Gardening for Therapeutic People-Plant Interactions during Long-Duration Space Missions

• Main Authors: Odeh Raymond, Guy Charles L.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: De Gruyter 2017-02-01
• Series: Open Agriculture
• Subjects: bioregenerative; cognition; countermeasure; food crop; horticultural therapy; mental health; nature; natural environment; psychological stress; spaceflight
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1515/opag-2017-0001

Plants provide people with vital resources necessary to sustain life. Nutrition, vitamins, calories, oxygen, fuel, and medicinal phytochemicals are just a few of the life-supporting plant products, but does our relationship with plants transcend these physical and biochemical products? This review synthesizes some of the extant literature on people-plant interactions, and relates key findings relevant to space exploration and the psychosocial and neurocognitive benefits of plants and nature in daily life. Here, a case is made in support of utilizing plant-mediated therapeutic benefits to mitigate potential psychosocial and neurocognitive decrements associated with long-duration space missions, especially for missions that seek to explore increasingly distant places where ground-based support is limited.