The covid pandemic has led to people to experience significant amounts of stress and trauma worldwide. Sufferers of anxiety and depression found themselves isolated from their networks and stuck at home with only their own thoughts to keep them company. As someone who has suffered from anxiety for the last twenty years, the pandemic exacerbated my symptoms. I’d gardened before but in the summer of 2020, in the first year of the pandemic, I threw myself into gardening. It became a lifeline for me and I quickly discovered that growing flowers transformed my mood significantly.
Cortisol is a stress hormone secreted by your body. This study tested diurnal cortisol while also taking into account the changing levels of diurnal cortisol in your body throughout the day. Morning has the highest amount of cortisol while evening has the lowest in preparation for sleep. When you are in an anxious state, your body is flooded with cortisol constantly creating inflammation in your body over time.
Turns out, I was not alone in this. Google searches for home gardening exploded in the last several years as people turned to their homes and gardens for relief from the overwhelming news in the outside world.
A recent study done in the UK by researchers:
Lauriane Suyin Chalmin-Pui, Jenny Roe, Alistair Griffiths, Nina Smyth, Timothy Heaton, Andy Clayden, Ross Cameron Landsc Urban Plan. 2021 Jan; 205: 103958. Published online 2020 Sep 30. doi: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2020.103958 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7525452/#b0280
right before and during the Covid pandemic has found that residential gardening, even on a very small patch including plants in garden containers, contributes to decreased levels of stress, improved diurnal cortisol patterns, and participants declaring they were much happier and more relaxed from gardening as well as having more pride in their homes. The study also found increased levels of social interaction with neighbors within an urban community.
Many studies have proven that green care, being around plants and nature, is vital to a healthy life. Therapeutic gardens have been included in hospitals stretching back to the early days of healthcare hundreds of years ago. As our cities become more crowded with people streaming from towns for work and cars proliferating everywhere, our cities are getting concreted over for needed parking, creating heat sinks and vast stretches of space with little green to soothe us. With the global warming crisis also exacerbating climate change, we are in desperate need of plants wherever we can put them.
Two containers of plants on concrete in the front yard changed cortisol levels.
Participants in the study were given two containers filled with flowers and plants including lavender, juniper, clematis, narcissus, and viola.
The researchers took diurnal cortisol readings before planting the plants and then did surveys of the participants at the 1, 2 and 3 month marks.
The cortisol levels had decreased by over 30%.
Numerous other benefits of container gardens were reported.
Other benefits the participants saw were improved states of joy, pride in their neighborhood, more social interaction with neighbors, and there were reports of neighbors not in the study asking the researchers for the names of the flowers so they could grow their own containers.
“It is quite relaxing, but I never thought I'd say this. I'm quite attached to them now. It sounds weird because they're only plants, but they're not. They're mine. And they are living things, so you've got to look after them. It's like having a little pet.” Female, 37. (participant in the above study.)
The participants in the study all self-reported improved levels of mood and general well being from their container gardens. Their perceived decrease in levels of stress were confirmed by the testing of their lower cortisol levels.
"It’s lovely. It really cheers me up, honestly […] I love nature, and I see so little of it. So every time I get out of the house, I get a little wave of pride. It gives me a lift, a little swing in my step. Every time.” - Female, 51. (participant in same study)
Gardening even in small available spaces still gives the desired stress relief we are searching for.
Throughout the pandemic, I’ve been watching the numerous posts on social media from flower farmers and florists with their glorious fields of blooms and wishing I lived in the country so I too could have such a beautiful space around me.
BUT MOVING TO THE COUNTRY IS NOT NECESSARY.
You can bring the blooms to your front doorstep, or your concrete front yard, or your small patio out back and still receive the stress relief benefits of nurturing, growing, and interacting with plants from a tiny ground plot as small as a 22” planter.