After Dry January, Here’s What Not to Give Up Next

Your body may thank you for sidestepping alcohol, but here’s what happens if you stop gardening (hint: you really want to keep digging in the dirt)


By: Beth Levine


Yay, it’s February. That means the end of Dry January and all the smug grandstanding that comes with it: “Oooh, look at me, I am having no-alcohol beer that tastes like cat urine, but I’ve never felt better!”

Good riddance.

In winter, however, there’s something else we are often forced to give up but you don’t hear us yammering on and on about it. You know why? Because it’s the opposite of Dry January since it feels like we must forgo something that is mega-healthful — gardening — and chatting about it. Sure, everyone loves hearing from us gardeners during growing season, when we are doling out extra zucchinis, heirloom tomatoes and wild lily bouquets, but when the good times stop, where is everyone?

Nursing their clean martinis while we gardeners must make do with nursing potted rosemary plants inside and adjusting our grow lights, that’s where. We mourn the lack of sunlight, the feel of dirt, the satisfaction of nurturing a recalcitrant seedling. The closest we’ll get to their self-righteous “dry high” is reading seed catalogues under the covers with a flashlight. (“Kohlrabi and yard-long beans and Long Island cheese pumpkin…Can it please be spring already?”)

If you are wondering why I am whining about this, it’s because gardening affords so many amazing health benefits that are just as good as withstanding demon rum. We just don’t go on and on about it. Gardening gives you:

Good Bones

Being outside in the sun spurs production of vitamin D, needed for your bones to absorb calcium. You may think you are getting this essential nutrient from that salmon or steak you cooked up, but sunshine is natural, gives a bigger boost, doesn’t contain fat, and it’s free (and not subject to inflation). Plus research has found that gardening is instrumental in reducing the risk of vitamin-D deficiency.


Happy Happy Joy Joy

Research has shown that connecting with nature reduces stress, depression, anxiety, and anger. It gives you a chance to focus on something positive and rewards with that cathartic feeling of “Woohoo, mission accomplished.” A study actually showed that a certain bacterium in the soil, M. vaccae, boosts mood in a way similar to antidepressants. Can your mocktail do that? I didn’t think so.


Feeling the Burn

Digging! Weeding! Planting! Raking! Dumping! Composting! Lifting! All that manual labor gives you a full-body workout. Bending your elbow with even the most loaded drink just can’t compete with the squats and lunges you are doing over your vegetable patch.

“I Don’t Suck” Vibes

You stand a little taller when you manage not to kill your dahlias or when that replanted Japanese elm seedling actually takes off.


Food of the Gods

Experts say that home gardening leads to eating healthier: you are inspired to down more fruits and veggies in a wider variety. Even if the mocktail you ordered has passionfruit or pineapple in its name, let’s be real: It’s probably not exactly health food.


BFFs

Community is key to mental and physical health. But you don’t have to be singing “Sweet Caroline” in a bar in order to hang with or make new besties. Community gardening is an easy way to connect with likeminded people. Or just get together with other gardening friends to plot out patches and exchange produce, or lean over the fence and chat with a neighbor about how they get their lilacs to bloom for so long. You’ll bond and learn a lot. Take that, you mocktail braggarts. 

Fresh Air

Stating the obvious here, but fresh air is not something you are getting in a bar or when blending virgin Negroni-a-likes at home. The benefits of clean air may seem beyond obvi, but there’s more to it than you think. One study posits that fresh air contains airborne bacteria that can encourage diversity in the gut and respiratory microbiome, enhancing wellness.


Brain Tingles

Figuring out what to plant where and when and under what conditions can sometimes be as complicated as today’s Connections puzzle. It’s good mental stimulation. While reviewing an extensive mocktail menu in January may also feel as if you’re exercising some higher executive functioning, I beg to differ.

So, spare me your sanctimonious mumblings about your dry month. Show a little compassion for those of us who are not-so-patiently waiting for “the splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower.” Not even a matcha pomegranitini can make it better. Believe me, I’ve tried.

About the Writer

Beth Levine is an award-winning health writer whose work has been published in The Washington Post, Everyday Health, and others. Her essays have appeared in McSweeney’s, Salon, and more, and she was a finalist in The New Yorker cartoon caption contest. She can be found at bethlevine.net.