It’s no secret that plants are an essential component of our survival. They provide us with food, fiber, building materials, and medicine. Plants also have a direct influence on our well-being in their capacity to absorb carbon dioxide and convert it to clean oxygen; which is a pretty handy trick in our heavily polluted, over populated world.
Interestingly, recent studies suggest that plants, particularly indoor plants, can also have a direct impact on our overall mood and emotional well-being. Humans have been bringing plants into their homes for thousands of years but with the evolution of modern creature comforts, our species is spending more time indoors now than we ever have before.
There are a number of reasons why plants may improve our mood – the most obvious being that they look quite a bit nicer than carpet and wallpaper. One study found an interesting correlation between the amount of care required to keep a plant healthy and the positive psychological effects it had on the caretaker.
Another study found that flowering plants provide elevated levels of happiness and therefore, keeping flowering plants around the home and in the workplace has the potential to significantly reduce stress levels. Natural aesthetic beauty is known to have a soothing effect, and keeping ornamental flowering plants around the home is an excellent way to lower high levels of stress and anxiety.
So what types of plants should you choose for your home? Here are 4 of our favorite…
1. Fiddle Leaf Fig
The Fiddle Leaf Fig is an incredibly versatile plant which is beginning to pop up all over the interior design scene – in fact, if you have a Pinterest or Instagram account, it’s likely that you already have a few impressions of the famous fiddle leaf subliminally embedded in your memory. Fiddle Leafs are one of the most photogenic and attractive indoor plants available, and as an added bonus, they’re also wonderful for improving air quality by providing high levels of oxygen and cleaning the air of allergens.
Fiddle Leaf Figs don’t require excessive watering and will thrive indoors in the right kind of light. They can take a lot of indirect sunlight, however, positioning your plant next to a window is a recipe for disaster. Similarly, placing them in a dark corner is also going to be detrimental. Think “not too little, not too much” in terms of indoor sun exposure.
To be continued…
Ref: www.foodmatters.com
