園藝工作對健康的4個驚人好處

Spring's here, and though some of us are dealing with freak spring snowstorms, it's getting warm enough in most of the country to start prepping your backyard garden with peas, lettuces, and spring flowers. If the idea of digging in the dirt has never much appealed to you, consider this: A growing number of studies are finding improved mental and physical health benefits of gardening that extend far beyond the obvious rewards of exercise and fresh air. And in this economy, the free food certainly doesn't hurt. There's no need to dig up your entire backyard, either.
現在是春天，儘管人們正生活在春季反常的暴風雪天氣中，全國大部分地區氣候開始轉暖，人們也開始準備在花園裏種植豌豆，萵筍和春天的花。如果在地上挖土並不太吸引你，那就考慮一下這個吧：越來越多研究發現園藝工作有利於增強精神和身體健康，遠超過從鍛鍊和新鮮空氣獲得的好處。而且從經濟角度來說，免費食品沒有帶來損失。也沒有必要對整個後院都進行挖掘。

You need only a window box or a few houseplants to see these improvements in your health:
你只需要一個窗臺花盆箱或一些室內植物，就可以改善你的身體健康：

1: Improve your satisfaction with life.
1. 提高對生活的滿足感。

It's hard not to enjoy life when you're surrounded by flowers, vegetables, and all the wildlife they attract—and now there's science to back that up. Professors from the University of Texas and Texas A&M asked 298 older adults how they would rate their "zest for life," levels of optimism, and overall resolution and fortitude and found that gardeners had significantly higher scores in all those areas than non-gardeners.
當你身處鮮花，蔬菜和所有野生物之中時，你很難不去享受生活，而且如今也有科學根據。德克薩斯大學和德州農工大學教授訪問298名老年人是如何評價他們的“生活熱情”，樂觀水平，總體決心和勇氣，發現園藝工作者在這些問題中比非園藝工作者得到的分數明顯高了很多。

Considering that antidepressant use among adults over 65 has nearly tripled since the 1980s, gardening could be as useful as Prozac for warding off the blues in our aging population.
就成年人服用抗抑鬱劑而言，從20世紀80年代開始，超過65歲服用抗抑鬱劑的老年人增加了兩倍，園藝工作對老年人來說可以當成跟百憂解的預防憂鬱作用一樣有效。

2: Lower your osteoporosis risk.
2. 降低患骨質疏鬆的風險。

It's probably no surprise that gardening, and all the physical activity that goes along with it, leads to weight loss and better overall physical health. But that physical activity can improve your bones as well. In a study of 3,310 older women, researchers from the University of Arkansas found that women involved in yard work and other types of gardening exercises had lower rates of osteoporosis than joggers, swimmers, and women who did aerobics.
或許毫不驚奇，園藝工作加上所有的身體活動，可以減肥和使全身更加健康。不過那種體力活動還可以增強你的骨質。阿肯色大學的研究人員進行了一項包括3310名老年婦女的研究發現，從事園藝工作和其他園藝活動的女性比慢跑者，游泳者和做健美操的女性患骨質疏鬆的機率更低。

That likely has to do with the fact that gardening is sort of like weight training, the study authors note; you have to pull weeds, dig holes, carry heavy loads of soil and compost, and do other forms of weight-bearing activities that ward off osteoporosis.
研究人員指出，這很可能是由於與此相關的事實——園藝工作有點像舉重訓練；你必須播種，挖洞，搬重量的土和堆肥，還有其他形式的負重運動可以預防骨質疏鬆。

3: Lower your diabetes risk.
3. 降低患糖尿病的風險。

One of the primary components of managing diabetes is getting enough physical exercise. Active gardeners easily get more than the recommended 150 minutes per week of exercise, and those who garden just for fun get just slightly less than that, according to research from Kansas State University.
對付糖尿病的一個主要方法是進行足夠的身體鍛鍊。積極的園藝者很容易就獲得所要求的每週150分鐘的鍛鍊，而那些只是以興趣進行園藝工作的人鍛鍊時間只是稍微低於那個數字，根據堪薩斯州立大學的研究。

And if you grow food in your garden, you have another diabetes-management tool at your disposal: fresh produce. A number of studies have found that diabetes rates are lower in areas with community gardens, or places where backyard gardening is more common.
而且如果你在花園裏種植植物，你還有另一個可以任你支配的糖尿病管理工具：新鮮種植。大量研究已經發現在社區花園或有後院花園的地方人們患糖尿病的機率更低。

4: Better sleep.
4. 睡得更好。

The mental health benefits of gardening are so strong that a field of medicine called horticultural therapy has been developed to help people who have psychiatric disorders deal with their conditions. Studies of people with dementia and anxiety have found that gardening helps calm their agitation, leading to better sleep patterns and improved quality of their rest.
園藝工作的精神健康好處是如此強大以至於園藝療法這一醫學領域開始發展，來幫助患有精神疾病的人治療他們的症狀。研究患有癡呆和焦慮症的人也已經發現園藝工作可以幫助他們平息躁動，養成更好的睡眠方式和提高睡眠質量。

There's no reason the rest of us won't benefit, too. Researchers from the International Society for Horticultural Science interviewed 42 people both with cancer and without cancer, and found that all of them used gardening as a coping strategy for stressful life situations. The less we're all stressed out, the better we'll sleep.
同樣，沒有理由其他人不受益。國際園藝學會研究人員訪問了42名患有癌症和沒患癌症的人，發現他們都把園藝當成對緊張生活的一種放鬆方法。我們越壓力越小，就會睡得更好。