Addressing the Root Causes of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in Gardeners
By Beth Rush
Many individuals are drawn to gardening as a means of being good environmental stewards and leading healthier lifestyles. However, growing organic food at home is sustainable only when you can do it indefinitely without experiencing problems with your hands and fingers.
Unfortunately, carpal tunnel syndrome makes this therapeutic activity hard on the body. Discover why some gardeners develop this condition and learn how to protect your hands while gardening.
How Can Gardening Cause Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
Gardening involves manual tasks, like tilling, digging, weeding, planting, pruning, and watering. Repetitive movement and prolonged tool gripping apply excessive pressure to the median nerve in the wrist’s carpal tunnel — a narrow passageway on the palm side of the hand.
Compressing this nerve causes tingling or numbness in the fingers and weakness in the hands. These sensations make simple tasks difficult and affect your ability to use tools. Properly and tightly holding gardening gear is vital in cultivating land and nurturing crops efficiently and safely.
How to Protect Your Hands When Gardening
Make gardening less physically strenuous with these eight tips to protect your hands.
> Use Raised Garden Beds
Growing plants in raised beds promotes good posture. These beds can be 4 feet high, making it easy to maintain proper body alignment. Less kneeling and bending from the waist discourages awkward grips and reduces the pressure on the wrist.
Keyhole and table gardens further elevate raised beds. Keyhole gardening has flexible bed dimensions, allowing you to plant more with less land. You can build keyhole garden beds up until they’re at a comfortable height for you. Table gardens are also customizable in size.
> Embrace a No-Dig Method
This gardening method minimizes soil disturbance, which means less manual labor. After cutting down the site’s existing vegetation and smothering weeds with cardboard, you only need to add generous amounts of organic matter — such as grass clippings, compost, and well-rotted manure — and a layer of mulch to enrich a no-dig garden. Beneficial microbes will feed on the organic materials and do most of the heavy lifting to fertilize the soil.
Gardening without digging can slow soil improvement and may appear messy initially. However, a no-dig garden requires minimal upkeep, allowing you to focus on less labor-intensive tasks.
> Cultivate Low-Maintenance Crops
An edible garden featuring low-maintenance vegetables and herbs provides a consistent supply of fresh ingredients with minimal effort. Prioritize plants that can be directly sown, repel pests, and practice “cut and come again” harvesting by taking the mature, outer leaves of a plant and leaving the core growing point intact to encourage new growth.
The most popular low-maintenance crops include bush beans, garlic, leafy greens, onions, potatoes, and radishes. Chives, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, and thyme also need less attention. Choose the ones you can reliably grow in your location to avoid wasting time and energy.
> Switch to Ergonomic Tools
No gardening method eliminates manual work, so invest in equipment that naturally fits your body and movement. Ergonomically unsound tools can cause wrist injuries, regardless of how frequently you use them. Once your median nerve is pinched badly enough, it can impact all muscles and joints from the fingertips to the shoulder and neck.
Lightweight equipment promotes better ergonomics than heavier gear. Tools with broad, curved, or rotating handles, padding, and telescoping shafts provide a more comfortable gardening experience.
> Split the Workload Between Hands
Whichever hand you use most is more prone to carpal tunnel syndrome. If you only have one dominant hand, train the other to become more proficient in manual tasks.
Start with easier tasks — like pruning smaller shoots and branches — and keep practicing. Many gardening tasks require both hands to be busy, so your nondominant hand probably needs little training to be almost as effective as your naturally more dexterous one.
> Wear a Wrist Brace
This supportive garment limits wrist movement, helping protect your hand when gardening. Preventing you from bending your wrists all the way up or down allows you to use your hands in a neutral position more effortlessly. Gardening with straight wrists takes the pressure off the median nerve.
Wrist braces are suitable for uninjured individuals. However, consult a qualified medical professional to determine what kind to buy and how long to wear it.
> Rotate Your Activities
Repetitive hand motions stress the tendons and surrounding tissues within the carpal tunnel. Excessive stress leads to inflammation, causing the confined opening in the wrist to narrow further due to swelling.
Alternating your gardening tasks rather than doing one for an extended period of time can relieve the pressure on the median nerve. Tasks requiring different movements can cause less targeted strain.
> Take Regular Breaks
Resting your hands periodically disrupts the continuous pressure on the median nerve. This strategy is crucial when performing tasks that require more force, such as trimming plants with a shear pruner.
Doing nothing can work wonders for your hands, but gently stretching them is even more helpful. Make a fist and then fan your fingers out as far as you can. Repeat this stretch five to 10 times before going back to work.
Proactively Protect Your Hands When Gardening
Even someone with a green thumb will struggle to grow healthy plants because of a painful wrist. While gardening can cause carpal tunnel syndrome, addressing detrimental habits promptly can significantly reduce the risk of developing this condition. Adopt these practical tips to grow healthy food and live a sustainable lifestyle.
About the author: Beth Rush is the green wellness editor at Body+Mind, where she covers topics like the power of climate consciousness at all stages of education. You can find Beth on Twitter @bodymindmag. Subscribe to Body+Mind for more posts by Beth!
