Gardening is in My Blood
I must be the only guy in my neighborhood who still mows his own lawn. Every week, rain or shine, summer or winter, I’m out there for several hours raking, digging, chopping and trimming. It’s therapeutic for me. After all, my yard is one of the few things in my life that I have almost complete control over. I get a lot of thinking done out there and make a lot of important decisions while I’m plodding away. It must be in my genes. I can remember as a kid following my Dad with my toy lawn mower as he pushed the old reel mower we had back then. Everyone wondered why we had the best roses on the street, but I knew why. I watched my Dad run out in the street with his shovel to clean up after the horses that went by and then but the manure in his garden. And I’m proud to know that his grandfather was the Superintendent of the Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh, Scotland at the turn of the 20th Century and designed the famous Floral Clock that still attracts visitors there today.
Non-exercise Activity is Good for You
A recent study conducted by Elin Ekblom-Bak and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden seems to confirm my long held belief that non-exercise activity like gardening is good for you. Their study showed that while intentional exercise is important, what you do the rest of the day has a significant impact on your health as well. For individuals 60 and older, activities like housework, gardening and maintenance projects such as working on a car, anything that keeps you on your feet, could reduce your risk of stroke or heart attack by 27% and the risk of dying from any cause by 30% according to their findings. Individuals who were active tended to be closer to their ideal weight and have better levels of cholesterol, triglycerides and glucose. So, in addition to not-smoking, getting regular exercise and eating properly, remember that all those activities of daily living are good for you, too. Oops…gotta run. There’s grass to be cut, leaves to be raked and trees to be trimmed!
