For Addiction Recovery, Give Gardening a Try

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Okay so now you are in recovery from your addiction? You have made a change to your life that will allow you to reach great strides if healthy action continues to be taken. You have a personal development plan or you are working on making one. You can do it and you can start to believe more and more in yourself every single day. If you are planning to do the best in your recovery from an addiction gardening can help. Yes, you heard that correctly, gardening can help. This may seem different for a bit, but hang in there.

Gardening is a holistic activity that you can use during your recovery to benefit your new lifestyle. There are many different ways that gardening can help you in recovery and you are about to find all of these things out. 

How can gardening improve your overall mental health?

Gardening is something that many people do for hours and seem to enjoy it. When it was studied further it was shown that spending time outside and in the dirt improves people’s happiness and their mood as well. This is done by the brain releasing more neurotrophins. If you are in recovery from your addiction then improving your overall mental health can help you to release your stress, smile more often, and improve your relationships and much more. Give gardening a try to have all of these things.

When you are in recovery from an addiction your entire sobriety and recovery are reliant upon on your continued strong mental health. If you want to keep going at the rate you are now and continue your wonderful recovering lifestyle then gardening is a great idea for you.

How can gardening release stress?

When you are in recovery from your addiction gardening can help to reduce the cortisol in your brain. By doing this you can release the stress that you have and feel better on a regular basis. When you garden, you are focused on the task at hand which helps you to take your mind off from other things, hence ridding stress from your day. Sounds great right?
Stress can really be very debilitating. However, you can overcome this stress in many ways and you will want to make sure you write down how you will do that in your personal development plan. Have you ever tried gardening? If not, try to really dig in because you may enjoy it more than you know. This may be able to be your way to get away for a bit meanwhile releasing your stress.

How can gardening relieve depression symptoms?

If you are one of the millions around the world who have depression, you are not alone. You should also know that you don’t have to lose the battle. There are many things that you can do to relieve your depression symptoms. One of those things that you can do is gardening. By doing this you are taking part in something, you are growing something and creating something new. This can feel amazing and help you to improve your self-esteem and relieve depression.

When someone has depression they often find themselves wanting to be alone, you may find that you don’t want to take part in things that you enjoy and much more. This can be very scary and frightening, but you can get through it. You can garden and spend time playing in the dirt. Many people have found that this helps them get through the rough times and back into the good times.

Living in recovery from an addiction can be confusing at times, and you won’t always know what you are doing, but you can move your way through with some guidance. Gardening is beneficial in so many ways and you can reap all of these benefits if you choose to.  Just remember one thing; the only way you can gain benefits from holistic measures is if you truly believe that they can work for you. You can get the benefits short-term and long-term if you keep giving new things a try. Gardening has been tried by many recovering addicts as a way to relieve stress, relieve depression and much more. If you are having these types of things in your recovery you can overcome them. Find what works for your personal development plan, and that just might be gardening.

- Cara Gilmore

References:

​https://www.fix.com/blog/health-benefits-of-gardening/
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http://www.sobriety.ca/addiction-recovery-horticultural-therapy.htm