The idea of a herb garden may appeal as a way of enhancing your dinner dishes, but what about your wellbeing? Herbs are often used as part of complementary wellness methods, so how can you use herbs and gardening to help improve your health?
Firstly, herbs contain lots of vitamins and minerals, which can have numerous benefits to your wellness. Certain herbs can help to increase your circulation, improve your digestion, supply your body with rich antioxidants, and also have astringent and antiseptic properties. As different herbs do different things, you need to use a variety to ensure sure you get all the benefits, but that doesn’t mean you have to ingest all of them. You can also use herbs, such as lavender, as part of aromatherapy to help you de-stress and increase relaxation.
If you have your own herb garden, you’ll always have free, fresh herbs on hand rather than artificial flavours or dried seasonings. Fresh herbs are more potent and flavourful, and more full of nutrients as they haven’t gone through processing and packaging. You can grow them outside or inside, but if you can start your own herb garden outside then your herbs will be even more beneficial. Gardening helps you to get some exercise, as well as getting you outdoors so you can soak up your daily dose of vitamin D from the sunshine.
However, even if you can only manage a small herb garden in your window, tending this can be therapeutic and help relieve stress, as well as helping to cleanse the air and increase your home’s oxygen levels. When it comes to using your herbs, you may think that you’ll only need a small amount, and end up wasting lots of the plant. However, if you can’t use an herb now, you can store it for later! Freezing or drying your herbs will help them to keep for future use. You can freeze some herb leaves in ice cube trays, and this is better than drying the herbs as they will retain more of their just-picked flavour. If you still have too many herbs to use or store, share the love and give your leftovers to a friend!
How Can Growing Your Own Herbs Help to Improve Your Health?
