"When I visited my dad last month, I found him in the garage, completely absorbed in reorganizing his tool collection for what must have been the hundredth time. He looked more relaxed than I'd seen him in years. It struck me then that his generation discovered something profound without even realizing it: their favorite pastimes are actually therapeutic practices that mental health professionals now charge hundreds of dollars to teach."
"The Boomer generation gets a lot of flak for their hobbies. We roll our eyes at their obsession with gardening, their bridge clubs, their endless tinkering in workshops. But here's what I've come to understand: these activities that seem quaint or outdated? They're actually sophisticated forms of therapy that address the exact mental health challenges we're all struggling with today."
"Ever wonder why Boomers are so obsessed with their tomatoes? There's actually a therapeutic practice called "grounding" or " earthing " that involves direct physical contact with the earth's surface. Modern therapists recommend it for anxiety and stress reduction. Boomers have been doing this for decades without the fancy terminology. They're out there with their hands in the soil, completely present in the moment, focused on nurturing something outside themselves."
Older adults commonly engage in hobbies such as gardening, bridge clubs, and workshop tinkering that produce clear mental-health benefits. Gardening acts as grounding through direct contact with soil, fostering presence, routine, accomplishment, and meditative repetition that reduce anxiety and support mood. Social card games stimulate cognition, maintain social bonds, and offer protective cognitive engagement. Hands-on tinkering provides focused attention, problem solving, and a sense of competence that relieves stress. These activities combine physical engagement, social interaction, routine, and purpose to deliver therapeutic effects analogous to grounding, CBT techniques, and mindfulness practices.
#gardening-therapy #groundingearthing #social-games-and-cognition #hobbies-as-mental-health-strategies
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