Gardening Relieves Stress and Anxiety

Video – VLog #19

Is gardening good for stress and / or anxiety relief?

Whether you are a plant or flower planter, or just a grass cutter we discuss all in this video.

Script – VLog #19

David Logan: Hi, welcome to another week of the Techno Dinosaur Meets the IT Geek video series. My name is David Logan the IT Geek, the small guy who lives in Annan, South of Scotland, who keeps technolgies short and simple for the home worker for the home office worker. This week joining me is our regular Willie Nicol. So Willie, how are you and where are you?

Willie Nicol: Hi, David. Hello everyone. I’m Willie Nicol, I am indeed the Techno Dinosaur, and when I’m not being a personal development coach, I’m in Troon, South Ayrshire, Scotland.

David Logan: Very good. This week we have got a question for you. Are you ready?

Willie Nicol: OK.

David Logan: You – we keep talking – when finishing these videos about gardening, we are going out to cut our grass, or attend our garden. I’m seeing a lot of stuff now as we’re coming into mainstream summer. I’m picking up that gardening is good for stress relief. Can you expand on this, tell us a bit more?

Willie Nicol: Yes, David, that’s interesting. Obviously not everyone has a garden. So this is to those who do have that facility or even a window box or whatever.

Willie Nicol: We’ve touched upon some of the topics before, and I did a bit of research before coming on here. Stress is a big, big problem. Studies have shown that stress can lead to all sorts of mental and physical ailments if we can call them that. So it’s incumbent on us to think of ways of reducing our stress. And gardening has many, many benefits. We’ve touched on this before. Exercise. Exercise is good for you. An exercise is good for relieving stress because as we mentioned before, it stimulates the production of endorphins. Which are, if you like, feel good chemical you generate within ourselves. So we do exercise, we feel better and gardening, depending on what you’re doing, can be quite physical.

Willie Nicol: And mowing the lawn, maybe a wheelbarrow full of earth, your digging that plot of land, whatever it happens to be. Your getting that exercise so you have the benefits of endorphins – feeling better. Number two, your out in the fresh air and your being in the fresh air, while doing your exercise, another benefit. The exercise you’re doing has an effect on your cortisol levels, cortisol is one of the chemicals that increases stress levels and it’s not a good thing, shall we say in higher doses. It is a good thing when produced naturally. We’ve touched this before, but excess cortisol and adrenaline caused by stress, if left unchecked as it were – is not good. Can lead to all sorts of, as I said before, mental and physical illness. If your out in the fresh air – that’s good. We live in Scotland, so what I’m going to say next may seem a bit odd, but hopefully the sun will be shining. When the sun is shining, it promotes the production of vitamin D in your body. And vitamin D is another feel good chemical a natural recurring kind of chemical which helps to relieve stress and combat the excess bad chemicals, if you like.

Willie Nicol: So you’ve often seen if you’ve got a pet, your cat and your dog will lie out in the sunshine, because there not daft! They know lying out in the sunshine is good for them. So if you happen to be doing a bit of hard graft in the garden, lowering your stress levels and get some vitamin D.

Willie Nicol: It’s all good. Let me refer to my notes.

Willie Nicol: We’ve also touched on this before where we are concentrating on one thing. You kinda lose track of other things. So if you’re stressed or anxious about something and your cutting the grass or you’re digging a plot of land or whatever, it’s almost like doing some mindfulness. Where you focus on that task in front of you. And you forget about other worries. You forget that you forgot to send your mum a birthday card, which is stressing you out, or you have other other worries or other anxieties because you’re focussed on cutting the grass, getting the fresh air, get some vitamin D about you. And if you are a keen gardener, of which I have to confess, I’m not. You could be doing something creative. You could be getting your lawn picture perfect, you were planting flowers and create a nice border, or whatever it is. You are focusing your mind on something else away from all your stresses and strains. Does that help explain it?

David Logan: Yeah, you touched quite a few areas there. One thing very quickly, before we finish for the week, you did cover quite a bit there and we’ll probably look at breaking that down for future weeks. You mentioned cortisol. Just for my own benefit, how do we know we haven’t too much, or too less cortisol. Is it blood pressure related or. . .? I know you’re not medical …

Willie Nicol: No, no, tangentially, if I can use that word. So I’m going to look at my notes again. Right? I’m reading verbatim from my notes. Cortisol is a hormone produced by the body in times of stress. It is responsible for all the symptoms we associate with the condition of stress, sweaty palms, elevated heart rate, a disability, and muddled thinking. When we spend time in our garden, we forget about all that. So cortisol is an actual chemical within us, which is stimulated by stress or stressful situations, which is a good thing in many situations, because it keeps us alert. Alert to danger. It keeps us on our toes . And that’s the good effect of it. However, if we don’t learn to destress and your cortisol levels remain high like any other chemical or drug, excessive levels are bad for us. So leading to the symptoms we just alluded to there, so cortisol in certain circumstances is good. Excess cortisol not good

David Logan: Great, fantastic. That’s us for this week. Willie. You have put in quite a lot of material and well researched. Thank you for your time, To the viewers, if you have any questions, basic gardening tips, Willie can help you with – very basic. But we really are looking at stress relief, anxiety relief – speak to our coach here, Willie Nicol. Speak to him. Contact him. We have numerous social media channels. The one I want to concentrate on is YouTube. Please subscribe for the hundredth subscriber, we’ve got a prize for you from Willie Nicol, the one and only, so to the viewer, thank you for listening, and enjoy – be healthy, have a great weekend, goodbye from me and over to you Willie.

Willie Nicol: Yes, David. I’ll reiterate that, stay well keep safe, be healthy. Get out in your garden if you’ve got one, and have a great weekend. Bye for now.