posted 2 hours ago
Stress levels, and stress tolerance, seem to differ wildly based on the person. I don’t think all people are equally stressed, nor that a certain stressor would have the same effect on everyone.
I think of permaculture as reducing stress while gardening—increasing diversity and decreasing reliance on annual monocultures leads to more resilience, less worrying, better nutrition, and less work and expense than typical annual vegetable gardens or store-bought food. I don’t think of gardening as universally a stress reducer because it is possible to be stressed about the garden not doing well, as well as physically to be too hard on oneself. Having an “open hand” (seeing what happens) rather than a “closed fist” mentality (trying to control everything) always helps.
It’s different for different people but especially if your work is physical, it helps to reduce the physical stress by dressing properly for the weather, eating enough food, sleeping more, and caring for our health in ways that are simple and nourishing. Generally, it’s helpful to do things that make us feel better, whether that be talking or getting together with friends and family, reading, going out walking/biking, or not skimping on medicinal herbs or other things that help us. Our body doesn’t seem to differentiate too much between physical and mental stress so lowering one often lowers the other, too.
One can never be too kind to oneself or others.