Health & Wellness
The Problem
- 21% Canadian adults aged 18 and older screened positive for at least one of three mental disorders during the pandemic.
- According to WHO, over 15% of adults over the age of 60 suffer from a mental disorder.
- Mental illness is experienced by 1 in 3 Canadians during their lifetime.
- According to CMHA, everyone has mental health and will experience challenges regarding their mental well-being, but not everyone will experience a mental illness.
- By age 40, about 50% of the population will have or have had a mental illness.
- Major depression affects approximately 5.4% of the Canadian population, and anxiety disorders affect 4.6% of the population.
- Youth is a critical period: most people living with a mental illness see their symptoms begin before age 18.
- Approximately 20% of Canadian youth are affected by a mental illness or disorder.
- In Canada, only 1 out of 5 children receive appropriate mental health services.
Our Solution
HiGarden developed a customizable and scalable indoor garden – ReGen Garden™ – for mental and cognitive health regeneration to bring a healthier and happier lifestyle.
Our Design
- Facilitates nature therapeutic environments with biophilic design to enhance mental health and improve pain management.
- Uses interactive learning environments with interdisciplinary activities to improve cognitive health and reduce dementia risk.
- Nature Therapy is a prescription medicine in BC, Ontario, Alberta, and Manitoba.
Uniqueness and Competitive Edge
About Biophilic Design
- Biophilic design brings nature into interior space. By helping occupants reconnect with nature indoors, biophilic design is capable of regenerating the wellbeing of the occupants.
- The human response to nature and indoor natural elements is a very real and well documented phenomenon. Decades of research indicates that connecting occupants to natural elements has a wide range of positive impacts including faster recovery from illness, lower pain levels, reduced stress and blood pressure, improved cognition, fewer missed work days and higher productivity and higher perceived quality of life.
- Connection to nature has a substantial impact on people’s mental health and stability.
- Furthermore, the clinical practice of biophilic design – nature therapy – is now offered to Canadians as medical prescription. More than 500 health-care workers across Canada have signed up to participate in this Prescriptions program.
About Nature Therapy
- “Active interaction with indoor plants can reduce physiological and psychological stress compared to mental work. This is accomplished through suppression of sympathetic nervous system activity and diastolic blood pressure and promotion of comfortable, soothed and natural feelings.”
Min-sun Lee, Journal of Physiological Anthropology, 2015; 34(1): 21
- “Students and employees with a view of nature, either indoors or right outside their windows, were not only found to be more productive but also more alert, more attentive, more relaxed, in better moods, …”
11 Ways Plants Enhance Your Mental and Emotional Health, Susan McQuillian, M.S., RDN, Psychology Today, September 14, 2019
- “Exposure to natural elements is associated with decreased levels of diastolic blood pressure, depression, anxiety, and increased attentional capacity.”
Why We Need More Nature at Work: Mental Health and Work Attention, Kimberly O’Brien, U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes
of Health, 2016; 11(5)
- “Indoor gardening has been reported to be effective for improving sleep, agitation, and cognition in dementia patients. It is a restorative technique to improve memory, attention, sense of responsibility, and social interaction.”
Is the Evidence to Support the Use of Therapeutic Gardens for the Elderly?, Psychiatry Investigation, June 2012; 9
Our Products
