberry plants just flowered, not to mention the spinach that's coming out, so tiny and vulnerable, or the damned lice that keep destroying my daffodils every single year no matter what I spray on them. Also, we are being visited by rabbits because we didn't have enough to worry about already. And yet, for what survives, there will be some substantial gratification as I watch it all grow, flower, and bear fruit. Kind of bipolar, this gardening business or any business involving looking after something...
Not unlike raising children... :-)