I Wasn’t Expecting My Allotment To Be Good For My Mental Health

The positive power of nature and the environment

Is your life stressful?

If you said no to this question, I want to know how you do it! My life has its challenges. I have two autistic children who have differing additional support needs. My wife has Long COVID and an assortment of other health difficulties thanks to the virus. I have a demanding and busy day job. And I support a rubbish football team. These things all have the potential to cause me stress and anxiety!

I imagine you’ll have variations on the above too.

But what is stress? This might seem an odd question. We’ve lived with a global pandemic for approaching 18 months, after all. Isn’t that obvious? Well, maybe, but there’s no harm in reminding ourselves.

The UK’s National Health Service describes stress as:

The body’s reaction to feeling threatened or under pressure. It’s very common, can be motivating to help us achieve things in our daily life, and can help us meet the demands of home, work and family life.

I feel a little stressed each time I write an article on Medium. Will it be any good? Is anyone going to read it? Who am I to comment on this? We all have our stress triggers.

10-years of hard labour!

We’ve all heard the old wives’ tale or mantras that “a little fresh air is good for you,” and “communing with nature”, but might not have thought too hard about them. As I was thinking about this article, I also remembered reading about the therapeutic benefits for patients who had a view of nature.

All that said, it wasn’t until we took over a local allotment that all these dots came together for me.

My wife has always been a keen and skilled gardener. I am not! And if I’m being honest, I’ve never been a fan of gardening. I like the sight of a flowering garden, but the effort to get to this point has never appealed. The vision and know-how to cultivate a pleasant space belong to her. I’m the physical labour!

The prospect of having an allotment has been a long-held ambition for her too, and three months ago a plot became free and we had our patch of land — but one that more resembled a jungle than an “English country garden”.

Just more hard labour, I thought! How wrong I was.

A surprising joy

I won’t lie, there has been no shortage of hard labour at our allotment. There’s been digging, clearing, strimming, planting, and repairing a rickety fruit cage, to name a few. But I’ve loved it, and that has been an unexpected surprise and joy. It has been strenuous, but there have been many positive benefits to my mental health.

While we don’t live in a busy city, there is a calm in the wide-open spaces of several hundred allotments. The air is fresh, I can hear the birds sing, there are trees, flowers and vegetables. Secluded paths run between plots like an intricate maze and there is something new on each visit.

Don’t worry, I’m not attempting to be all “New Age Hippy” on you! But there is something very tranquil about it. Perhaps it calls back to simpler times where there’s not a computer screen in sight (well, aside from the phone in my pocket!) or a little of the “Digging for Victory” spirit from darker times.

So why is this?

More than an old wives’ tale

There is a growing body of research evidence that “communing with nature”, being in green spaces and a change in environment can reduce stress. The sense of being threatened or under pressure will often link to a certain place or situation. As Public Health England puts it:

We’ve known for some time that good quality natural landscape in urban areas can affect how people feel. It reduces stress and sadness, lifts the mood and makes us feel better.

Mental health charities such as Mind, also highlight the associated benefits of green space on your physical wellbeing, in particular, that by being outside you can be more active, which unleashes many other benefits such as improving sleep. You might even lose some weight by being more active, which could improve your self-esteem, and before you know it you’re in a nice virtuous circle.

We are also seeing this evidence being turned into health interventions and moving beyond the rhetoric of “a little fresh air is good for you”. Under the wider “social prescribing” approach, patients experiencing poor mental health can join a scheme at the WWT London Wetland Centre. The project will monitor the effectiveness of these outdoor activities on mental health, but this signals a willingness to embrace the positive benefits the environment can bring to our wellbeing.

Growing more than just potatoes

Back to my allotment. I can testify to the benefits being in a calm green space has given me. Am I communing with nature and turning into a hippy? Not the latter I would say, but having a temporary departure from the digital world plays a part, as does being away from my normal environment, which can be stressful and chaotic.

I thought I’d be the last person praising the benefits of an allotment, but in reality, it’s about being outside more, something also hampered throughout the pandemic. Maybe this is another factor for me too.

We all love our devices, and I wouldn’t be without my phone. I’m aware of the irony of writing this article inside my house and in front of a screen too. But making space in your day for a little “green time” isn’t to be under-estimated.

It might be the best thing you do today.

If you enjoyed my article, here are a few more from me that hopefully catch your interest!