Healing Gardens: Managing anxiety multi-prong approach

The power of therapeutic healing gardens, a six post series. 

Post 5: Managing Anxiety

People manage their anxieties in many different ways. From meditation and yoga to drinking alcohol to taking pharmaceuticals, marijuana, or CBD. Heck, some even resort to the age-old technique of screaming into a pillow! The point is, everyone is different.

For many of us, a big cause of stress and anxiety is our locale. Things like the neighbors' leaf blower, that new addition being put in next door, your teenagers' discovery of Spotify and the really big speakers, fire sirens and/or honking car alarms… yuck. We know that these things all contribute to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, compromised immune systems, insomnia, brain fog, inattentiveness, and the like.

Conversely, natural sounds such as water and/or birds can mask environmental noise. I read some research from Chiba University in Japan that demonstrated the sounds of a creek will induce changes to blood flow, which increases relaxation.

Study here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2793347/

Pretty neat, huh? So flowing water and/or listening to bird sounds (or more ideally, both) in the morning can decrease fatigue while simultaneously lifting your mood. That makes for a MUCH better day. And GardenGirl knows exactly how you can get that!