Gardening Can Help to Relieve the Stress the World is Feeling

38. Oscar de la Renta

Great fashion sense was not the only thing Oscar de la Renta left behind. The fashion designer was also an avid gardener and had gardens not only at his Connecticut estate, but also on his beachfront property in the Dominican Republic. Over a decade following its original publication, Oscar de la Renta’s eponymous coffee table tome is beautifully reimagined to encompass the milestones and memories made since 2002.

The stunning fashion imagery will enrapture anyone with an appreciation for beauty, but what really has us in awe is the designer’s well manicured gardens and impeccably chic homes. Here, we get lost in a few of the verdant landscapes featured amongst the 208 pages—gardens that only an icon like de la Renta could conjure. His favourites: Gardenia, Ylang-Ylang, and Tuberose. The lesson he learned: Creativity can be ignited in the garden.

39. Suzanne Somers

Suzanne Somers is an American actress, author, singer, businesswoman, and health spokesperson. She appeared in the television role of Chrissy Snow on Three’s Company and as Carol Foster Lambert on Step by Step. In 2001, Somers was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a lumpectomy and radiation, but declined to undergo chemotherapy. In November 2008, Somers announced she was diagnosed with inoperable cancer by six doctors, but she learned a week later that she was misdiagnosed.

During this time, she interviewed doctors about cancer treatments and these interviews became the basis of her book, Knockout, about alternative treatments to chemotherapy, including a fermented mistletoe extract called Iscador. After being diagnosed with Breast Cancer, Suzanne Somers turned to organic gardening. She explained that she loves the ability to walk through her garden and pick fresh produce for her recipes. Her favourites include: Lettuce, cauliflower, corn, broccoli, fennel, cucumbers, kale, and artichokes. Lesson she learned: Why go to the grocery store when you can just walk out to your garden?

40. Ellen DeGeneres

Ellen planted a Triscuit Urban Farming garden back in 2010 and sealed her fate as one of our favorite celebrities of all time. We hope she dances while she digs and weeds. While wearing Converse. And laughing. The Home Farming Movement is collaboration with Triscuit and Urban Farming™ in which Triscuit and Urban Farming™ planted fifty community-based home farms in twenty cities across the United States in 2010, and this year we are planting 15 more community-based home farms in 5 cities. This creative collaboration has also inspired over 47,000 people to register their home-based farms with the Home Farming Movement and each garden is a part of the Urban Farming Global Food Chain®.

I’ve always loved that Triscuit is made with only a few simple ingredients and am excited to be working with them on such a wonderful project “helping people enjoy growing their own food at home.” — Taja Sevelle, Urban Farmingâ„¢ Executive Director – Watch videos of Taja Sevelle (Founder/Executive Director of Urban Farmingâ„¢) on The Ellen DeGeneres Show! Ellen DeGeneres’ wife Portia de Rossi revealed on her talk-show that she got gardening tools for Ellen’s 61st birthday this year.

39. Why Garden?

Why Not? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC )says gardening is exercise. Activities like raking and cutting grass might fall under the category of light to moderate exercise, while shoveling, digging, and chopping wood might be considered vigorous exercise. Either way, working in a garden uses every major muscle group in the body. This fact won’t surprise anyone who’s woken up sore after a day of yardwork. Studies have found that the physical exertion of working in a garden may help offset both age-related weight gain and childhood obesity Trusted Source.

Doctors have also known for some time that exercise improves cognitive functioning in the brain. There’s some debate about whether gardening on its own is enough to affect cognitive skills like memory. But new evidence shows that gardening activities may spur growth in your brain’s memory-related nerves. Researchers in Korea gave 20-minute gardening activities to people being treated for dementia in an inpatient facility. After the residents had raked and planted in vegetable gardens, researchers discovered increased amounts of some brain nerve growth factors associated with memory in both males and females.

Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:

https://www.theenglishgarden.co.uk/news-and-events/news/11-surprising-health-benefits-of-gardening/https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/10-074.html

8 Surprising Health Benefits of Gardening

https://learn.eartheasy.com/articles/6-unexpected-health-benefits-of-gardening/ https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090203142517.htm
https://www.ahta.org/horticultural-therapy https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20181210-gardening-could-be-the-hobby-that-helps-you-live-to-100