Property News · April 10, 2016

Gardening is good for you | James Wong


A spot of gardening not only gives you a good physical workout but reduces pain and anxiety, tooA Sunday afternoon of pottering round the garden – a bit of weeding here, mulching a bed there – doesn’t exactly seem like an arduous workout. Yet a 2006 study by Pennsylvania’s University of Scranton suggests otherwise. The team found that prolonged light exercise, such as gardening, can burn more calories than a gym session, despite feeling much easier to do. How does this work? The key is the duration of the session. Gardening tends to be much lower intensity, but last twice or even three times as long as a trip to the gym, meaning the cumulative effect of this more modest rate of calorie-burning starts to add up.When gardening, you are also exposed to more stimuli than the flashing monitor of the treadmill. The sights, the sounds, the decision-making can all serve to distract you from the intensity of physical work you are doing. Images and recordings of natural environments have been shown to reduce feelings of pain and anxiety, help to lessen the need for anaesthesia and even improve healing times in hospital wards. Continue reading…

Source : theguardian.com
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