Flowers can add colour and visual interest to your home decor. However, Indoor Plants are also helpful for many other reasons, making them great additions to any home. Houseplants are great ways to get creative and feel more connected to nature, but they also help with healing and stress relief, make the air inside better, and can help with long-term health problems like sadness and anxiety.
Science-Supported Benefits of Indoor Plants
There are many reasons to keep plants inside, but these ten are the main ones that make us love having them in our homes and businesses.
Houseplants clean the air inside by removing harmful pollutants
VOCs, volatile organic compounds, are chemicals from everyday home items as gases. They can be found in carpets, particle board furniture, paints, and many cleaning supplies. VOCs like benzene, formaldehyde, and trichloroethylene can harm your health. They can raise your chance of some cancers, cause allergies and other respiratory problems, give you headaches, hurt your central nervous system, and more. You can improve the air quality inside your home and lower chemical emissions by opening windows and adding air filters. However, adding houseplants is a simple and effective way to lower VOCs and make your home healthier.
NASA did a study in 1989 that found that houseplants can significantly reduce the amount of chemicals in indoor air. In an 1800-square-foot home, it is thought that only fifteen to eighteen plants are needed to minimise VOCs dramatically. Another study found that dracaenas can remove 94% of acetone from the air in twelve hours, while bromeliads can simultaneously remove over 80% of six of the most common VOCs from the air. All plants can help clean the air inside, but some are naturally better at it than others. The following houseplants are great for cleaning the air:
Dwarf date palms
Lady palms
Ficus trees
Rubber trees
Boston ferns
Spider plants
But flowers aren’t the only things that can help clean the air. Interestingly, the bacteria in potting soil can also clean the air inside your home.
To get rid of VOCs from your home as effectively as possible, clean the leaves of your houseplants regularly with water and a soft cloth. If the weather is nice enough, putting your flowers outside for a few hours can also be good for them and help them clean the air inside better.
Houseplants Can Help Reduce Signs of Stress
Everyone knows that being outside is a great way to relieve stress. Working with nature, like gardening, taking walks in the park, or “forest bathing” on hikes, can help us refocus, be more aware of the current moment, and deal with stress better. However, being outside isn’t the only thing that can help you feel less stressed. You can also garden indoors with flowers.
A 2015 study in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology found that working with houseplants can greatly lower cortisol levels, blood pressure, and heart rates, all of which are typical signs of stress. Doing something as easy as watering or repotting your houseplants can help slow your breathing and calm your mind. If you don’t have easy access to nature or a room to garden outside, putting one or two houseplants on a sunny windowsill can help calm you down and help you rest.
Putting plants in your bedroom can help you sleep better
Lush plants and bright flowers can make beds look nicer and cosier, and because they increase oxygen levels, they can also help you sleep better. During photosynthesis, plants take in carbon dioxide and change it into oxygen. This oxygen is then released into the air. A recent study found that being around a lot of oxygen at night can help you sleep better and deeper, which is why many scientists and doctors say you should put flowers in your bedroom.
All plants give off oxygen when they do photosynthesis, but these are some of the best plants for your bedroom that do this:
• Snake plants
• Gerbera daisies
• Chinese evergreens
• Money plants
• Areca palms
Houseplants raise the humidity inside
Plants give off oxygen and water vapour during photosynthesis, raising relative humidity. This is especially helpful in the dry winter when gas or electric heat can make your skin and lungs feel terrible. Adding flowers to your home to raise the humidity level can help your respiratory health and fight problems like dry, frizzy hair and skin that feels parched in the winter.
The common spider plant is one of the best plants for wetting your home. Researchers recently found that quickly adding a few spider plants to a home can raise the humidity level from 20% to 30%.
Working with plants can help with stress and depression
Taking care of houseplants has been shown to help reduce stress and improve happiness in general, which can help people with long-term illnesses like PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Caring for houseplants can give you a sense of purpose and be “positively distracting.” But home plants are suitable for your mental health in even more ways. A study from 2007 discovered that a specific type of bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae, which can be found in dirt both inside and outside, can release serotonin, which is good for your mental and emotional health.
Indoor plants help get rid of allergens
Houseplants can significantly reduce the dust and mold in the air inside, which can help improve respiratory health by lowering some of the most common allergens. However, the exact process at play still needs to be fully understood. A new study from Virginia Tech says that flowers can cut the dust in the air by up to 20%. They can also help control humidity levels, which is excellent for bathrooms and other damp places where mold can grow. Many great flowers can help clean the air, but Chinese evergreens, English ivy, and peace lilies are some of the best.
Conclusion
There’s a lot more to houseplants than just looking nice in your home or office. If you buy online plants, it provides many benefits that must be addressed. They can improve mental and emotional health, speed up healing, and make the air inside your home healthier. It doesn’t matter if you’ve always loved houseplants or are just starting with a few spider plants. Growing plants indoors is a fun hobby that will make your home and mood better in no time.
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