RESEARCH

Time For a (Gardening) Break: Impacts Of a Green Exercise Initiative For Staff Health And Wellbeing in a Corporate Environment

This study explored the “Green Minds” initiative, finding that group-based gardening activities enhanced staff health and well-being by providing stress relief, fostering social connections, and promoting self-empowerment at a UK university.
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Summary

This ethnographic study investigated the impacts of a “green exercise” initiative called “Green Minds” on staff health and well-being at a UK university. The research involved interviewing seven participants (mean age 52.29, mean years of service 12.86) during their engagement with gardening activities and again after the initiative was paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The two field-investigators also took reflective notes and collected photographic evidence to supplement interview data.

The analysis revealed five core themes: nature-based collective activity as an escape from work stressors, enhanced social connectedness, beneficial impacts on individual health and well-being, self-empowerment, and reflections on exclusivity factors. The study concluded that employers should consider group-based green exercise opportunities for staff as a useful and inexpensive contribution to corporate goals related to workplace health.

Link

Christie, M., Hulse, L., & Miller, P.K. (2020). Time for a (gardening) break: Impacts of a “green exercise” initiative for staff health and wellbeing in a corporate environment. Journal of Therapeutic Horticulture, 30(1), 1-24.

 

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