Embrace Plants

  Incorporating plantlife as a domestic companion can, actually, reduce your stress, and even feed you. See PMID 20522508 or 26030115 for an example of how interspecies friendship can change your life.


  One easy method to save costs is known as container gardening. It involves turning waste into planting containers. Empty 2-Liter bottle? Cut the top off, poke some holes in it, and stuff it with dirt for a free flowerpot. Empty margarine tub or mayo jar? Same thing. Empty soda cup from a fast-food meal? Again, flowerpot. You have to worry about microplastic residues, but for hecks sake, you were already eating out of the dang thing.

  You'll probably want to replace them with pretty flowerpots as you find the right ones and they come on sale when you have money, but for now, the free stuff can put you forward.

  You should probably be stuffing your domicile with basil, thyme, oregano, and other easy-to-grow spices. Live in a dang forest of them. Spinach is one example of a salad forest which is fairly short and low space, and strawberries also fit well in small containers. Save the big flowerpots for things like hot peppers and tomatoes and small ginger trees or low-bush blueberry.

  Onions can be regrown from the little stump at the bottom where the roots are, if you leave a bit. Dry it so it doesn't rot - you can literally buy one onion for life and enjoy onion rings every time it regrows. Garlic can have its cloves seperated and one or two planted, ginger can have one or two nodules broken off and planted (but it's a big small tree, so you'll need a full pot). A few grains of rice from the store will usually regrow.

  All the data says you'll benefit from living in and taking care of a food forest, and your snacks will improve from living in a lush garden of food. It's close to free, why not give it a go?




  Meanwhile, actually going into nature is also a massive stress reducer, beyond even gardening. PMID 31921741 or 29772763 or 31001682 are examples from a huge body of literature. The website DiscoverTheForest.org has a nature finder map. Why not take an hour or two off television and just go for a stroll in the forest, or take a nap there?

  We know what makes a good life - tend to plants, spend large amount of time in complex ecosystems. It's there, and it's basically free. All you have to do is go for it, and reap the benefits to your life.


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