Just 20 Minutes Of This Hobby Could Reset Your Mind, Body, And Hormones

-Long gone are the days that gardening was just for people of retirement age. The days, gardening is all the rage with a survey released in 2024 revealing that 83% of young people now describe gardening as ’cool’ and 54% would rather amble around a garden centre than dance the night away in a club. The timing for this couldn’t be better as the nation’s granddad, David Attenborough, urged in new documentary ‘Ocean’ that that collectively, gardens make up a significant area that can support biodiversity and embracing a ‘natural’ (i.e: reducing human intervention, pesticides and limiting the use of lawnmowers) approach to the hobby could benefit the health of our local ecosystems.Now, hormonal health expert, Mike Kocsis at Balance My Hormones, reveals that gardening can actually have huge health benefits for us, too.The health benefits of gardeningCortisol regulationKocsis explains: “When cortisol, the stress hormone, is chronically high, it can cause problems like poor sleep due to production of the sleep hormone, melatonin, being supressed, a weakened immune system, interrupted digestion, and even reproductive hormones like oestrogen, progesterone, and testosterone being supressed.”Yikes.This is where gardening comes in. Gardening is a gentle physical activity that doesn’t give the same cortisol spike that comes from intense exercise.Kocsis adds: “Even small tasks like digging, pruning, and weeding activate your muscles and improve circulation, in a way that puts your body into ‘rest and repair’ mode, rather than ‘fight or flight’.”He urges that just 20 minutes in the garden a few times a week can lead to a ‘significant drop’ in cortisol levels, leaving you calmer and feeling more balanced. Perimenopause and menopause supportKocsis says: “For those in perimenopause or menopause, fluctuating oestrogen levels can be confusing and overwhelming, with surges making you feel irritable or anxious, with poor sleep, and feeling emotionally flat and low when levels plummet, which often also causes lower levels of serotonin, the ‘happy hormone’.”He adds that these hormonal fluctuations can cause anxiety and a feeling of being ‘on edge’ but spending time in daylight “naturally stimulates the production of serotonin to help regulate mood, especially in the morning when the sunlight helps to reset your circadian rhythm and promote better sleep.”Kocsis advises focusing on slow, repetitive movements like sowing seeds, pruning and weeding, leaning into the sensory feeling of gardening for a ‘meditative effect’ that can reduce anxiety.Reduction of spiralling thoughtsKocsis says: “Not only does gardening increase serotonin with sunlight exposure and gentle physical movement, but also the sensory engagement of the senses that can pull you out of spiralling negative thoughts and bring your nervous system into a parasympathetic state.“This can be particularly helpful for those with PMS, postnatal depletion, and chronic stress.”He reveals how gardening can impact the five senses:Touch: digging your hands into the soil, feeling the texture of the leaves, or even simply walking barefoot on grass, are tactile experiences that help your body feel ‘grounded’ by activating the vagus nerve, which is what helps to regulate the parasympathetic nervous systemSmell: inhaling the scent of the flowers and herbs you’ve planted – particularly things like lavender, mint, and rosemary – has been shown to reduce heart rate, lower cortisol levels, and engage the limbic system, the emotional centre of the brain tied to stress regulation and hormone productionSight: vibrant flowers, lush green leaves, and the dappled sunlight coming through trees has been scientifically linked to reducing levels of stress hormonesSound: natural sounds like rustling leaves in the breeze and birds calling supports the shift of brainwaves into alpha and theta states, which are associated with calmness and deep restoration, and help to lower blood pressure and calm down overwhelmed sensory systemsTaste: the reward of tasting a something you’ve grown yourself brings a unique dopamine reward that triggers feel-good neurochemicals and even regulates hunger hormones like ghrelin and leptinGradual dopamine releaseKocsis says: “Dopamine is the reward and motivation; it’s released when we hit a milestone, complete a task, and feel pleasure and reward. It drives us to repeat the behaviours that caused it, but it can often be released after things like scrolling social media or online shopping, that provide an instant hit with low satisfaction.“Seeing the results of your hard work in the garden, from the first sign of shoots springing up from the soil to harvesting your first ripe tomato, releases dopamine gradually and slowly, which keeps it stable, rather than the spike and crash you get some sugar or social media.”I can confirm that growing potatoes, even the tiniest potatoes of all time, gave me an enormous sense of purpose.Burnout recovery“Burnout doesn’t just come from being exhausted mentally, it’s also hormonal”, warns Kocsis.“Your nervous system becomes overstimulated, and your hormonal rhythms are pushed out of sync, and your body gets stuck in a loop of cortisol being produced at the wrong time, dopamine levels being too low to motivate you or help you feel jot, and an HPA axis that struggles to regulate anything.”However, he urges that gardening can be a form of therapy for your nervous system that can ‘reset’ your hormones to the correct patterns.“By helping to reset your circadian rhythm, gardening helps cortisol levels to rise early in the day, when you need it, and lower towards the evening, and stop supressing the melatonin levels that needs to rise to help you sleep.“Gardening helps to slow down your central stress-response system by offering a sensory-rich environment, with little distractions, where you can feel like you can finally relax and breathe, and gives you the chance to feel a sense of forward motion without the pressure to perform.”Related...UK Gardeners Urged To Take An Electric Toothbrush To Their Tomato Plants5 Sneaky Signs Your Hormones Are Imbalanced, And What To Do About It5 Survival Tips For Parents Already On The Brink Of Summer Burnout

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