Gardening Is Great Exercise

Instead of cursing those weeds, you may want to thank them for saving your heart! It turns out that gardening is great exercise that can help you lower your blood pressure, increase blood flow, build muscle, and decrease your cholesterol just like any other exercise! If you think about it, gardening as exercise makes sense. How many times do people say that gardening is hard work? And hard work equals exercise! In fact, the National Institutes of Health equates gardening with other forms of exercise as a self-treatment for obesity. The NIH recommends the following, 3 to 5 times per week:

• gardening for 30 to 45 minutes
• bicycling 5 miles in 30 minutes
• doing water aerobics for 30 minutes
• raking leaves for 30 minutes
• walking 2 miles in 30 minutes

Just like conventional exercise, you need to approach gardening with care, especially if you've been inactive for a while. Make sure you stretch your limbs and torso in a slow, controlled manner and hold each stretch for 30 seconds. Then, walk briskly around your garden a couple of times to get the blood flowing. Now you're all set for some exercise... er... gardening! :)