How gardening teaches self-care and lowers anxiety

A monstera plant with large split leaves stands in a gardening center.

Caring for plants reduces anxiety and lowers stress. Did you know it can also teach vital lessons about how to care for yourself? Let’s explore how gardening teaches self-care, and how that can reduce your anxiety.

Plant gays beware: Keeping houseplants alive has never been my gift. A few years ago I started to notice the warmth, the welcome, the life that greenery brings to my friend’s living rooms, to trendy cafes, and even to the most outwardly austere offices. The idea of a plant-filled space was calling my name; I wanted that for my clients, and I wanted that for myself. So off to the plant nursery I went!

I grabbed a philodendron. I grabbed a snake plant. I started to learn on the job how to nurture each of these separate plants. Brown spots on my leaves showed up. I search the internet for what pests I can blame that on. Unfortunately, it’s me, I’m overwatering. Then the leaves start dropping off my fiddle leaf fig. I learn that I’ve got her in too much direct sunlight. She does not thrive in the harsh face of the sun. I’m still killing off corn plants left and right.

That said, my big monstera plants are putting out bigger and bigger leaves, drinking up water as fast as I can pour it. The top leaves of my monstera split apart when she is healthy and growing robust. This is, I learn, because the monstera is originally a jungle plant. In order for the lower leaves to get any sunlight the larger top leaves split apart such that the light can filter down through them into the younger, smaller leaves at the base of the plant. Which to my eye looks fabulous. Or at least, it looked fabulous until the top leaves got droopy. I have no therapy skills for a plant. It’s back to the internet.

And that is when I first came across the concept of repotting. Are you familiar with those black plastic tubs the plants come in when you first buy them? And you buy a bigger, prettier pot to put them into? Apparently those black pots are plastic for a reason. They are supposed to be temporary housing. Those black plastic pots are designed to be outgrown. As the leaves flourish above, the roots need more room down below the soil line. In fact, the plant will grow its roots unchecked inside those “nursery pots,” completely disregarding the spatial limitations that are placed on them. They just keep growing and shooting out new branching systems, eventually filling up the pot and possibly killing the plant.

Houseplants are worth taking care of and you are too.

My monstera’s drooping leaves are not a sign of overwatering. Nor do they indicate too much sun, or pests, or anything else. They are a sign that the plant is working. It is doing its job which is to get bigger. And especially, for the monstera, it’s job is to climb.

In order to help the plant, I read online that your job is to shake them loose out of their nursery pot, completely upend the root system, shake and brush off all of the old dirt, and then find a new home for her. A bigger home, with more room to grow. It’s also important, I discover, to only go up one pot size at a time, because too large a pot and you won’t thrive. The water will sink down below where the roots can get to it. And your monstera will die of thirst. What you want to do instead is grab a pot one size bigger than the nursery pot, and fill it with the right kind of thick, luxurious nutrient-rich soil, water her deeply such that her roots settle into a comfortable position, and then let her glow.

Houseplants teach the need for support.

For a plant like the monstera, you may want to try stakes or a central moss pole for her to grow around. This will provide the necessary scaffolding for her branches to cling to as they shoot ever higher. The metaphor here feels obvious- who among us can grow very far without some kind of support to keep us upright?

There was a meme circulating on social media several months ago about humans as more complicated house plants- we need sunshine, water, and to be taken care of mindfully. To that end, taking care of a living garden, even a single aloe vera, can put you closer to believing that you are worthy of care-taking. Nurturing something else encourages you to nurture yourself, to see yourself as worth taking care of. Sometimes, when watering the monstera, I would pause and consider when was the last time I had a full glass of water. For you on your journey of self-care, what nursery pots have you outgrown? What nutrients do you need to add to your soil?

One good option for nurturing yourself and tending to your own needs is through therapy. As a therapist, I’m biased about that! I’ve seen how people who previously put themselves at the very bottom of their to-do list gradually learn how to take care of themselves better. And that leads to finally feeling like they are worth taking care of. If that work sounds nourishing to you, you can schedule a consult call to speak with me about what it can look like.

Taking care of plants teaches the need to take risks.

Taking this metaphor further, there is a risk when repotting a monstera that you will upset the roots, cutting through too many vital causeways in that highway system of nutrient transport that the plant relies on to live, and do more damage than good in repotting. If you leave repotting until too late, the roots can grow so tight together, so thickly intertwined, that it may die. I think it is the same in therapy. There are risks to making big changes in your environment or in your life. You may lose something you did not realize was precious, or cut yourself off from vital support. That said, not making a change is risky too. Staying in too small a pot, similar to sticking around in a relationship that does not serve you or a routine that is not right for you, has risks as well. Sometimes, if you want to grow any more or in any new directions, you will have to take the risk of making a change.

Tactile sensations like gardening are good for reducing stress and anxiety.

Coming back to the literal realities of gardening, one of the things that makes gardening good self-care is that it is so tactile. Particularly for those who struggle with anxiety, it can be helpful to devote time to working with something physical that you can point at. Anxiety is an emotion that can keep you trapped in a painful spiral of thoughts. Getting out of your head and into the dirt can trick your brain into becoming focused on something else. You can leave the negative spiral behind, for 10 seconds, for 25 minutes, for an hour. Of course your problems are still there when you get back. That has not changed. What has changed is you.

I grew up on a farm, and my first job was baling hay for horses. I ended a day of stacking hay bales covered in scratches and sunburn and with muscles that ached. That said, I had a big pile of hay bales I could tally up, that had not been there before we woke up. I could sit on them, smell them, lift them up and put them down. In many of the jobs I’ve had since, I don’t produce tangible goods, and that can make the results of my work feel less palpable. With houseplants, you get new leaves, taller branches, healthier colors, and you can point to all of this and look at it adoringly. New leaves on a monstera come in light green at first, and all curled up around the central vein. A curling new leaf fills me with shrieking delight. There is pride and there is joy.

Will I be able to keep those new leaves alive for very long? Perhaps! Which brings me to my last point: depending on the plant you choose, houseplants are forgiving. Go ahead and overwater, they’ll recover! They communicate when something is wrong- a droop of a leaf here, a yellow leaf there- if you pay attention, you can figure out these signals and get it back on track. There’s usually the possibility of repairing what damage you do to the average houseplant. To the anxious mind, this is not always obvious. The threat of doing something wrong can get blown out of proportion, until even a small misstep can seem deadly. Luckily the houseplant does not abide by this theory. It can bounce back, and while it often needs to in my house, I can find some strength to follow in its example of resilience.