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Care Farming Aids In Improving Veterans' Mental, Physical Health

by Hannah Joy on Jul 11 2017 6:43 PM

Care Farming Aids In Improving Veterans
Veterans' well-being improves with care farming, reveals a recent study. Care farming like working on farms and agricultural landscapes helps in promoting mental and physical health. //
With care farming, individuals participate in various horticultural activities and learn useful skills within a safe community and a green environment, a setting shown to improve mental and social well-being.

In the study of 5 veterans of foreign wars (4 men, 1 woman), care farming improved life satisfaction in 3 participants and optimism about future life satisfaction in 2 of the participants. Also, perceived loneliness decreased in 2 participants.

The findings support the use of care farming as a treatment for languishing veterans and for helping individuals with mental struggles.

"Farming acts as a kind of loose group therapy the veterans are working with people who have had similar experiences that only those who have served in combat truly understand," said Dr. Arie Greenleaf, co-author of the Journal of Humanistic Counseling study.

"The farm provides a space they need to heal, a space where they can grow life rather than destroy it not a small factor for many veterans trying to come to grips with the death and misery they witnessed in war, at times inflicted by their own hands."



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Source-Eurekalert


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