Exercise Cures Emotion

October 01, 2008

by John Cannizzo, GreenTeam director, New York Horticultural Society

Modifying emotional response is not so difficult as wishing to modify. This may be because our mind, body and feelings would have to agree among themselves. If they do anything among themselves it will no longer be possible for any one of them to order the others around. When angry, negative thoughts whiz through our brains and make us feel worse. It can also affect how people treat us. It’s a big circle.

When she responds to me in an unfriendly way I feel inside a dislike of her, but externally I am polite because I must be very polite since I need her. Internally I am what I am, but externally I am different. This is external considering.

She treats me like I am a fool. This angers me. The fact that I am angered is the result, but what takes place in me is internal considering. Maybe she learned or heard something about me. But today I want to remain calm. She is reacting automatically and I should not be angry with her. From today onward I want to be calm. For this we need 2 kinds of exercises – external and internal. External exercises are easier.

The exercise now is path building. This exercise has had a positive effect or change on several students’ behavior. After a week there was a marked reduction in anger/aggressive response. The exercise of measuring, following a plan, leveling, counting bricks, creating patterns requires attention that shifts “considering” from the internal to the external – from the gardener to the garden. Each person that engaged in this activity had an example of behavior modification. Some students showed marked reduction in disruptive or negative behavior.

External space can become endowed with value to produce place. “Place is security, space is freedom: we are attached to one and long for the other” (Tuan, 1977). Horticultural therapy exercises that reflect this phenomenon focus on levels of participation. All human beings have effective ties with the environment. Topophilia, the love of place, describes the effective bond between people and place or setting.

* All photos by John Cannizzo

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Local green spaces may not solve all of our emotional problems, but they help mitigate the physical conditions of urban environments that are so damaging to our students. Gradually our students turn away from their internal considerations, lured by the refreshing experience of doing something which they know nothing about: digging, or winding a hose, working as a team. Exercises that captivate one part of the reluctant individual – the body, or the logic center, the feelings. This is 5-Star Garden, a community garden in West Harlem with a history. These kinds of raw spaces provide enormous variety of exercises. There are thousands of types of exercises that affect our emotions: from working out at a gym to practicing piano but working with nature is special because the laws which are gradually unfolded to by the practice of her exercises are universal and reveal the planetary rhythms of life itself.

Working as a team. If 2 interns work well together we separate them; if others are aloof, then throw them together as often as possible. Doing what you do not like – not doing what you like is a very potent exercise.

Work out how to do something very difficult, dangerous -- sublime. We had to move the gazebo at the top of the picture to the foundations center left. Stretch a string from the center of a circle to each of 8 points equidistant around the circumference of a circle. This is for the mind. Now dig down until you reach a buried refrigerator door. Work as a team to unearth it. This is for the emotions. Dismantle the bungalow and carry it piece by piece to the new strong foundations – this is for the body.

D. was a kind of class clown. Cursing and bragging about how he would f**k up his rivals. When given the task of paving though he settled down for some reason. Each day he would come in and lay out his tools make sure that everything was level, straight, true and work without stopping until lunch.

Topophilia is not a dominant human sentiment, but can be strengthened by emotions or symbolism. It can be evident even when visual cuing is absent, which is exemplified by the finished space created at 5-Star. D., knowing that we would soon be leaving the site of so much of his hard work, began to take photos of the garden with his telephone. “I want to see the garden even when I am not there anymore, even when I cannot see it I will still remember it”.