Go get lost
Dirt therapy can mean whatever allows you to quiet your mind, rest, rejuvenate and reconnect you with yourself.
The Cambridge Dictionary describes therapy as a treatment that helps someone feel better and grow stronger, especially after an illness. In line with this definition and focusing on the part that it makes you feel better and hopefully happy, therapy for you can be anything that gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling and makes the rain clouds disappear. Like gardening and the joy and fulfilment it gives you to get lost in the soil and, ‘watching’ your plants grow and finally celebrating your harvest. Master Gardener Sue Kusch, a seasoned grower of more than three decades of vegetables, fruit and herbs and a writer of wonderfully entertaining articles and anecdotes about the intersection of plants and people, says she knows why gardeners often wear goofy grins while they’re grinding away in the dirt - it is because they are inhaling a soil bacteria that aids in the production of the feel-good chemical serotonin.
The most basic definition of soil is simply that soil is made of weathered rock fragments and decomposing organic matter (anything that was once alive), says Sue. Healthy productive soil consists of 5% organic matter (which consists of decomposing plant debris) and about 45% mineral content (weathered rock). Depending on the current conditions the other two components share the remaining space of water and air. But the magic lies in that we can’t see with the naked eye, she explains.
“Microorganisms take up residence in the decaying organic matter and begin the process of recycling. The living ecosystem of microorganisms make up less than 1% of soil but they are abundant and critical to the maintenance of healthy soil and thriving plants.”
According to Sue these microscopic workers of the soil are the producers, consumers and decomposers, with their workplace being the organic matter in your soil. This invisible life includes from bacteria and fungi, to archaea, protists and viruses, collectively called the soil food web.
“In general, the more invertebrates in your soil, the healthier it is. Their work is to deconstruct (eat) and recycle (poop) every piece of organic matter.”
A blog post aptly titled The Secret Life of Soil describes it as a living, breathing thing and “a jungle of voracious creatures eating and pooping and reproducing their way toward glorious soil fertility.” This means that a single teaspoon of rich garden soil can hold up to one billion bacteria, several yards of fungal filaments, several thousand protozoa, and scores of nematodes. This can also include from earthworms to millipedes, each playing its role in the secret life of soils.
Circling back to the human side of things, Sue explains our gut biome hosts similar flora and fauna, with science making the connection that human health is related to soil health.
“Healthy soil determines how nutritious your food is and now it appears that having physical contact with soil offers additional benefits. Recent research suggests that an increase in asthma and allergies may be related to a disruption in the relationship between our bodies and microorganisms found in soil.”
She refers to the Hygiene Hypothesis, which states that our lack of exposure to microbes has altered our immune system’s ability to develop fully and being the research framework for studies into chronic inflammatory diseases, Type I diabetes, multiple sclerosis, cancer and some types of depression.
Most of our obsession with germ-free environments is based on our understanding that bacteria make us ill and cause infectious diseases, says Sue. Which is true because pathogenic bacteria are responsible for millions of deaths around the world each year. But what about the good ones, the non-pathogenic bacteria, which help our guts by helping digest food, supporting our immune system, protecting us from pathogenic bacteria, assisting our digestive system and contributing to cardiovascular health.
To get more microbes back into our systems, all we have to do is to interact with them, explains Sue. And if gardening and dirt is your go to happy place, she even has a few ideas to get you started:
*Start and work a compost pile. Find a corner in your yard and toss your kitchen trimmings and yard wastes into a pile. Water and turn it regularly. The compost pile is the easiest way to observe the cast of microbe characters work their magic and create an organic biome of living soil.
*Stop using sanitizing gels, antibiotic soaps, and antiseptic wipes.
*Go barefoot in the garden or on a dirt path.
*Don’t wash or peel organically grown vegetables.
*Hug your pets after a long walk - they will have plenty of microbes to share with you!
*Grow plants - digging and watering soil moves microbes around (this is how some fungal diseases move from plant to plant) and that means you will be inhaling happiness.
If you don’t have access to a garden or pots and plants are not your hype, dirt therapy for you can be something different. The general consensus is that whatever your dirt therapy entails, it unplugs you from the world around you, especially all your electronic devices, and for a while, your only connection is to nature. Dirt therapy can mean water therapy, mud therapy, sand therapy, whatever allows you to quiet your mind, rest, rejuvenate and reconnect you with yourself. Dirt therapy is, simply put, a way of healing or bringing relief by means of using earth’s primary resource which is nature.
To truly experience nature and reap the benefits it can have both physically and mentally, try a 15 minute walk in nature which can decrease your stress hormone by almost 1% per minute. Walking barefoot on sand, grass or dirt allows you to absorb negative electrons which could serve as a natural strategy against chronic stress, pain and poor sleep. With even a short spell in nature to help reduce tension, anger and anxiety, nature holds the key to you getting back to a more relaxed and calm you.