Fall is here, meaning another year of gardening has come and gone in many parts of the country. In addition to growing good food and beautiful flowers, all those evenings in the garden over the spring and summer may have given your brain a boost.
Those who garden later in life show signs of better cognitive function than those who do not, according to a recent study from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
Researchers said the benefits of gardening were small but nonetheless detectable. And they were present regardless of an individual’s socio-economic status, education level, childhood cognitive ability, and health and overall level of physical activity.
The findings are based on a long-term study that followed 467 participants over the course of a lifetime. That study, known as the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921, included a group of people born in 1921. Participants took an intelligence test at the age of 11 and repeated the test decades later at age 79.
They also detailed their lifestyles and regularly underwent assessments of their thinking skills up to the age of 90.
Among the participants, almost 31% never gardened during their lives, but 43% consistently did. Lifetime cognitive functioning was higher for those who gardened frequently or occasionally.
Although cognitive ability generally declined for participants between the ages of 79 and 90, gardeners continued to outperform their peers.
In a summary of the findings, Janie Corley of the university’s School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences says:
“Engaging in gardening projects, learning about plants, and general garden upkeep, involves complex cognitive processes such as memory and executive function. Consistent with the ‘use it or lose it’ framework of cognitive function, more engagement in gardening may be directly associated with a lower risk of cognitive decline.”
The researchers stressed the possibility that other factors — including the level of greenery in a person’s neighborhood or social interaction during gardening activities — and not gardening itself could be responsible for participants’ improved cognitive function.
Add a Comment