Living in a tiny college dorm with other students might make it difficult to adapt to the space. Students likely use posters, tapestries, and pictures to make this place truly their new home. Other students might even have little companions such as houseplants to make the place more lively. While houseplants are great for the aesthetic, they also have numerous benefits which can really help brighten your living space along with your mood.
Firstly, plants tend to reduce our stress and anxiety levels because they have a soothing effect. A study compared the effect of working with a houseplant versus performing a quick computer-related task and found people felt more calmer and had lower blood pressure while working with the houseplant. Melinda Knuth, an assistant professor at North Carolina State University, explains how indoor plants tend to reduce our cortisol levels. “We hold our stress hormone, cortisol, in our saliva, and we know this is decreased when we’re around plants,” states Knuth. Additional studies performed also showed that just viewing pictures of plants also has a positive effect on stress levels.
Secondly, plants or greenery have been proven to increase the ability to concentrate, especially in kids. A study involving elementary school children where students were randomly assigned a fake plant, a real plant, a photo of a plant, or no plant, displayed that those students with a real plant had higher levels of concentration and attention.
In addition to increases in the ability to concentrate and pay attention, plants can also boost productivity overall.
A common theme within the plant-loving community is how plants make people feel happy and there is scientific evidence behind this. Science has found that plants that are green and purple in color tend to have the greatest capability of reducing negative feelings. Gary L. Altman, the associate director of the horticultural therapy program at Rutgers University states, “There’s an evolutionary response when you see green—it’s almost like you created yourself a sanctuary. It reduces feelings of fear and anxiety, and even if you’re angry, it’ll calm you down.” Levels of comfort and positive emotions have been shown to increase for humans while in the presence of plants. In fact, there are studies that go as far as explaining the correlation between the amount of time spent with plants and increased self esteem and life satisfaction.
Lastly, plants may play a key role in speeding up recovery. Hospital patients who had a view of plants appeared more calm and had better recoveries compared to their counterparts who didn’t have a view of plants. In fact, a whole field of science, horticultural therapy, is utilized to support recovery via plants. Horticultural therapy can be used to diffuse a lot of mental conditions and aftermaths of certain medical conditions, such as having a stroke. For example, someone who might be dealing with impulsivity due to a brain injury can use horticultural practices such as making decisions about what to plant as a way to recover. Alternatively, a person struggling with substance abuse can benefit my growing microgreens. Horticultural therapy usually starts out in a public setting like a public garden and works its way to each individual person growing plants at home.
