Gardening Can Make People Feel Calmer

One of the more traditional outdoor activities, especially in the spring and summer months, is gardening. Many people enjoy the idea of being outdoors, close to home, and quietly productive all at the same time. Common wisdom encourages us to think of yard work as relaxing, even contemplative.

There is something wonderful and important about tending to new life. Day by day little plants and flowers grow stronger. It is difficult to remain separate from this process. The influence of the grower on the vitality of the plants is quite obvious.

In the nineteen seventies, a polygraph technician by the name of Cleve Backster accidentally discovered similar galvanic responses in plant life as are typically found in human beings. His research, and the research of many other interested scientists, proved interesting if not conclusive.

Backster's ideas were the result of concepts introduced some years earlier in India. Jagadish Chandra Bose, a Bengali physicist and botanist, had claimed that communication between animals and plants was a reality. Continuing Bose's research under his own understandings of biophysics, Backster eventually inspired the popular book The Secret Life Of Plants. The implication that animal and plant life might share this sort of fundamental emotional consciousness is extremely provocative, even in the modern scientific community.

The thought of actual, substantive emotional communication between flora and fauna is indeed interesting. The first and most tantalizing question it raises is whether or not emotional states can be projected by those feeling them. An important idea here would be that humans might in some way be influenced emotionally by the surrounding plant life.

Whatever the psychological relationship between people and their plants might be, it is true that many people enjoy working in their flower beds. It may be that it is nice to care for something that makes no overt demands. Maybe it's the slow growth and obvious gains that gives them a sense of accomplishment.

People often need an excuse to get some fresh air. Sometimes it's just hot and humid and the air conditioner seems like a better companion than some flowers. But even on the stickiest days of the year, a little gardening can go a long way to making someone feel more at peace with the world. Whether they grow trees full of fruit, plots full of vegetables, or just a really nice and healthy lawn, there is something to suit nearly everyone.

The next time you visit your garden, be sure to take it all in and relax. Afterall, you've put your heart and soul into it and now it can give you peace of mind.