In the story, the reporter, Callum Borchers, writes that, "For a lot of office workers—OK, mostly middle-aged male office workers—a manicured lawn is as much a status symbol as a luxury car in the driveway."Once again, this league and its league members are one step ahead of pop culture.We're about a year away from the WSJ running a report on why mowing on Thursday night is the ultimate adult flex.In a 2011 report for Psychology Today, clinical psychologist Ben Michaelis addressed this mowing phenomenon that dominates our brains.
He believes it's a male's way of being creative."I believe that all people were made to create," Michaelis wrote.
"The impulse to express ourselves creatively is often suppressed once we leave childhood behind.This is especially true for men who don't consider themselves to be artistic.
For these men, their front lawns have become the culturally sanctioned canvasses of their stifled creative souls."Your obsession with having a perfect lawn is like an artist trying to paint a masterpiece.For men, the lawn is your canvas, researchers say.
(Thursday Night Mowing League)In other words, white-collar men...and blue-collar men...who are obsessed with their lawns are expressing care for the world.The lawn is our canvas.
It's art.It's sport.
It's competition.It's dopamine.There's research that suggests even the smell of cut grass is like a drug for our brains.YOSEMITE, GRAND CANYON LEAD NOTABLE LIST OF NATIONAL PARK CAMPGROUNDS FOR AMERICA'S 250THIn 2009, University of Queensland researcher Dr.
Nick Lavidis developed a grass spray that smelled like cut grass.The spray was marketed to people as a stress reliever.
The idea behind the scent was developed by Lavidis after a trip to the U.S., including a stop at Yosemite National Park."Three days in the park felt like a three-month holiday," Lavidis said at the time."I didn’t realize at the time that it was the actual combination of feel-good chemicals released by the pine trees, the lus...