07/31/2025
The Healing Power of Nature: How Growing Tomatoes and Peppers Supports Mental and Physical Health
In the middle of a busy, often overstimulated world, there’s something remarkably grounding about digging your hands into soil, tending to plants, and watching food grow from seed to harvest. This summer, many have rediscovered the quiet joy of nurturing a home garden. If you've spent your summer growing tomatoes—cherry, Roma, even the strikingly beautiful purple varieties—and peppers like jalapeño, poblano, and fiery Tabasco, you've experienced more than just a hobby. You've tapped into a therapeutic practice with real, measurable benefits: ecotherapy.
Also known as nature therapy or green therapy, ecotherapy refers to a wide range of nature-based activities that support mental and physical well-being. Whether it’s gardening, walking in the woods, or simply sitting beneath a tree, connecting with nature offers a profound sense of restoration. Here’s how:
🌱 Emotional Benefits: Stress Relief and Mood Boost
Growing food creates an emotional rhythm that modern life often lacks. Watching your cherry tomatoes ripen or peppers take shape fosters a sense of anticipation and reward—a healthy cycle that releases dopamine, the brain’s “feel-good” chemical.
In particular, gardening has been shown to reduce cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone. Tending to plants daily—checking their progress, watering them, pruning them—builds emotional stability and calmness. Many gardeners report a decrease in anxiety, depression, and mood swings, and even short periods of gardening can improve mood for hours afterward.
Sunlight exposure during outdoor gardening also boosts vitamin D levels, which is closely tied to mood regulation and emotional well-being.
🧠 Psychological Benefits: Mindfulness, Purpose, and Resilience
Gardening encourages a state of mindfulness—being present in the moment, aware of the sensations of earth, water, and weather. This kind of slow focus is rare in our digital world, but it’s deeply restorative for the mind.
Additionally, growing your own food fosters a strong sense of purpose and agency. In times of uncertainty, tending a garden gives us something tangible to care for and influence. You know that your peppers won’t grow overnight and that tomatoes need pruning, staking, and sunlight. This fosters patience and resilience—two psychological traits strongly associated with long-term mental health.
💪 Physical Benefits: Movement, Immunity, and Nutrition
Gardening may not look like exercise, but it offers low-impact physical activity that improves flexibility, strength, and endurance. Bending to plant seeds, hauling watering cans, and pulling weeds all engage the body and help reduce sedentary time.
On a more cellular level, exposure to beneficial soil bacteria, such as Mycobacterium vaccae, can boost the immune system and has been linked to reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression. Just getting your hands dirty may help you feel better in more ways than one.
And let’s not overlook the nutritional benefits of growing your own produce. Fresh, homegrown vegetables like your Roma tomatoes and poblano peppers are richer in vitamins and antioxidants than store-bought varieties. The act of growing food often encourages people to eat more healthfully, which is directly tied to improved brain and body health.
🧬 Physiological Benefits: Hormonal Balance and Nervous System Regulation
Being in nature—especially through active engagement like gardening—helps to regulate the autonomic nervous system, shifting the body out of “fight or flight” mode and into a state of rest, digestion, and healing. This state, known as parasympathetic dominance, is crucial for long-term health and healing.
Ecotherapy has also been linked to better sleep, improved heart rate variability (HRV) (a marker of stress resilience), and lower blood pressure. Spending time outside, even in your backyard garden, helps reset circadian rhythms and promotes hormonal balance, including better melatonin and serotonin production.
🌶️ In Summary: More Than Just a Garden
When you plant a seed, you plant more than a future tomato or pepper—you plant a commitment to presence, care, and connection. Ecotherapy reminds us that we are not separate from nature but a part of it, and in nurturing the earth, we often heal ourselves.
So whether you're harvesting juicy cherry tomatoes or waiting on your spicy Tabascos to ripen, know this: you're engaging in one of the oldest, most natural forms of therapy. And your body, mind, and spirit are all better for it.
Christina Froah, MA
Clinical Intern
Southern Illinois Institute of Behavioral Health
www.siiobh.com
