Improving Your Mental Health: Why Having Plants in the Home is Crucial

Plants and mental health go hand-in-hand.

Gardening is a common hobby for many, but if the thought of digging through dirt turns you off, you’re less likely to add plants to your home.

However, indoor gardening is on the rise thanks to the abundance of online plant subscriptions and plant-based podcasts, but this trend may endure. Science has determined that keeping houseplants can improve your health. Here’s how.

Plants Can Reduce Stress Levels

All houseplants and flowers have the uncanny ability to reduce stress in humans. Repotting plants and indoor gardening can lower your blood pressure and heart rate.

Working with plants can reduce psychological and physiological stress because they make you feel natural, soothed, and comfortable. To give these benefits to your loved ones, send flowers via an online florist.

Plants Help You Recover From Illness Faster

It’s possible that plants and flowers can improve your recovery time for several illnesses because flowers and plants produce serotonin (happy hormone) in our brains.

When patients who were recovering from surgery received a potted plant in their rooms, they were more likely to recover faster than those who didn’t have flowers, and the same could be said at home. 

Plants Are Able to Heighten Your Focus and Attention

Real plants can help you pass your exams. A study that involved 23 participants found that when students prepared for a test in the same room as a real plant, they scored higher on the exam.

While by no means conclusive, scientists do know that an increase in oxygen helps humans focus and improves our ability to retain memories, or it’s likely plants can do the same.

Planting an Indoor Garden Improved Symptoms of Mental Illness

Indoor gardening is a new fad that comes with many positive benefits, including relieving prolonged symptoms of mental illness, like bipolar disorder and PTSD.

Plants have therapeutic properties and increase positive thoughts in people who have anxiety, depression, and dementia. It’s common to prescribe potted plants to anxiety sufferers in England.

Plants Improve Indoor Air Quality

Plants like the Boston fern, spider plant, peace lily, aloe vera, and rubber tree are proven to freshen your air and improve its quality.

However, you do need to have a large amount of purifying plants to achieve this effect. One or two rubber trees won’t provide the benefits an air purifier will bring, but they will still make your home smell nicer, even in smaller quantities. 

Plants Can Improve Your Quality of Sleep

Lavender is known for its soothing properties, which is why it’s so readily used in soaps, balms, and essential oil products.

This purple plant is scientifically proven to reduce your heart rate and blood pressure, which is beneficial when you’re trying to snuggle into bed. Its calming scent will lull you to sleep but will be a sight for sore eyes when you wake up after a night’s rest.

Plants Boost Efficiency and Productivity

Start putting small plants in your workspace because they can increase your creativity and productivity. The very presence of a plant nearby, even if they’re unnoticed by those in the room, can make you work 12% faster. People who work around plants, at home or at the office, also state that they feel less stressed and confused, which leads to them taking fewer sick days.

Plants Change Your Overall Outlook

Plants make us feel better during the day, especially when that day includes long work hours that can take a toll on our mental health.

Researchers concluded years ago that a view of a park or natural environment improved their job satisfaction, but if you bring nature inside, you see even more benefits. Along with less stress and anxiety, employees who work around plants are happier at their jobs.