the experience of Ottosson during his recovery. For the first weeks,
the participants often spend their garden hours lying down alone in
the garden, either in a hammock or on the ground. Because the
program operates year-round, they wear large insulated snowsuits as
needed. “Many cannot feel anything” due to severe depression, said
Pálsdóttir. “They’ve almost lost sensory contact from the chin down.
As part of healing, the body and the brain connect again. Their
interaction with plants trains them to be here and now. They slowly
start to pay attention. Things like, what’s the tea today, now I can
taste coffee and enjoy it. It helps them calm down.”
As a former participant—a middle-aged mother named Cecilia
who had severe depression—told me later: “I found a hammock near
the hedges. It was nice to discover anything outside of the life I’d led
before. My brain learned to take in the birds and wind, only that.
That’s the first thing I remember.”
“We point patients to use their senses,” said Pálsdóttir.
“Eventually, we do creative activities, like go and pick a flower that
represents your feelings. Compost what you want to compost. We
often use nature as a metaphor that symbolizes good things and bad
things. You can stay and be on your own, or help with horticulture if
you want. You can just noodle.”
“Mindfulness is built in,” added Grahn, who between sips of tea
pulled out some graphs based on years of published studies. By the
end of the program, the patients show a “20 percent drop in symptoms
but it’s actually more significant than that because the difference is
between being considered sick and not sick,” he said. According to
the World Health Organization, 27 percent of the European
population, or 83 million people, experienced at least one mental-
health disorder in the past year. If you could speed time to recovery,
the savings would be huge. According to Grahn, 60 percent of
Alnarp’s patients return to work after one year, a figure higher than
for those in other kinds of therapy. Based on six years of follow-up