Embracing the green with a desire to spend more time in the garden

Embracing the green with a desire to spend more time in the garden

As modern life increasingly accelerates around us, our gardens can offer us a peaceful respite. These hidden corners of green may hold the key to leading a more balanced and relaxed existence, trading blue screen light for vibrant hues of nature is not only tempting but increasingly necessary. Let’s look at why more people yearn to return to their roots, both metaphorically and literally.

Rediscovering nature’s playground

Gardens offer more than decorative aspects for our homes: they’re nature’s playgrounds waiting to be discovered. Gardens offer us an unparalleled chance to reconnect with nature and rediscover its joys, like watching bees pollinate flowers or listening to their leaves rustle in the breeze. Unlike manicured parks, gardens provide personalised Edens that reflect one’s own flair and nurturing skills while helping us slow down and focus on living fully in each moment.

The health benefits we’re neglecting

Tending to our gardens not only brings peace, but it can provide tangible physical advantages we often neglect. Gardening provides a low-impact workout, working muscles gently while increasing flexibility and increasing exposure to sunshine. Important in getting enough vitamin D which benefits bone and immune health as well as providing much-needed exposure for vitamin absorption and release from an indoor lifestyle. Plus it gives us time away from screens which provides us a welcome relief from screen-induced lethargy that’s become all too common.

Cultivating creativity and learning

Gardening is not solely reserved for experienced horticulturists with extensive botanical knowledge. It’s also an outlet for creative expression, offering us an infinite canvas on which we can exercise our artistic muscles by selecting plant combinations, arranging blooms and designing layouts to create vibrant displays on bare earth. Gardening also serves as an invaluable educational experience. Each plant taken from seedling to bloom teaches lessons in patience, nurturing and life cycles that may otherwise go unappreciated.

Enhancing your garden experience with sheds

Installing a garden shed in your outdoor space can transform it into an inviting retreat. Garden sheds provide practical storage solutions, housing tools and equipment, for reduced clutter and more room for enjoyment. A well-designed shed can even enhance its aesthetic appeal, serving as a focal point that complements plants and landscaping or customised as a cosy nook to help provide shelter from the elements. Creating more accessible gardens that encourage longer hours spent enjoying nature.

Combatting urban blues

Gardens provide much-needed green spaces in urban living environments that often feel cramped and concrete-shaded. Even modest balconies can become verdant havens by installing vertical gardens or compact planters to cultivate impressive arrays of flora in limited spaces. Not only is this beneficial to purifying air quality and relaxing muscles, but it is also proven effective against stress and anxiety often associated with urban life.

Conclusion

At a time when technology increasingly dominates our lives and digital detoxes have become popular, spending more time in the garden is both desirable and important. From physical wellness, mental clarity or simply nurturing life itself, gardens offer many benefits we should all embrace. So let’s put down our screens, don our gardening gloves and experience its tranquil embrace to find ourselves anew.

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Do you feel stressed out in your own home?

Do you feel stressed out in your own home?

Do you feel stressed out in your own home? A lot of people do, so it’s not that uncommon an occurrence. What you need to be asking yourself, though, is whether it’s the home itself that’s causing the stress. A lot of the time people find that it is, and then they can make the right changes before they move on with their life, a hundred times happier than they were before. In this post, we’ll be having a look at some of the things that you need to think about if your home is causing you stress, so read on if you’re interested.

Work out what’s wrong

First up, you’re going to need to work out what’s wrong with your house. What issues are causing you stress, and why? For example, it may be the fact that there are little holes in the wall that were made for hanging artwork, but they’ve now been taken down, but the holes have not been filled. That’s okay, because you can easily get this sorted within a matter of minutes if you know what you’re doing.

Walk around your house and try to identify what’s causing you these feelings of stress. Write a list if there are quite a few things, and then at least you know where the problems lie. It’s absolutely fine to admit that there are concerns because this is the first step to changing them.

Make some changes

Once you’ve identified the changes that need to be implemented, you need to actually get started making them. Get your tools and materials out to ensure that you’re able to carry out the necessary repairs that you’re able to, and call in a professional for the ones that you can’t. Get some new paint for the rooms if this is another problem that’s on your list, and generally gather all the things that you’re going to need to eliminate the stress from your home. It may take a while, but it will be worth it when it’s all done.

Is it you?

The last thing that we want to mention is that the issue may, in fact, be you. It’s worth having a look at yourself instead of the house, and trying to work out if maybe you’re stressed out over other, unrelated aspects of your life rather than just your house. If it is you, or it’s you as well as the house, then work on lowering your stress levels that are unrelated to the house project that you’ve embarked upon. Perhaps try out some products from somewhere like CBDistillery, or take a relaxing scented bath, breathe deeply, meditate – whatever helps.

So, if you feel stressed out in your own home, then it’s time to do something about it. The more that you try to avoid it, the worse it’s going to get, and you’ll no longer want to spend time in your own surroundings. Make the positive changes that will make you feel calm and settled in your personal space.

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Making your home a place of peace: 5 tactics to try

Making your home a place of peace: 5 tactics to try

Many people don’t feel like they’re comfortable in their own homes. There can be many reasons for this. Of course, you may have only just moved into the property or you’ve been yearning for a change in location. It could also be due to external reasons such as the neighbourhood. This is why it’s important to ensure that your home makes you feel more at peace. Here are a few things that can help.

Increasing the security

We don’t want a house to feel like it’s Fort Knox, but at the same time, we need to make sure that we feel safe in our own homes by adding adequate security. Whether it’s installing a window roller shutter to ensure that you feel more secure at night time or adding a security system, these little things can do a lot to make sure that we feel more relaxed. Sometimes it’s not that we feel insecure in our home, but we worry about the outside world.

Find your favourite places to relax

There could be parts of your life that just don’t feel conducive to relaxation. If you live in a home that doesn’t make you feel relaxed, it’s time to set up a space for you. You may want to set up an area for reflection because everybody can benefit from a space that is theirs that immediately puts them into a relaxing frame of mind. For example, you may want to invest in an outbuilding because this is separate from the house and it will ensure that you can switch off quicker. It’s important to remember that relaxation requires practice. If you’re not used to feeling calm, you need to start practising it.

Increasing your cosiness

If you don’t feel comfortable in your own home you need to somehow up the level of comfort. A luxurious throw can make your sofa more comfortable. If you have hard floors, warm and soften them by using rugs. It’s these little touches that can help you feel more cosy, especially in the colder months.

Removing the tech

It’s not simply about spending less time on your phone, but about making sure that all of the technology that poses a distraction in your life is firmly put away at certain times of the day. For example, during meal times, put your phone away in a drawer so you interact with your loved ones rather than being distracted and feeling the need to answer messages while in the middle of dinner. Likewise, removing technology from the bedroom altogether will make you feel more relaxed and you won’t have that blue light impacting on your sleep quality.

Changing the colours

If you decide to redecorate your home, use colours that will help evoke a sense of calm. Hues such as light blue, sage green and pale yellow are great stress busters.

Ensuring you feel at peace in your home is your right. And, if you’re concerned that your home doesn’t make you feel calm and relaxed, try some of our suggestions.

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A platform to improve your mental, physical and social well-being

Win a Smart Home Need subscription

For over a decade, we’ve been small business owners, working from home. Sometimes we feel blessed to be in this position – we spend the whole day together, we answer to no one, there’s no stressful daily commute and we can choose when and where we work.

Often, this freedom can have the opposite effect; we work 7 days per week, we don’t work a traditional 9 to 5 and feel like we’re always ‘on call’. We can’t phone in sick or have a ‘duvet day’ – it can be difficult to achieve a healthy work life balance.

Oh my work-life balance... I wish I were more efficient working from home! - Smart Home Need

Therefore, we see it as timely that this month to be teaming up with Smart Home Need, a platform that aims to help you develop positive lifestyle habits through making your home a more supportive environment. Their mission in their own words…

Smart Home Need is a start up with social vocation. We believe in a well-being centric lifestyle, where the satisfaction of human Needs is the first step towards a more sustainable and healthy society.

Exploring the Smart Home Need website has given me pause to reflect on my work and lifestyle habits. It points to many places where there’s room for improvement to my mental, physical and social well-being. For instance, having a designated place from which to work – bed or sofa should only be for rest & relaxation. In addition, being propped up on either of these do nothing for my neck, shoulders or spine health! Taking regular breaks away from the computer is another habit I need to nurture. Ditto downing tools at mealtimes – I’m a terrible one for eating and working simultaneously. One of my worst traits, however, is that I’m a real night owl and need telling when it’s bedtime!

My digital assistant reminds me to go to bed every day at the same time! - Smart Home Need

In addition, Smart Home Need recommends a number of mobile phone apps and smart home technology solutions (which they call ‘pathfinders’) to help you develop and improve your lifestyle.

I optimised my work at home! I gained in productivity, empowerment and balance - Smart Home Need

Smart Home Need is providing two of our readers with a one-year full ‘Flourish’ subscription (worth 49,99€ each). To enter, tell us in the comments section below what you do to achieve a healthy work life balance or improve your daily routine.

A one-year Smart Home Need ‘Flourish’ subscription

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