Indoor Plants: A Breath of Fresh Air

Looking for an easy way to improve your mood? Simply interacting with indoor plants promoted more comfortable and soothed feelings throughout the day.

Indoor plants help to slow the activity of the sympathetic nervous system—the part of the nervous system that responds to stress by preparing you to fight or run away—helping to reduce anxiety.

This helps with anxiety both before and after you are exposed to a stressor, making greenery a fun way to lower your body’s response to stress and overall anxiety.

Yes, being around indoor plants can help you recover more quickly from emotional stress and reduce the symptoms of anxiety!

Employees with a view of plants are likely to be more productive than people without plants. And this isn’t a small difference, one study found productivity increased by 15% with indoor plants in the office.

Another showed that, with greenery around, employees completed a test 19% faster.

This increased productivity is even found in classrooms. Simply adding plants into the classroom helped children progress about 20% faster through their curriculum.

Nature has inspired ideas for centuries; from architecture to jewelry design, the environment has played a large role in human ingenuity.

This isn’t just speculation; plant diversity boosts creativity. Workplace design and the addition of indoor plants has been shown to increase creativity, innovative ideas, and help with problem solving.

Stress impacts the body in many ways, including how quick you recover from being sick.

Indoor plants help here too by lowering stress, and are even linked to better recovery after surgery. The patients in one study reported lower stress levels and better overall health than patients who didn’t have plants in their hospital room.

Having plants around could also help you concentrate better, and can help young kids focus even more. Indoor plants helped a classroom of elementary students increase their attention and concentration.

Time spent in natural settings and viewing greenery reduces fatigue, helping you to concentrate for longer periods of time. An added bonus is improved memory when around plants.

Taking the time to care for a plant can benefit your self-confidence too. Buying a plant or even growing one from a seed takes time. Regularly checking on the plant, watering it, ensuring it gets adequate sunlight, and watching the plant grow shows the value of patience and effort.

A sense of pride comes from keeping a plant alive and studies show gardening can help people reach self-esteem goals in therapy through identifying with the growth of the plant.

People report that plants help to provide a sense of comfort, liven up a space, and provide more pleasure to their environments. Most people find that adding plants to rooms makes the room more cheerful and lively.

Likely the fun of adding plants is part of the reason behind the benefits indoor plants have on your mood, stress levels, and concentration.

There are mixed results on how plants truly impact the quality of air.

Some research shows that plants can help lower pollution levels and increase humidity. This may help reduce symptoms of allergies, headaches, and irritation from dry air or air pollution.

Post traumatic stress disorder (PSTD), dementia, and depression are all very different diseases, but exposure to indoor plants may help improve the symptoms with all of them.

People diagnosed with depression or PTSD reported identifying with the growth of the plants they cared for, helping them to see opportunities for their own growth. Participating in gardening also helped patients with dementia and they saw improvements in aggressive behaviors and mental capacity.