Health Benefits - Plants
Plants do more than just brighten up a room with color and living energy. Along with being pleasing to the eye, they bring real health benefits to your body. Not only do complaints about headaches, stress, heart/circulation-symptoms and colds decrease when indoor plants are present, but decorating a room with plants can help to keep the air clean.
Plants Improve Air Quality
Most people spend the majority of time indoors at home or work. Air conditioning, improved insulation, and energy-saving measures all reduce air exchange in buildings, so we breathe the same air again and again. Because the modern internal environment is virtually hermetically sealed and the construction materials used, modern synthetic furnishings, computers, electrical equipment, and everyday household products such as cleaning material, can produce harmful substances that are trapped inside the building. These all contribute to the well recognised "sick building syndrome". Polluted indoor air, contaminated by volatile organic compounds (VOCs), are a major cause of headaches, nausea, sore & itchy eyes, loss of concentration and other "sick building" symptoms.
The simple addition of interior plants is a natural way to help significantly to remove these pollutants.
There is a wealth of scientific study into the beneficial effects of live plants in the interior environment including a large NASA program. For more detail of this and other independent research refer to:
Other Benefits of Interior Plants
As well as purifying the air we breathe the presence of indoor plants have also been shown to have many other beneficial effects, details of this research can be found on the links above. These benefits include:
- Increased positive feelings and reduced feelings of anxiety, anger and sadness.
- Reduction of sound levels
- Reduction of stress levels
- Control of humidity to the within the optimum levels for human health
- Cooling effect
- Absorption of carbon dioxide and emission of oxygen refreshing the air
- Improved concentration levels leading to improved productivity particularly with those working with computers
- Reduction of absenteeism in the workplace
- Faster recovery from mental tiredness
- Interiors feel spacious, looked after and clean
- People prefer to occupy rooms that contain plants
- Improved image - interiors are perceived as "more expensive"
A good indoor climate in the workplace is a prerequisite for achieving an optimum performance from employees. In many workplaces the air is too dry and contains harmful substances which can cause health problems. Common complaints are a dry throat, a headache, dizziness, fatigue, irritated eyes, airways and skin, and coughing.
Placing air-purifying plants can reduce these health complaints significantly. Plants release moisture into the air, absorb heat and noise, and absorb and break down harmful substances.
People also find workplaces with plants more pleasant, which demonstrably reduces stress as well as symptoms such a headaches and fatigue. Amongst other things, research shows that workers who spend over four hours a day in front of a computer screen feel better and are more productive when plants are placed near their monitor.
