Blue Collar Impact : The Benefits of Manual Labor

My first day of work at the greenhouse was spent preparing our new nursery for the season – rolling out landscape fabric on my hands and knees and assembling a large metal shade structure with a group of strangers (my new teammates). On my second day I pulled weeds. Over the next few weeks, I spread mulch, planted, unloaded trucks, and wielded heavy hoses for hours day after day. When I accepted the position, I knew I’d be spending a lot more time on my feet than I was used to, but I had no idea how physical the job would be, and how it would make me feel.

I was sore all over.

But I also immediately started to recognize the benefits of manual labor.

People talk about the quality of getting back to our human roots, living more like our ancestors, doing physical work instead of sitting in front of computer screens. There’s scientific evidence about endorphins and dopamine rushes that result from physical activity. That’s all good and well and I am not going to talk about any of that, at least not directly.

This post is all about my personal experience of trading in my desk job for one that is physically demanding, and the positive impact it’s had.

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Free Your Mind

The very first thing I noticed was the feeling of letting my mind wander while performing some type of low key labor – like weeding or watering plants – for hours at a time. I didn’t need to think very hard about what I was doing. I was so used to a job that required intense amounts of intellectual deliberation, I could barely remember what it was like to not HAVE to think about anything. When I was in the thick of my architecture career, even time at home washing dishes or folding laundry was spent thinking about some problem that I needed to solve. I never learned how to turn it off.

At first, it was pretty uncomfortable. My brain started to bring up all of the thoughts that I had managed to shove down and avoid over the years when I had more immediate things to think about. Now there was all the time in the world to ruminate. Sometimes I had to listen to music and podcasts just to drown out all the noise in my head.

Over time, I was able to process the thoughts that had surfaced. What once felt like a deluge trying to swallow me whole became a gentle stream that I could walk beside and dip into as needed. I started to notice the beauty in front of me instead of focusing on the chaos in my head, and eventually could get through a shift without needing headphones.

(and the rest will follow)

I also noticed that outside of work my mind started to feel more clear. I was no longer intellectually overloaded for 8+ hours a day, leaving me strained to manage some of the most basic personal tasks at home. I used to dread something as simple as deciding what to make for dinner and making a grocery list.   As I freed my mind of the intellectual burden that I had carried for so long, I had more mental energy available for the other things that I wanted and needed to do.

Sudden Impact

My generation has often been mocked for our need for instant gratification, so I have to admit that I still feel a little shame for the extreme joy and pride I feel when I complete a task and can immediately notice the difference my work makes. Coming from an industry where projects would last several months or even years, it is so different to finish a day of work and instantly see and feel the impact. This is probably where that science comes in, the dopamine effect when you water a drooping flower and just hours later it is standing tall, or when you stand back and see an area that was once filled with weeds and is now clean, or when you plant and care for a seed to grow into a seedling just a few weeks later.

A Different Kind of Pain

It’s true that at the beginning I was (and still am) sore most of the time. And physically exhausted. Something about it is different now than when I was tired and in pain all the time from sitting at a desk.

It makes sense that I experience physical exhaustion differently from mental exhaustion. For one, I don’t feel guilty resting at the end of a physically demanding day, unlike when I needed to rest after a mentally demanding day. When I’m physically exhausted, I can still find the strength needed to rally – to make dinner or walk the dogs or attend a social outing. I have enough mental energy to have a conversation and connect with friends and family even when I’m low on physical energy. When I’m mentally exhausted, I feel stuck. I can’t think or communicate or even listen to another person. When my brain says no, my whole body also shuts down.

My entire relationship with pain has also changed. I spent years trying to get out of chronic pain. It didn’t seem to serve a purpose nor did it make sense to me for the pain to exist.  Now I see reasons behind the pain – sore legs from excessive squatting, low back pain from lifting a few too many heavy pots – and it’s easier to accept it. Fighting pain for so many years held me back, whereas understanding and accepting it has been freeing.

Hear me Roar

Working a job heavily dominated by manual labor has dramatically increased my confidence. All my life I have been praised for being smart and creative, and those are great traits that have served me well. But being uncomfortable in my own body and feeling incapable of so many things limited how I viewed myself and my potential.

Over the last few years I have just started to learn what I am physically capable of, and every time I am able to do something new, I gain a little more strength, power and confidence. Some things I was able to learn in a gym (I still remember the first time I lifted a kettlebell over my head, which I was terrified just to try), but it can’t compete with real life applications. For the first time I feel like I am more than just what I think - I am a whole being, and I can do great things.

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There’s no shortage of other benefits from working manual labor – like wearing comfortable clothes, getting exercise built-in to your day, uniquely bonding with your teammates – and it’s different for everyone. The ways that I have evolved as a person may not always be externally apparent, but I know deep within that I am a new (and improved) version of me thanks to connecting with my physical self in a new way.

If you’ve worked manual labor (past or present), share in the comments what you love about it to keep the lessons going.

Happy growing!

Sarah