Health Benefits Of Gardens
Who doesn’t love looking at a beautiful garden? But did you know that there can also be health benefits to a garden? Studies done in the late 1990s at several hospitals in California found that in addition to improving the effects of stress, being in a garden also improved mood. These benefits were experienced by nearly everyone who visited the hospital gardens, including patients and their families. A 2001 follow up study at a pediatric hospital yielded similar results.
Orange Tulip © Howard Grill
Being a health care provider myself, I found some of the conclusions about the effect of gardens on healthcare workers to be of interest. The work mentioned above also suggested that, in addition to patients and families, many healthcare workers used hospital gardens as a brief and effective restorative escape from work stress. Finally, there is also evidence that both indoor and outdoor gardens in healthcare facilities increases patient (and patient family) satisfaction with their healthcare provider as well as with their perceived quality of care.
Many hospital administrators are recognizing that indoor and outdoor gardens can confer not only improved health and healthcare satisfaction, but can also confer a competitive business advantage as facilities become more consumer oriented.
Study sources for those wanting to delve deeper:
1) Cooper-Marcus, C. and Barnes, M. (1995). Gardens in Healthcare Facilities: Uses, Therapeutic Benefits, and Design Recommendations. Martinez, CA: The Center for Health Design.
2) Whitehouse, S., Vari, J.W., Seid, M., Cooper-Marcus, C. Ensberg, M.J., Jacobs, J.J. and Mehlenbeck, R.S. (2001). Evaluating a children’s hospital garden environment: Utilization and consumer satisfaction. Journal of Evironmental Psychology, 21: 301-314.
If you like what you see, there are two ways to follow my new content (different content in each):
Beyond The Blog
Subscribe To “The Healing Arts”
Receive monthly in-depth information about the interaction between art and health. Each month I also include beautiful desktop wallpaper for you to use on your computer.