From: Sonalee M

Garden of Glory   

Posted On Friday, July 15, 2011

Tending your own green patch and growing flowers can be a powerful stress reliever for busy corporates...

From Monday to Friday, Kalyan Sarangi, the regional director of ZTE Corporation, remains busy in board meetings. Come weekends, however, work is given the go by. It’s time for gardening to take over. He drives about 30 km from his Kolkata home and retreats to his farm house in Badu, near Madhyamgram. There he spends the entire day tending to his rose beds and marigold flowers. “I love gardening and it helps me to de-stress.”

Have you ever stopped to think why the stories of paradise are often replete with descriptions of lush gardens? There is a definite reason for that. Studies have shown that simply seeing a garden has healthy psychological effects. Tending your own garden and growing flowers can be a powerful stress reliever. Medical professionals have long agreed on the therapeutic effects of gardening.

A garden can provide a peaceful escape from the stresses of work and family. Doctors say that the time you spend researching and planning your garden uses your mind and allows you to flex your creative muscles. As B Hazra, former head of Medicine, Calcutta Medical College, says, “With a garden, you are always in control. You decide what gets planted where and when. That definitely improves your self-confidence.” Also, pulling out weeds and planting saplings can burn up to 500 calories an hour.

After the hard work is over, one can always relax in his garden and enjoy the fruits and vegetables one has grown. Yes, gardening reduces stress by completely taking your mind off work and the problems before you. “It induces the same feeling as you get while listening to music,” says Bikram Dasgupta, CEO and chairman, Globsyn group. “I have a garden in Raichak and I make it a point to go there every weekend in the winters.” There in his lovely retreat, as he loves to call it, he grows all kinds of vegetables like cauliflowers, broccoli, and cabbage amongst others. “I also have a lovely guava tree and a mango tree, and when I come back with mangoes, my wife loves distributing it amongst my family. And I feel rejuvenated enough to tackle the next week’s work,” says Dasgupta.

Harsh Neotia, too, believes that gardening is physically good for any person who leads a stressful life. “I love landscaping and although I do not pursue it every day, I definitely make it a point to walk through the green lawns on barefoot. It gives me the feeling of being close to Mother Earth,” he says. Sudipta Das, partner of Ernst and Young, says, “Although I do not have the time to pursue gardening, I definitely relax in the rooftop garden in the wee hours of the morning or on my off days. You can really relax and enjoy the peace of being with Nature.”

Gardening, agree corporate honchos, is the greatest stress buster of all. “It reduces stress and induces calm,” says Neotia. May be one can simply go and take in deep breaths or have a cup of tea in the garden. It will improve your health or reduce stress much more than any drug can do. And, it will definitely add years to your life.