Gardening is good for the psyche – similar to outdoor sports

Previous studies have already shown that exercise in nature has positive effects on mood and can thus alleviate depressive symptoms. The present study compared affect improvements in gardening with or without green plants and outdoor exercise at the same intensity in order to clarify the influence of green plants and exercise in more detail.

Gardening or outdoor sports

Subjects between the ages of 18 and 26 were randomly assigned to a control group, a gardening group with green plants, a gardening group without green plants, and an outdoor exercise group. The authors compared demographic and sociological factors as well as the respective daily physical activity. After a 5-minute prep period, all participants sat still for 8 min before performing baseline testing. This included blood pressure, positive/negative affect, and heart rate variability. The same intensity of exercise and gardening was ensured using the heart rate.

The study used an international general positive/negative affect scale (I-PANAS-SF short volume version) to evaluate the affective status of the participants. The mood was recorded before and after the respective activity using 10 positive and 10 negative emotions on a 5-point scale (higher score corresponding to stronger affect).

The gardening groups gardened for 20 minutes: 8 minutes digging, 8 minutes transplanting, and 4 minutes watering, at a predetermined typical heart rate for each of these activities. After a subsequent idle state of at least 20 minutes, final tests were carried out. The exercise group did a 20-minute ride on an ergometer at an intensity equivalent to that of the garden group. The control group could sit and read, for example, for the same amount of time.

gardening, exercising or sitting for 20 minutes

A total of 160 people with an average age of 22.5 years took part in the study. In the control group, no differences in negative and positive affect were found before and after the 20 minutes. In the green plant gardening group, the negative affect score decreased from 9.26 (±1.75) at baseline to 6.95 (±2.05) following gardening (p=0.050), positive affect increased from 11.53 (±2.02) to 14.68 (±2.18). Gardening without green plants, on the other hand, had no significant effect on positive or negative affect. The exercise group increased the positive affect score from 12.39 (±2.31) at baseline to 14.11 (±2.61) following exercise (p=0.023), with no significant effect on negative affect.

Only negative affect differed significantly between the green sports group and the gardening group with green plants (p = 0.037), with gardening being slightly more favorable with regard to negative affect.

Gardening is good for the psyche

Gardening with green plants may, therefore, be similarly beneficial to mood as exercising in nature, these data suggest. Time in the countryside can therefore be spent with physical activity, which is sometimes a little more strenuous, according to individual preferences – it doesn’t always have to be classic sport to be good for the psyche, but green plants seem to be an essential factor.

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Those: Tao M, Lu L, Gao J, He X. Horticultural activities can achieve the same affect improvement effect of green exercise: A randomized field controlled trial. Front Psychol. 2022 Nov 16;13:989919. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.989919. PMID: 36467130; PMCID: PMC9709488.

Photo: Pexels/ Karolina Grabowska