How Indoor Plants Help Both You and Your Home
When you decorate your home with houseplants, you're not just adding greenery. These living organisms interact with your body, mind and home in ways that improve your quality of life. Many studies have found that just being in nature -- such as taking a walk through a garden, a park, a forest -- can improve not only your state of mind but your blood pressure, your heart rate and your stress hormone levels and, over time, can lead to a longer life. Just having plants around you in your home can make you feel happier and healthier!
Indoor plants have been proven to:
- Help fight colds: Indoor plants have been shown to reduce cold-related illnesses by more than 30%. This is due to their effect of increasing humidity levels and decreasing dust. Washington State University found that interior plants decrease the amount of dust in the air by 20%.
- Improve air quality: Having indoor house plants can improve the quality of air in your home by reducing carbon dioxide levels, releasing humidity, and reducing certain pollutants. Indoor plants can remove up to 87% of toxins every 24 hours! (according to a study done by NASA).
- Improve your mood: Plants, especially flowers, have immediate and long-term effects on emotional reactions, mood, social behaviors and even memory. The Journal of Environmental Psychology has shown that flowering plants in particular can decrease stress levels.
- Increase concentration: The Royal College of Agriculture in England did a study that showed a 70% increase in attentiveness between classrooms that contained plants versus those that did not.There was also a higher attendance rate in these classrooms as well. This study was also backed by the American Horticultural Therapy Association, who also found that interior plants can help us to concentrate better.
Also, have you ever heard of Horticulture Therapy? It's a professional practice that uses plants and gardening to improve mental and physical health. Horticultural therapy is rooted in the idea that interacting with plants can bring about well-being, whether it's tending a garden or just having plants in your home. Studies show that this type of therapy can help with dementia, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, and other mental illnesses. You may find similar therapeutic benefits from taking care of your indoor house plants.
All in all, our consensus is that houseplants are definitely worth the time and effort it takes to help them thrive in your home.
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