Horticulture Therapy and Stress: A Tool for Slowing Down

on December 2, 2023

At its core, horticultural therapy uses nature, gardens, and plants to alleviate a client’s mental or physical symptoms. Most consider the formal start of this practice in the 1940s, when war veterans were treated with it upon returning home.

The first actual mention of horticultural therapy in America appears in the 1950s, but it certainly cannot claim ownership of communing with nature. In the earliest stages of the world our ancestors lived with the land and formed their societies around and with nature. They didn’t have to list the benefits of the outdoors, it simply was.

As such, I believe the familiar connection of humans to nature slumbers within us all, and horticultural therapy wakens that connection and brings it into focus.

Why then, is it so easy to lose our desire to be in the natural world? The culture we live in is so distracting and demands us to have so many priorities that before we know it, a ten-minute walk outside is a luxury we cannot afford. We quickly forget how good it makes us feel, if we push it off for long enough.

An Environmental Protection Agency survey (2022)¹ announced Americans spend 90% of time inside, a far cry from the hunters and gatherers of old. If you take nothing else from this post, start walking 20 minutes outside every day. Put the phone away, because the screens and alerts prevent your mind from detaching into the semi-meditative calm that will help rejuvenate your tired neurons.

A Building H survey reported 58.8% of Americans spend less than one hour outside a day and 37.4% reported 30 minutes or less.²

Why does this matter? It matters because chronic stress is on the rise. 57% of US respondents to a American Institute of Stress survey say their stress paralyzes them.³ Perhaps the very existence of an Institute of Stress is illustration enough, but if not, let’s list some common triggers.

COVID-19, financial disparity, racial injustice, climate change, war and global crisis have assaulted the American psyche.

In a devastating update, the CDC reported a heartbreaking number of suicides, about 49,500 in 2022, the highest it has been since World War II.⁴

We can be succinct in the takeaway here; Americans are stressed and crying for help.

The world seems to be on fire; in some places it really is. When we look at the global and long-term future, we begin to spiral. As a collective, we are pushing forward well past the brink of exhaustion and reaping the negative health and cultural consequences.

Moment of truth? I started this personal journey because I was living in that space too, and I was struggling alone.

Horticultural therapy is one way to bring us quite literally back down to earth. An opportunity to ground ourselves in something real, stable, and comforting. To take a needed moment from the ever-present anxiety to observe something quiet, beautiful, and non-judgmental. The unspoken truth is that our hearts ache to find community and simple purpose in a chaotic world.

At the end of the day, no one mechanism can resolve the anxious tension that surrounds us today, but this is one tool in a bundle of kit that can move the needle a little bit further towards green. It can unwind sore muscles, slow down the heart, inspire the mind, invigorate the senses, calm the nerves, find like-minded community, and so much more.

And hopefully, it will rekindle that childlike love for nature that will help us and the world heal as the days go on.

So let’s dig in together and see how far we can go, because it can get better.

For a deeper dive, keep reading at the references below:

¹An average American spends 90% of time indoors. Here are 5 reasons to get outside

²^{A Survey of Modern Life: Outdoor Time}

³^{What is Stress? “People are disturbed not by a thing, but by their perception of a thing.” — Epictetus}

⁴^{Suicide Data and Statistics}