How Farming Supports Mental Health, Trauma Recovery, and PTSD

From production agriculture to raising livestock, from managing fruit orchards to participating in outdoor-based mental health programs; farming & agriculture assist in grief processing, PTSD & PTG, and overall mental health. Here’s how:

These posts may contain sponsored or affiliate content. But please note- I never recommend any method, item, company, or concept unless I believe in it or I've tried/used it myself. Use your own discernment, use my work as a guide, and choose what works for you and your lifestyle.

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What makes farming so therapeutic, is the level of introspection you're able to dive into while completing hands-on, repetitive tasks. The flow state you enter while doing a meticulous, albeit necessary, task is something I can only describe as being in a headspace where you are locked in, yet able to tune everything out with ease.

Agriculture prompts us to blend mental awareness with physical focus; allowing us to separate ourselves from everything outside of what’s happening right in front of us, while still mentally processing whatever internal stressors we're working through. What makes agriculture & farming incredibly different from most other job fields, is the way you're able to see the immediate impacts of your efforts- every day (sometimes by the hour). Where corporate employees typically manage one bubble of defined tasks, only to send their work “up the chain” and likely never see the direct impact of it, farmers manage the end product from start to finish.

While our end product may be heirloom tomatoes sold at market or through a CSA-we never simply pick up the tomato and sell it.

To be a farmer is to wear many hats (which is oftentimes why you’ll notice many farmers are veterans, or have some form of ADHD).

The fields are flipped -oftentimes by hand- to turn the soil over from the prior crop. Seedlings are started either indoors or directly sown depending on their needs.

Crop plans are built out a full season, sometimes a year in advance, before anything ever meets the earth.

Irrigation systems must be set, high tunnels built, pests and critters deterred, land fenced, and support structures anchored.

All of this allows your crops to grow efficiently. Efficiency saves you money- but more importantly, it saves you time.

And outside of all the tasks listed above, the crop must be grown to maturity, harvested, processed, stored, and sold in a timely manner.

Not to mention the marketing for your agribusiness which, unironically, I’ve found is often the hardest task for farmers to take on.

Long, hot summer days require early starts. Cold, hard-soiled winters require the patience to maintain the internal side of things. Farming is seldom just putting seeds in the earth and waiting for them to grow—it’s also marketing, client communication systems, contract and contractor management, obtaining legal permits, and sometimes even dodging HOAs.

And in the beginning, our seasons often start slow before exploding into a hundred things to manage and care for.

Our mental health is no different.

Tending to the Earth is an ancient practice we’ve become so detached from- yet it remains one of the most tangible, physical manifestations of the care we put into the world.

Even when we struggle to care for ourselves, I’ve seen in my clients how they begin to find a new sense of purpose and reason for living when they reconnect with the land, and find meaning in the act of tending to something outside of themselves.

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