Yoga for gardeners
There’s a tsunami of gardening sweeping the nation, with people who’ve never picked up a trowel before sowing and digging for Britain. As every garden lover knows – and the Beauty Bible team is passionate about gardening - tending to growing plants and wandering round gazing at green snouts peeking up and the gorgeousness of blossom is one of the most calming things we can do for our mental health. In 2015, a report by the Kings Fund concluded that gardening is really horticultural therapy, something we so need during this time.
But there can be a bit of a problem physically. Following an intensive afternoon of digging out bindweed (grrrr….) in her Dorset garden then taking her horse for a ride bareback, Sarah’s lower back was pretty grumpy. But help arrived in the shape of the wonderful Kat Farrants (above), founder of online yoga site Movement for Modern Life - dubbed the ‘Netflix of yoga’ - who offered to devise a short set of simple yoga poses especially for gardeners.
As Kat, herself a keen gardener, says, ‘gardening is the best thing we can be doing with our lock down time. Connecting to the earth and to the seasons is the ultimate antidote to the stress of life today. Gardening and growing our own nutritious food plus reducing waste and packaging is really aligned with the philosophy of yoga.’
As Sarah found, however, tackling weeds and overgrown areas, and crouching over smaller plants and seedlings can cause painful back strain. In her lovely inspiring ‘yoga for gardeners’ session - with Kat (and her two dogs) actually in her garden - Kat’s approach is to focus on stretching the hamstrings to ‘save’ your lower back. She starts by demo’ing how to squat safely so we’re nearer the ground: ‘low squats are the most natural way to do your planting and digging, then we will stretch out the back and side body with side bends and stretches’. The result, Kat promises, will be an open, lighter, pain free body so we can garden more fluidly and in comfort!
You can watch Kat’s ‘yoga for gardeners’ video here for free and if you’re looking for a huge range of yoga classes Movement for Modern Life offers a free 14-day trial during which you can cancel any time. If you then choose to subscribe, it will cost from £10.99 per month for a yearly subscription/£15.99 if you just want to sign up for a month. There are unlimited yoga classes for all levels from top teachers online, plus meditation and mindfulness videos from two minutes to 90 minute classes.