HEALTH PROMOTING GARDENS

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in tune once more. 

                                           — John Burroughs (1837-1921), American naturalist and writer

Health Promoting Gardens is a novel concept by Medical Wing.  Gardens promote physical health, mental health through relaxation and satisfaction. A garden can also serve our higher needs. It can provide a harmonious space to relax, unwind, reflect and restore ourselves. It can serve as a place where we can appreciate the beauty, form and colours of Nature. It is a place for observation, where we can watch Nature and learn from it.

Gardens have the potential to promote mental well-being through attention restoration, stress reduction and the evocation of positive emotions; physical well-being through the promotion of physical activity in daily life as well as leisure time and through walkable environments and social well-being through social integration, social engagement and participation and through social support and security.  It contribute to feeling of improved mental health by providing the opportunity to interact with nature relaxing and calming.

A garden can serve our senses too. By creating a space where we can reconnect with Nature, we can provide ourselves the means to heal our mind, body and spirit, and a means to heal the planet also.  The garden also benefit the elderly for whom the exercise and activity—both physical and mental—the garden offered is essential.  The gardens are seen to offer spaces of retreat within densely populated neighborhood.

The gardens also help to create a positive impact on ‘community health’. That is, gardens are seen to benefit the community as a whole, by improving relationships among people, increasing community pride and in some cases by serving as an impetus for broader community improvement and mobilization.  The gardens not only enhance community connection, but also the physical features of the community to its broader benefit.

The gardens also help to build self-esteem through development of skills by garden-based programming, which occurred in many of the gardens.  This individual sense of pride emerging from the garden associated programmes is often extended to the wider community as well, and the gardens are also thought to increase attachment to the community.

The gardens are also seen as a place for positive social interaction. For many, the gardens served as meeting places. In some cases, this could lead to broader discussions about other, non-garden-related issues of importance to the community.  Thus gardens can be important places for building broader community involvement.

BKs believe and follow cleanliness inside and outside.  They are keenly interested in Environmental Health issues and offers lasting spiritual solutions to world problems.  BKs have been entrusted with maintaining a number of gardens across the country.