What impact plants in our indoor spaces have has long been the subject of various scientific studies and there are many health and lifestyle benefits that come with indoor plants.
Indoor plants have psychological as well as physiological benefits that increase a person’s well-being by reducing stress and calming the mind, as well as enhance levels of self-esteem, productivity, and creativity by promoting a sense of responsibility, accomplishment, and connection to the environment.
Keen to find out what benefits indoor plants have? By the end of this post, you might be surprised that plants affect you more than you previously thought.
Do Plants Make You Feel Better?
Having plants in a room is not some miracle cure against all negativity but many scientific studies show that plants have a subtle yet lasting impact on our mood and can make you feel better.
For overall improvement of your mood, it can already be enough to be surrounded by plants for as short as 15 minutes. There are many beneficial effects though that will only become apparent when taking care of plants for longer periods, be it at home or at the workspace.
Reading Recommendation: If you want more in-depth knowledge of what scientific findings there are today about the effects of plants on humans, feel free to check out my post on why plants make such a difference to our well-being.
The Benefits of Indoor Plants: From Green Aesthetics to Concentration Boosts
Plants do not only make you feel better within a couple of minutes. Indoor plants have many beneficial effects that only show after a longer period of caring for them and enjoying their presence day-to-day.
Keep in Mind: To enjoy these benefits, a plant needs adequate care to stay healthy. Make sure to do a plant health check regularly by following these steps in my post I link here.
1. Calm Your Mind With Green Colors
According to science, green colors are the most calming to the human brain. Thanks to our evolutionary history, being surrounded by the greenery of nature enhances a sense of calm and safety in our minds.
By bringing the aesthetics of green plants into your home, you create a space of tranquility and peace and lend it a cosy atmosphere.
2. Relax Body and Mind Through Plants
As plants have a soothing effect on our mind, they naturally help our bodies to relax and wind down.
Just think of the effect it has on you if you take a couple of minutes to watch the leaves of a tree rustle in the wind. By having plants inside your home, you induce a similar relaxation effect of body and mind.
3. Reduce Stress By Surrounding Yourself With Plants
Plants have scientifically been proven to lower heart reates and blood pressure, both of which are highly stress-related symptoms.
Indoor plants can therefore be beneficial to your physiological health by reducing your stress levels.
4. Plants Lessen Depressive Moods
So far we have learned that plants reduce stress, calm the mind, and help induce relaxation. Does it surprise you then that plants also have a positive impact on lessening depressive moods? Probably not!
Not just looking at plants but especially working with plants has a therapeutic effect that helps alleviate depressed feelings.
5. Plants Lessen Symptoms of Anxiety
The same goes for symptoms of anxiety: The calming effects of plants at home or in an office space can help reduce anxiety.
Of course, this doesn’t only count for plants you have standing around in your home but also certain plants with medicinal effects for consumption such as camomile or lavender tea.
6. Plants Enhance Pain Tolerance
Some studies undertaken at hospitals state that plants have a beneficial effect on patients’ pain tolerance levels. According to the studies, patients accommodated in rooms with plants or with a window facing a tree outside or a park needed less pain relievers than patients without these factors.
These findings are the reason why many hospital place plants in all of their rooms as well as in the hallway or entrance halls.
7. Enhance Your Productivity and Attention Span
Some scientific experiments made with students during exams as well as when studying have shown that students surrounded by plants overall achieved better results than students with no plants around.
These experiments led scientists to conclude that plants influence the productivity levels and attention spans.
Why not try it out if you haven’t yet? For your next study session or when working in home office, surround yourself with plants and see how it goes.
8. Enhance Your Creativity, Motivation, and Self-Esteem
Similar experiments have also taken into account the effects plants have on our motivation and self-esteem. Being surrounded by plants, their lush, inviting, playful, and diverse appearances help boost your creativity and motivation.
Thinking outside the box seems to become easier with plants.
From my personal experience: Working at an office space for Ph.D. students, plants in the office made a positive impact on everyone who worked there. After I started distributing plants in the whole room, almost all of the Ph.D. students started mentioning how the atmosphere seemed much lighter and more inspiring for writing on a thesis.
9. Create a Meditative Practice Through Plant Care
Similar to cooking or washing the dishes, ordinary tasks like watering plants are a type of meditative activity that grounds oneself in the present moment.
When taking care of your plants, there is nothing else you need to do or be thinking of. The repetitiveness of the task being done the same way every other day makes us routinize it and opens space for just being instead of having to think hard about what we are doing.
Such activities can be a welcome break in our hectic daily lives dominated by constant multi-tasking. Put a halt to the mind’s chatter by nurturing your plants.
10. Generate More Happiness and Well-Being in Your Life With Plants
After all the benefits already listed, it makes perfectly sense that over shorter or longer periods, plants generally provoke feelings of well-being, satisfaction, and happiness.
11. Develop a Sense of Responsibility for Other Beings
Managing a regular plant care routine that makes the plants thrive demonstrates one’s ability to look after someone or something else. This can provoke a feeling of accomplishment as well as help develop a sense of responsibility.
Especially for kids, caring for plants and watching them grow can be a great way to learn what it means to be responsible and how to relate to the environment we live in.
12. Boost Your Healthy Habits
There is a sense of purpose and accomplishment tied to looking after plants. Plants are generally associated with nature and hence evoke rather positive and healthy associations.
The satisfaction of being able to establish a plant care routine that makes plants thrive and seeing how they grow can help one become more motivated in establishing other personal healthy habits one has long desired to adopt.
This might be eating healthier food, cooking more regularly, or even doing five minutes of meditation each day.
Being a plant parent might have more profound effects on you than you think!
13. Reconnect With Nature
Many scientific studies show that humans have evolved with an emotional predisposition to connect with nature and other living organisms. Also, caring for plants and experiencing how they firmly root and grow in one place can foster a sense of belonging in the caretakers.
We are social beings at our core and reconnecting with nature through indoor plants can help promote more sustainable lifestyles in the long run.
14. Plants as a Positive Reminder of Good Things to Come
Last but not least, plants that grow, evolve, change, and survive through tough as well as good times can be a good reminder that things always change. Even though life might seem hard at some point, good times are coming.
Plants are very appreciative of good care. Even after months of not enough or too much water, they will greet you with fresh green tips coming seemingly out of nowhere as soon as conditions get better again.
Related Questions
Do Plants Like Music?
Listening to music can be beneficial for our well-being as well. But do plants also appreciate the sounds of a whiling guitar or a frenetic beat?
Not all types of music and certainly not all volumes are good for plants. Find out here what music stimulates plant growth and what to consider when playing music to your plants.
Do Plants Clean Air?
Plants do have air purifying capacities that are quite stunning and play an important role in our planetary ecosystem. However, indoor plants as such very often cannot make a measurable difference to indoor air quality. Find out here why this is the case and which plant types nevertheless are known to be the best air cleaners.
What Are the Disadvantages of Indoor Plants?
Although there are so many benefits to indoor plants, some disadvantages that may arise should be mentioned as well. For instance, plants need to be taken care of regularly. If you are often away for weeks at a time, you will have to organize someone who looks after them until you are back.
Keen to learn more? Check out my post about how to avoid the potential disadvantages of houseplants such as what to do about toxic plants with pets and kids around.