The Benefits of Eating Outdoors in Your Garden

It’s easy to spend most of our lives indoors, especially in recent times, with so many aspects like work and school requiring us to stay inside stuffy or air-conditioned buildings. However, eating outdoors can have hugely positive effects on our health and home life. Read on to see the reasons why you should be enjoying more meals in your garden.

Mental Health

It’s well-known that spending more time outdoors improves mental health. Natural light has been connected to the stimulation of serotonin, a decrease in depression and anxiety, and improved mood. Fresh air can give you a well-earned break from indoor settings and energize your mind by increasing focus and concentration. This helps you to work more efficiently and so under less strain, and being in nature can reduce stress further by helping you to relax and ruminate less on your worries – especially if you have a really green garden. Also, the outdoors has been shown to restore short-term memory, help mental fatigue and boost creativity, which is handy if you’re an arty type or are trying to find a solution to a complex problem. It can improve your sleep too, either directly or as a by-product of the reduction of other symptoms.

Physical Health

Eating outside can have wonderful effects on your physical health too. Sunlight prompts our bodies to create more vitamin D, something known to help protect against many diseases – including strokes, cancer, heart attacks and osteoporosis. Most of us don’t get enough of this vitamin as we spend so much time working or studying indoors, and may even need supplements in the darker months of the year. But, make sure not to get too much sun – get hold of a shade sail to take some time away from it too. Other research has indicated that being outdoors can reduce muscle tension, heart rate and blood pressure! And, if you’re feeling better physically and have more energy, you might want to engage in more exercise and even set up outdoor gym equipment to continue enjoying the benefits of the fresh air.

Socialisation

Eating outside at home might encourage you to spend more time with family and friends because you’ll have to have set up somewhere comfortable to do it! It’s often a cheap and relaxing alternative to crowded restaurants which is a great incentive for loved ones to visit. You can enjoy this all year round with the help of a retractable canopy like those in the canopies uk selection by A&S Landscape, thanks to their ability to shelter you and your guests from rain and wind, and then quickly disappear in good weather.

Hobbies

The outdoors is a wonderful place to experience new things. Eating in your garden will likely make you want to create as inviting a place as possible and try out some hobbies to achieve this. For example, you might like to spruce up your garden to improve the view, or get started on some DIY to make a new dining area or outdoor kitchen.

Nature

Mealtimes outside will help you to become closer to the amazing wildlife and plants in your garden and remind you of your connection with the wider world. This can be inspiring, so you might want to continue this by growing your own food for those al fresco dinners, or by making the area more wildlife-friendly for visiting insects, mammals or birds.

Activity

The whole family may be encouraged to be more active. You can let the kids run free in the garden, playing games or sports like padel while you cook or eat outdoors and can easily keep an eye on them. Ensure that you keep them safe in the sun though and, who knows, maybe you’ll want to join in too!

Food Fun

Cooking and eating outside prevents the smells of food and smoke lingering in your house for what can sometimes be hours after lunch or dinner – especially with fish and fried dishes. It allows you to experiment with different methods like barbecuing and grilling, the latter of which is healthier than many alternative types of cooking as it makes meat leaner, less calorific and retain more nutrients. Plus, you don’t have to worry about any mess from spilled food or drink on your carpets.

It’s clear that we should all be trying to spend more time eating outside in our gardens; the benefits speak for themselves! If you’re feeling a bit low or are after a change, try setting up a meal outside with family or friends and hopefully you’ll feel a real boost.

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