
The Well-Gardened Mind
The Restorative Power of Nature
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Narrated by:
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Sue Stuart-Smith
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By:
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Sue Stuart-Smith
About this listen
A distinguished psychiatrist and avid gardener presents “a truly uplifting book on the power of gardening - and how it can change people’s lives” (Stylist, UK).
The garden is often seen as a refuge, a place to forget worldly cares, removed from the “real” life that lies outside. When we get our hands in the Earth we connect with the cycle of life in nature through which destruction and decay are followed by regrowth and renewal. Gardening is one of the quintessential nurturing activities and yet we understand so little about it. The Well-Gardened Mind provides a new perspective on the power of gardening to change people’s lives. Here, Sue Stuart-Smith investigates the many ways in which mind and garden can interact and explores how the process of tending a plot can be a way of sustaining an innermost self.
Stuart-Smith’s own love of gardening developed as she studied to become a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. From her grandfather’s return from World War I to Freud’s obsession with flowers to case histories with her own patients to progressive gardening programs in such places as Rikers Island prison in New York City, Stuart-Smith weaves thoughtful yet powerful examples to argue that gardening is much more important to our cognition than we think. Recent research is showing how green nature has direct antidepressant effects on humans. “The most original gardening book ever [that] combines observation, horticulture, literature and history” (Sunday Times, UK), The Well-Gardened Mind is a book for gardeners and non-gardeners alike, and the perfect solace for people seeking healthier mental lives.
©2020 Sue Stuart-Smith. Originally published in Great Britain in 2020 by William Collins. Excerpt from “The Garden” in Chapter 9 is reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London, on behalf of The Beneficiaries of the Estate of Vita Sackville-West. © Vita Sackville-West 1946. Excerpt from “Hold out your arms” in Chapter 10 is reproduced with permission. Helen Dunmore, Counting Backwards: Poems 1975–2017 (Bloodaxe Books, 2019). © Helen Dunmore 2017. (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Should not have been an audio book
- By T. Harris on 11-12-24
By: Mike Mancias
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Animalkind
- Remarkable Discoveries About Animals and Revolutionary New Ways to Show Them Compassion
- By: Ingrid Newkirk, Gene Stone
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In the last few decades, a wealth of new information has emerged about who animals are: astounding beings with intelligence, emotions, intricate communications networks, and myriad abilities. In Animalkind, Ingrid Newkirk and Gene Stone present these findings in a concise and awe-inspiring way, detailing a range of surprising discoveries, like that geese fall in love and stay with a partner for life, that fish “sing” underwater, and that elephants use their trunks to send subsonic signals, alerting other herds to danger miles away.
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Move aside National Geographic and Discover!
- By Tracy on 01-28-20
By: Ingrid Newkirk, and others
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Eat & Flourish
- How Food Supports Emotional Well-Being
- By: Mary Beth Albright
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner, Caroline Shaffer
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Food has power to nourish your mind, supporting emotional wellness through both nutrients and pleasure. In this groundbreaking book, journalist Mary Beth Albright draws on cutting-edge research to explain the food/mood connection. She redefines “emotional eating” based on the science, revealing how eating triggers biological responses that affect humans’ emotional states both immediately and long-term.
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Eat for good mental health!
- By RCHJ on 01-23-24
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The Lighthouse Effect
- How Ordinary People Can Have an Extraordinary Impact in the World
- By: Steve Pemberton
- Narrated by: Rick N. Jones
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Our culture is adrift in division and distrust, and we need everyday heroes more than ever. Drawing from his own remarkable journey, Steve Pemberton shares stories of the ordinary people who quietly change lives and bring change to their communities. Compelling and insightful, this book will inspire you and renew your hope for the future.
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Great Life Story
- By Randee on 12-18-21
By: Steve Pemberton
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The Great Search
- Turning to Earth and Soul in the Quest for Healing and Home
- By: John Philip Newell
- Narrated by: John Philip Newell
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of Adam and Eve’s fall from innocence in the Garden of Eden is a mythical account of humanity’s broken relationship with the divine, with Earth, and with themselves. In contrast, Celtic wisdom is built on a strong bond with Earth. In the prophetic figures that Newell draws from, the Garden of Eden represents the inner garden of our souls and the outer garden of Earth, which are seen as essentially one. To live in relation to what is deepest in us is to live in relation to the ground from which we and all things have come.
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So encouraging
- By Ruthie Weller on 09-16-24
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Beyond Happiness
- The 6 Secrets of Lifetime Satisfaction
- By: Dr. Jennifer Guttman
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
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Are you happy? Nearly half of adults worldwide—40 percent—would say “no”. Even when we possess it, happiness can be a fleeting emotion. It’s natural that we should desire something longer lasting. In Beyond Happiness: The 6 Secrets of Lifetime Satisfaction, psychologist Dr. Jennifer Guttman guides listeners in living a deeply fulfilling life by aiming for a kind of contentment that is more sustainable than happiness.
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Great Read
- By BOBBY YOUNG on 10-11-22
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The Broken Way
- A Daring Path into the Abundant Life
- By: Ann Voskamp
- Narrated by: Jamiee Paul
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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A New York Times best seller! Brokenness doesn't only find us in the big things - things like illness, hardship, or grief. It can find you in the everyday. Learn to walk in a way that glorifies Jesus and receive freedom, not beyond your fear and pain, but within it. We are fragile and we know it. Sometimes, living with Christ in a messed-up world feels less like victory and more like walking uphill. The Broken Way is simple in presentation, written in Ann’s unique style - a new way for desperate Christians in need of a fresh revelation of the grace of God.
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So disappointed
- By Julie Parker on 01-06-17
By: Ann Voskamp
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Rhythms of Renewal
- Trading Stress and Anxiety for a Life of Peace and Purpose
- By: Rebekah Lyons
- Narrated by: Rebekah Lyons
- Length: 5 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Rhythms of Renewal is your guide to daily rescue and a way forward into the peace your soul longs for. As a society, we are in the throes of a collective panic attack. Anxiety and loneliness are on the rise, with 77% of our population experiencing physical symptoms of stress on a regular basis. We feel pressure chasing careers, security, and keeping up. We worry about health, politics, and many other complexities we can't control. Eventually, we find our minds spinning, trying to cope or manage a low hum of anxiety, unlike ever before.
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Great writer but should stick to fiction
- By Jana Leig Fiedler on 11-06-19
By: Rebekah Lyons
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Life in the Garden
- By: Penelope Lively
- Narrated by: Heather Lloyd
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Penelope Lively takes up her key themes of time and memory, and her lifelong passions for art, literature, and gardening in this philosophical and poetic memoir. From the courtyards of her childhood home in Cairo to a family cottage in Somerset, to her own gardens in Oxford and London, Lively conducts an expert tour, taking us from Eden to Sissinghurst and into her own backyard, traversing the lives of writers like Virginia Woolf and Philip Larkin while imparting her own sly and spare wisdom. Now in her 84th year, Lively writes, "To garden is to elide past, present, and future; it is a defiance of time."
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Enjoyable Read
- By Figgs on 03-31-21
By: Penelope Lively
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On Purpose
- The Busy Woman's Guide to an Extraordinary Life of Meaning and Success
- By: Tanya Dalton
- Narrated by: Tanya Dalton
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In her latest book, productivity expert Tanya Dalton helps you to define your purpose and live with intention - even if you feel you are too busy to pursue your big dreams. She offers cutting-edge research and thought-provoking real life stories of women and leads you through innovative, yet deceptively simple exercises.
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Motivating and Humorous
- By Lauren on 11-06-21
By: Tanya Dalton
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The World Behind the World
- Consciousness, Free Will, and the Limits of Science
- By: Erik Hoel
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout history, two perspectives on the world have dueled in our minds: the extrinsic—that of mechanism and physics—and the intrinsic—that of feelings, thoughts, and ideas. The intrinsic perspective allows us to tell stories about our lives, to chart our anger and our lust, to understand our psychologies. The extrinsic allows us to chart the physical world, to build upon it, and to travel across it. These perspectives have never been reconciled; they almost seem to exist on different planes of thought.
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An insightful overview of consciousness research
- By Vanilor on 07-27-24
By: Erik Hoel
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This Is the Voice
- By: John Colapinto
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff, John Colapinto
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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There’s no shortage of books about public speaking or language or song. But until now, there has been no book about the miracle that underlies them all - the human voice itself. Beginning with the novel - and compelling - argument that our ability to speak is what made us the planet’s dominant species, John Colapinto guides us from the voice’s beginnings in lungfish millions of years ago to its culmination in the talent of Pavoratti, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Beyoncé - and each of us, every day.
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Strange choice to become political
- By D & C Kochersberger on 01-27-21
By: John Colapinto
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Your Brain Is a Time Machine
- The Neuroscience and Physics of Time
- By: Dean Buonomano
- Narrated by: Aaron Abano
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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In Your Brain Is a Time Machine, brain researcher and best-selling author Dean Buonomano draws on evolutionary biology, physics, and philosophy to present his influential theory of how we tell and perceive time. The human brain, he argues, is a complex system that not only tells time but creates it; it constructs our sense of chronological flow and enables "mental time travel" - simulations of future and past events.
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Great book on an underrated subject
- By Neuron on 05-09-17
By: Dean Buonomano
truly loved it!
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Loved it!
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Amazing!
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The stories, success, and insight along with the excellent narration, made the book more than anticipated. I highly recommend this book.
Tremendous insight into the power of gardening
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I strongly recommend to everyone who wants to heal yourself and why not other people's minds.
The Well-Gardened Mind
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I cannot praise this book enough. I hope the author sees this and knows how powerful a work she has brought onto this world.
Nourishment for self care and cognitive growth
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Great View if Gardening From a Mental Perspective
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A Worthy Read for a Lifetime of Reading
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Loved it! Great integration of gardening, healing trauma, and literature.
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The author writes about the men in WWI who were stuck for long periods of time at the front lines. Some of them grew flowers or vegetables when they had the chance. It was something to help them keep a hold on their sanity.
It turns out that both Freud and Jung enjoyed being outdoors and working in a garden. Freud was very fond of orchids.
I was very interested in the discussion of prehistoric gardening. Researchers believe that some very ancient gardening was intended to produce especially desirable foods, such as figs. They also believe that ancient people grew gourds simply to make them into musical instruments. In other words, our remote ancestors enjoyed growing things. It wasn't all the drudgery of survival.
If you feel restored and energized by gardening, you will find much that explains the value of it in this book.
Wonderful Book for Gardeners
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