Is life getting you down? In Feel-Good Gardening, author Claire Stares gives advice on how your garden and nature in general can help.
The link between good mental and physical health and exposure to the natural world, be it a country walk or cultivating a garden, has been widely recognised in recent years. This book explains why it works and offers ideas for getting the most out of being outside.
There’s an explanation of how gardening can work on hormones – both the mood-enhancing endorphins and dopamine as well as cortisol, which is associated with stress – how looking at nature’s patterns affects the brain, and why gardening can keep you physically fit.
Woven through Feel-Good Gardening are suggested projects, including building a fragrant tepee to sit in, making rose petal meditation beads, and creating a herb-covered meditation seat.
There’s an explanation of the ‘farmer’s walk exercise’ as an alternative form of weight training, and an exploration of biodynamic growing, and why you should sing or chat to your plants.
Indeed, the advice is a mix of the purely practical – how to plant a tree – to the more spiritual, there’s a discussion on why ‘garden affirmations’ will help.
All the information comes in bite-sized portions and the book has a varied and colourful layout, ideal for dipping into.
Feel-Good Gardening by Claire Stares is published by Summersdale with an RRP of £12.99. You can buy it here for £10.65. (If you buy via this link, I receive a small commission. The price you pay is not affected.) Alternatively, you may wish to buy from an independent bookseller here. All prices correct at time of publication of this post.
You can read more of my gardening and garden-related book reviews here.
Make sure you don’t miss future posts by joining my email list.