Spring has returned, reminding everyone of the life cycle and their role in the universal festival of change and growth. The great outdoors is erupting with beauty and harbingers of renewal, and one of the best ways to connect with the natural world and contemplate your place and meaning in it is through gardening.
So how can you use this hobby to decrease stress and improve your overall mental well-being? Put simply, you can unite the ancient wisdom of mindfulness and meditation practices with modern science. Here are five different ways gardening can be an exercise in mindfulness.
It connects you to the life cycle
If you dig deep into anxiety’s dark heart, you’ll find that it ultimately boils down to what the poet John Keats once described as fears that you’ll cease to be. Few people have the power to divert an Earth-threatening comet any more than they can prevent the next war or pandemic or single-handedly stop the climate crisis. Eventually, even the wealthiest will discover that all their money can’t stop the inevitable. Death lurks everywhere—but the other side of the coin is life.
Gardening reminds you of the truth of death exposed in the ancient tarot card of the same name. Rather than representing destruction and despair, it symbolizes the principle of change, which can seem scary, but ultimately leads to better things. You’ll embrace the life cycle when you hold the rich organic compost created from your old coffee grounds in your hands, and those beans that began as flowers will rise again from the ground as new ones.
What a powerful way to meditate on the cycle of life! You’ll begin to see the truth in Einstein’s most famous theorem that energy can never be created nor destroyed, only transformed. It’s the ultimate, immutable law of nature. Every living creature is mostly stardust, and we’re all a part of an undying universal symphony.
It grounds you in the present
Mindfulness meditation involves grounding yourself in the present and absorbing the world inside and outside of you in the moment. Gardening will help you reach this elusive flow state where time stops and you focus only on the input from your senses.
However, unlike repetitive tasks, gardening will also engage your creativity. It’s the opposite of working on an assembly line or placing items on shelves, facing them correctly. You need to make constant, yet non-taxing decisions—will these species do better in the sun or shade? Should I dig this hole a bit deeper so the roots have more room to expand? How close together should I place these forsythias to create a privacy hedge?
Making these life-affirming choices might be work, but it’s the kind most folks find relaxing. It also creates a sense of agency, something many people lack these days, as their jobs require them to follow orders with little room for innovation.
It engages all your senses
Digging your hands deep into the cool, loamy earth ignites your sense of touch. Did you find an earthworm? You know these critters benefit your garden, but you should pause for a moment before returning your legless buddy to their home, and feel the slickness of their flesh wriggling between your fingers. Thank them for their soil-tilling benefits before returning them to your petunia bed.
Gardening can also be a delight for your sense of smell. Savour the aroma of water as it kisses the dry earth inside each freshly dug hole—it’s like inhaling the summer rain. Sample the various rose scents when picking your varieties. Do you make lotions or perfumes at home? Spend many pleasant hours wandering around different nurseries, letting your nose lead the way to your next fragrance blend.
Taste is another oft-neglected sense, but you can delight it with your fruit and vegetable selections. Set your tongue ablaze with fiery pepper varieties—the capsaicin they contain will ease minor aches and pains and cool you down on summer days. Relish the delicate sweetness of watermelon and peach, a flavour combination that’ll transform your tap water into a treat when you soak these fruits in it overnight.
It reminds you to weed and prune
Part of gardening involves cutting back black and sickened limbs and removing harmful species that threaten the lives of your cultivated plants. It’s a lot like life. Eliminating the negative creates more room for the positive. Sometimes, you have to get the bad stuff out of the way to let the goodness flow.
Think about what sparks joy in your life as you trim your bushes and trees. What do you want to create more space for? For example, social media is a glorious way to connect with faraway friends and family, but using it too much can leave you disconnected from real-life relationships. How can you strike a better balance, perhaps saying hi to friends online during brief work breaks, but hacking off that “dead limb” while eating dinner with your spouse?
As you pull weeds, think about what you’d be better off eliminating from your life. For example, alcohol can have heart-health benefits for some, but other people have different chemistry, making them more likely to become addicted. In fact, consuming more than two glasses of booze a day has the opposite effect of hurting your heart and other organs. If you’re one of those people who struggles to say “enough” after one glass—are you better off eliminating it from your diet completely?
It encourages wu wei
What is wu wei? The literal translation means “effortless doing” or even “doing nothing,” making it sound like a recipe for laziness and apathy. Instead, though, this Taoist principle emphasizes mindfulness: in other words, accomplishing things, but in such a thoughtful way that nothing remains undone.
Wu wei challenges you to align your actions and behaviours with natural laws. Everything changes, but violent upheavals also bring unnecessary strife and suffering. This principle encourages you to move like a bamboo plant bending in the wind, going with the currents rather than against them.
Think about it: You don’t plant a cactus in the Alaskan wilderness and expect it to thrive. However, that same cholla will do beautifully in the desert southwest.
Above all, wu wei reminds you to put your forceful will and ego aside and think about things as they are, not as you wish they would be. How can you nurture them to that objective? All the longing in the world won’t make your asparagus sprout—but the right combination of soil nutrients and sunlight will.
The mindfulness of gardening
If you didn’t get into gardening during the pandemic, it’s not too late. Every day is a great day to begin again, especially considering the mental health benefits you can reap from this hobby.
Why not take a bit of time to consider these five ways that gardening is an exercise in mindfulness? Following that, you’ll be mentally ready to put on your gloves and lose yourself in the delicate art of nourishing Gaia and her creations.
Medical disclaimer: This page is for educational and informational purposes only and may not be construed as medical advice. The information is not intended to replace medical advice offered by physicians. Please refer to the full text of our medical disclaimer.
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