By Mary O’KEEFE

I love to garden. I don’t have time to garden but on the odd chance I do get a few minutes I love it. I always have. My dad loved to garden as well. We didn’t live on a farm, which was tough for my dad because he was raised on farms. Although most of our relatives had farms and we spent a lot of time on them, for my dad it wasn’t the same. 

When he lived in Illinois he had enough room for a large garden and this was his “peaceful place.” He even stayed calmer when the bunnies ate all of the carrots he planted. Believe me – calm and Dad were two words rarely used in the same sentence. 

My grandpa always said that I could look at my garden to see how my life was going. If there were a lot of weeds it meant I was spending too much time on things that didn’t matter and needed to get my hands in the dirt. 

So many gardeners speak of a sense of calm that comes over them when they plant. I discovered this might not be just a psychological effect but may have medical science that backs up this calming effect.

In a 2019 article in Colorado University Boulder Today, “Why dirt may be nature’s original stress buster,” integrative physiology professor Christopher Lowry was interviewed about a study he had been conducting for about 20 years. 

“Could exposure to microorganisms in the dirt somehow protect us from anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder? Could our increasingly sterile, urban environments be partly to blame for rising rates of stress-related disease?” CUB  Today asked. 

What Lowry found was that those questions may very well be true and might also support his dream of developing a bacterium-based immunization – or stress vaccine – to stem the rising tide of mood disorders.

“As human societies have migrated to urban environments, we have lost touch with a host of bacterial species that play a role in regulating our immune system, and this is helping to fuel an epidemic of inflammatory disease,” said Lowry in the CU interview. “I want to know: What are the impacts on mental health?”

He had heard about Mycobacterium vaccae, a rare microorganism discovered in the soil on the shores of Lake Kyoga in Uganda. Apparently the people who lived there resisted TB better than people who lived elsewhere. 

“It appeared that this microorganism living in the soil had powerful immune-regulating properties that were somehow making the vaccines work better,” he said in the interview. 

In April 2007, Lowry published a groundbreaking study showing that when a preparation of M. vaccae was injected into mice, it activated brain cells that produce the feel-good chemical serotonin and altered the animals’ behavior in a way similar to that of antidepressants, according to CU.

At first he was not taken seriously but then, as more researchers began to look into his findings, they found similar results. 

“It has already been very well documented that exposure to pets and rural environments during development is beneficial in terms of reducing risk of asthma and allergies later in life,” said Lowry. “This study showed for the first time that these exposures are likely to be important for mental health.”

“Another study showed that injections of M. vaccae prior to a stressful event could prevent a ‘PTSD-like’ syndrome, fending off stress-induced colitis and making them [people] act less anxious and fearful when stressed again later. Another [study] that M. vaccae has a long-lasting anti-inflammatory effect on the brain. That’s important, because brain inflammation impacts mood-regulating brain chemicals,” according to the article.

More research is being done, and will need to be done, to confirm the findings but it does look like Lowry is winning over his skeptics. 

One of the songs that is on my grandsons’ morning playlists is “Back to the Earth” by Jason Mraz: “Whenever my head starts to hurt. Before it goes from bad to feeling worst. I turn off my phone. I get down low. I put my hands in the dirt.” 

Gardening is another example  that shows if we take care of the Earth, it will take care of us.

It looks like good gardening weather is coming up, although it may be best to start early and get inside before the heat of the day.

Our temps today will see highs in the low 80s. On Friday we will warm up to the high 80s and stay there through Saturday then dip again on Sunday and continue cooling through Tuesday, with a high of 78. Tuesday we will also see some rain, a slight chance, according to NOAA.