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Gardening improves mental health
When you start gardening, your mental health improves by at least 55 percent. This is the conclusion of a meta-analysis published in Systematic Reviews.
Study
Romanian researchers, affiliated with the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Cluj-Napoca, collected previously published trials in which psychologists, psychiatrists and other scientists had test subjects gardening and determined its effect on depression, anxiety and other aspects of mental health.
In the table below you will find more information about the studies that the Romanians found suitable for use in a meta-analysis, in which they aggregated and analyzed the outcomes of the trials.
Click on the table for a larger version.
Results
The researchers were able to use 6 studies for their meta-analyses. The figure below - click on it for a larger version - shows the outcome.
Mental health and mental wellbeing - in other words: the quality of life - improved by 55 percent.
Conclusion
The researchers started their analysis with 40 studies, but most of them were not methodologically sound. There were only 2 studies that were methodologically of high quality. The quality of 5 studies was moderate. The web message is based on those studies.
However, the researchers noted that the effect of gardening was greater the better the studies were designed. Because they also used studies of moderate quality, they suspect that the actual positive effect of gardening on mental health is greater than their meta-analysis suggests.
Source:
Syst Rev. 2024 Jan 29;13(1):45.
More:
Working in the garden may protect against dementia 02.08.2024
After the age of 45 gardening keeps your brain in shape 03.07.2024
How gardening improves brain function 13.05.2022
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Psychology
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