Lisa Loves Gardening and Gardens!

I found this great RSS feed at: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/headlines/life-style/gardening.rss.  I've included the feed (along with other feeds I've found) on the right hand side of this blog - for your reference and entertainment.  You might be asking what gardening has to do with teaching.  I am instructor in the field of occupational therapy.  Many think that this has to do with finding someone a job, but it doesn't necessarily relate to regain of functioning to return to work.  It has to do with creating and managing a balance in individuals between work, play and self-care.  For the infant, their work is in getting nutrition and progressing through their developmental milestones.  Play is an important component that needs to be integrated to assure their success.  Their self-care is provided by their parent.  For the middle-aged patient, work might be a larger component to consider in treatment.  An occupational therapist can specialize in work hardening to progress them to return of their profession (which may or may not include gardening).  For the older individual, their work relates more to their self-care and management of their home environment (which may or may not include gardening).  For all patients - play - is an important component to look at.  This is where hobbies and leisure skills are important in improving quality of life for any individual.  Part of occupational therapy is being able to look at anything that might be important to an individual and being able to analyze the steps or components involved and progressing the patient to return it.  If they are unable to return to their previous functional level, then the OT will locate various resources and instruct the patient on how they can adapt the activity - so that they can still participate or accomplish it.

This RSS feed is so much better than subscribing to magazines, because it provides links to magazine articles.  I reviewed one at:http://www.flower-gardening-made-easy.com/garden-ready-for-winter.html that discussed how to prepare a garden for the winter.  Why would an OT need to know that??  Well OT can include instructing patients in anything that they are interested in - to improve their participation in life (quality of life), as well as working with them to create a better balance between work, play and self-care.  Many people do not 'play' enough and are over-stressed.  Stress management (and a better balance between work, play and self-care) is important in remaining healthy and in longevity of life.  I also found an interesting reference to the 'best' bird feeders that showed pictures of the top 10 in a picture slide show at:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/gardeningpicturegalleries/8126539/Best-bird-feeds-and-feeders.html.