Allotment Gardening and Other Leisure Activities for Stress Reduction and Healthy Aging
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
In this article, the authors explored the potential benefits of allotment gardening for healthy aging, focusing on the opportunities for outdoor physical activity, social support, and contact with nature, and found that allotment gardeners reported significantly less perceived stress than participants of indoor exercise classes (P < 0.05).Abstract:
This study explored the potential benefits of allotment gardening for healthy aging, focusing on the opportunities for outdoor physical activity, social support, and contact with nature that allotment gardening provides. Participants included 94 individuals aged between 50 and 88 years who were members of various indoor and outdoor activity groups. The participants completed physiological measures and psychometric scales of self-rated health, perceived stress, physical activity level, and perceived social support. A significant difference in perceived stress levels was observed between the activity groups. Allotment gardeners reported significantly less perceived stress than participants of indoor exercise classes (P < 0.05). As there were no significant differences in reported levels of social support and physical activity, explanations for the allotment gardeners' lower stress levels focus on the potential contribution of engagement with nature and psychological restoration. These findings represent a step toward understanding the benefits of allotment gardening activity as a health-promoting behavior in later life.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Obesogenic environments: current evidence of the built and food environments.
Tim Townshend,Amelia A. Lake +1 more
TL;DR: Current evidence and emergent themes that are of significance for the United Kingdom, including the importance of the journey to school for young people and the multiple environments in which people spend their time are overviewed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Does spending time outdoors reduce stress? A review of real-time stress response to outdoor environments.
TL;DR: Heart rate, blood pressure, and self‐report results provide the most convincing evidence that spending time in outdoor environments, particularly those with green space, may reduce the experience of stress, and ultimately improve health.
Journal ArticleDOI
Health Benefits of Urban Allotment Gardening: Improved Physical and Psychological Well-Being and Social Integration
TL;DR: It is highlighted that regular gardening on allotment sites is associated with improved physical, psychological and social health, and suggests that urban allotments have great potential for preventative healthcare.
Journal ArticleDOI
A case–control study of the health and well-being benefits of allotment gardening
TL;DR: Allotment gardening can play a key role in promoting mental well-being and could be used as a preventive health measure.
Journal ArticleDOI
The contribution of allotment gardening to health and wellbeing: A systematic review of the literature
TL;DR: Allotment gardening provides a stress-relieving refuge, contributes to a healthier lifestyle, creates social opportunities, provides valued contact with nature, and enables self-development, suggesting that allotment gardening does indeed impact health and wellbeing.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
The MOS 36-item short-form health survey (SF-36). I. Conceptual framework and item selection.
John E. Ware,Cathy D. Sherbourne +1 more
TL;DR: A 36-item short-form survey designed for use in clinical practice and research, health policy evaluations, and general population surveys to survey health status in the Medical Outcomes Study is constructed.
Journal ArticleDOI
International physical activity questionnaire: 12-country reliability and validity
Cora L Craig,Alison L. Marshall,Michael Sjöström,Adrian Bauman,Michael L. Booth,Barbara E. Ainsworth,Michael Pratt,Ulf Ekelund,Agneta Yngve,James F. Sallis,Pekka Oja +10 more
TL;DR: Considering the diverse samples in this study, IPAQ has reasonable measurement properties for monitoring population levels of physical activity among 18- to 65-yr-old adults in diverse settings.
Journal ArticleDOI
Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis.
Sheldon Cohen,Thomas Ashby Wills +1 more
TL;DR: There is evidence consistent with both main effect and main effect models for social support, but each represents a different process through which social support may affect well-being.
Journal ArticleDOI
Compendium of physical activities: an update of activity codes and MET intensities.
Barbara E. Ainsworth,William L. Haskell,Melicia C. Whitt,Melinda L. Irwin,A. M. Swartz,Scott J. Strath,O'Brien Wl,David R. Bassett,Kathryn H. Schmitz,Patricia O. Emplaincourt,David R. Jacobs,Arthur S. Leon +11 more
TL;DR: An updated version of the Compendium of Physical Activities, a coding scheme that classifies specific physical activity (PA) by rate of energy expenditure, is provided to enhance the comparability of results across studies using self-reports of PA.
Book
The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective
Rachel Kaplan,Stephen Kaplan +1 more
TL;DR: A study of the natural environment, people, and the relationship between them is presented in this paper, where the authors offer a research-based analysis of the vital psychological role that nature plays.