How Soil Saved My Health (and Why It Can Save Yours)
- Alex Montgomery
- Dec 30, 2025
- 4 min read
I didn’t come to soil through gardening.
I came to soil because my health was unravelling.
Fatigue, anxiety, digestive issues, brain fog. The kind of symptoms that don’t show up neatly on blood tests but quietly shrink your world. Like many people, I tried to fix myself through willpower, productivity hacks, and supplements. None of it stuck.
What eventually changed everything wasn’t a pill or a protocol.
It was soil.
Soil health is closely linked to human health. Contact with soil microbes, diverse food grown in living soil, and regular nature connection support immune function, gut health, and mental wellbeing.
When health becomes disconnected from the ground
Modern life trains us to see health as something individual and internal. We focus on diet, exercise, sleep, stress management. All important, but incomplete.
What’s rarely discussed is that human health evolved in constant contact with:
soil
microbes
plants
animals
seasonal rhythms
We are not designed to live sealed off from the living world. Yet most of us now do.
Clean surfaces. Indoor air. Processed food. Antibacterial everything.
The result is not just environmental damage, but biological loneliness.
Soil is not dirt. It’s a living system
Soil is often treated as inert. Something to grow plants on, not something alive in its own right.
In reality, healthy soil is one of the most complex ecosystems on Earth.
A single teaspoon of living soil can contain:
billions of bacteria
metres of fungal networks
protozoa, nematodes, arthropods
organic matter cycling nutrients
These organisms don’t just support plants. They shape the entire food web that feeds us.
When soil life declines, food quality declines. When food quality declines, human health follows.
The missing link: microbes and wellbeing
One of the most striking discoveries in recent decades is how closely human health is tied to microbial exposure.
Contact with diverse microbes has been linked to:
improved immune regulation
reduced inflammation
lower rates of anxiety and depression
better gut health
Soil is one of the richest sources of microbial diversity we’ve ever evolved alongside.
There’s even research showing that exposure to certain soil bacteria, such as Mycobacterium vaccae, can increase serotonin production and reduce stress responses.
In simple terms: soil doesn’t just grow food. It trains our nervous systems.
How compost changed my relationship with health
My own turning point came through composting.
Working with compost meant:
touching soil daily
breathing outdoor air
slowing down
observing living processes instead of controlling them
Compost is where death becomes life again. Where food waste becomes nourishment. Where breakdown is not failure, but transformation.
As my compost systems became healthier, something unexpected happened.
So did I.
My anxiety softened. My digestion improved. My sense of connection returned. Not overnight, not magically, but steadily and deeply.
Soil taught me patience. It taught me regulation. It taught me that health is relational, not individual.
Ultra-processed food and depleted soil share the same root
The rise of ultra-processed food didn’t happen in isolation. It mirrors the degradation of soil.
As soils were stripped of life, food became:
less nutrient-dense
more reliant on synthetic inputs
more disconnected from season and place
Ultra-processed food feeds calories, not ecosystems. It bypasses soil biology almost entirely.
When we eat food grown in lifeless soil, we are eating the absence of relationship.
Rebuilding health means rebuilding the soil–food–microbe connection.
Why regeneration starts with listening, not fixing
Soil doesn’t respond well to force. It responds to attention.
One of the biggest lessons soil taught me is that healing isn’t about optimisation. It’s about listening.
Listening to:
moisture
structure
smell
sound
time
This principle shapes everything we do at Generation Soil, from composting to education to our food forest market garden.
Regeneration happens when we work with living systems, not when we try to dominate them.
Health is ecological, not personal
This is the shift that changes everything.
Health is not just something you manage inside your body. It emerges from the systems you’re part of.
When soil is alive:
food is more nourishing
ecosystems are more resilient
communities are more connected
people feel more grounded
This is why soil health is public health. Why composting matters. Why food waste matters. Why local food systems matter.
Reconnecting with soil in everyday life
You don’t need to become a farmer to reconnect with soil.
Small, accessible steps include:
composting food waste at home
growing even one plant
spending time barefoot or hands-in-soil
volunteering in community growing spaces
choosing food grown with soil care
In Bristol, these pathways are becoming more visible through community composting, workshops, and regenerative growing projects.
From personal healing to collective regeneration
My health journey didn’t end with soil. It widened because of it.
What started as a personal need became a collective project: Generation Soil.
Through the Bristol Living Compost Project, compost clinics, workshops, and a two-acre food forest market garden, we’re rebuilding the conditions for health at scale.
Not by selling wellness.
But by regenerating the ground beneath our feet.
Soil saved my health. It can support yours too.
Soil won’t replace medical care. But it restores something medicine often can’t: relationship.
Relationship with food.
With microbes.
With cycles.
With place.
With yourself.
In a world obsessed with speed and control, soil offers a different medicine.
Slower.
Deeper.
Alive.
And once you feel that, it’s hard to unlearn.
Related reading
Generation Soil is a Bristol-based organisation regenerating local food systems through community composting, soil education, and living soil practices that support human and ecological wellbeing.
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