Writing can be all consuming. It can dominate your every thought, keep you up at night, and make you worry about the smallest details. Which means we all need an outlet, a hobby, a secret skills, something to take the pressure off of writing.
I’d say my hobby is gardening. You’re all familiar with the rabbit holes that is research. Well, the same goes for me when I start researching plants and planting techniques. Hours disappear! Hours that my mind isn’t stuck on my current WIP. So that’s a win.
Getting my hands in the dirt is also relaxing. It sounds strange because a lot of gardening time is weed pulling. But research says getting dirty means we expose ourselves to Mycobacterium vaccae, a natural soil bacteria, which increases our happy juice! Happy juice is serotonin. If your serotonin is low, in comes depression. Another win for gardening!
I’ve already given you a win-win reason to garden. But I’ve got one more. The absolute best part of gardening is seeing your plant grow and produce because it will fill you with a strong sense of accomplishment that’s wrapped in sunshine. A patch of feathery, canary zinnias is impossible not to smile at. Vegetable vines and bushes bursting with produce beg you to pick and sample, right where you stand. And you know you can’t stop yourself from giving those red tomatoes a little squeeze.
Gardening is mentally rewarding. Seeing flowers bloom, ones that you grew from seed or planted as fragile seedlings, does something inside of you. Harvesting vegetables that went from itty bitty seed, or seedling, to near unruly plants brings so much satisfaction.
No matter how frustrating the writing is, or how many roadblocks you hit, or how many fails you have, gardening will lift you out of your wallow and remind you that you succeeded, that you’re capable of something nigh magical.
Seriously, have you ever seen a carrot seed or lettuce seed? Tiny is too big of a word. The fact that you can stick a carrot seed into the ground and end up with a bushy plant with thick, colorful roots is undeniably magical.
So, are you going to give gardening a try? If you haven’t yet, I highly suggest it as writing therapy.
