Plants do more than add a pretty touch to a room. They reduce stress, make you feel happy, and improve indoor air quality. Discover five reasons you should add houseplants to your home.
You Can Grow Houseplants That Have Easy Care Requirements
If your thumb tends toward brown instead of green, start with easy-care plants. Succulents and cacti need little attention (1), and they can last a long time. Don’t know the difference between succulents and cacti? Succulents have thick, fleshy leaves, and cacti have little bumps and sprout hair or spikes. These plants need only a misting of water every so often. They grow best when placed on windowsills with plenty of sunlight.
You Can Add Touches of Style With Houseplants
Adding a houseplant is an easy and inexpensive way to brighten up a room. Whether you use small plants in pretty pots or dramatically drape a hanging plant from curtain rods, houseplants liven up a space. Using colorful ceramic or copper pots also adds interest to a room.
You Can Create New Plants From Cuttings
Some plants are easy to propagate via cuttings. For example, spider plants grow well and need little attention. They sprout new shoots often, and they make great cuttings for starting new plants that you can share with friends and family.
Houseplants Can Help Keep You Healthy
When we breathe, our bodies take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide. Plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen into the air. This opposite pattern increases indoor oxygen levels, which can help you breathe easier in your home. Plants also release moisture during photosynthesis, which can help increase humidity levels in your home and help you breathe more easily. In addition, plant moisture can help alleviate concerns with dry skin and reduce uncomfortable symptoms associated with colds, sore throats, and dry coughs.
Houseplants Can Help Clean the Air in Your Home
Plants also clean the air, removing up to 87 percent of toxins every 24 hours (2). Modern airtight buildings trap toxins inside a home, and trapped toxins can cause a variety of problems. According to NASA researchers, plants purify the air by pulling contaminants into their soil and converting them to food.
Another research study found that students demonstrate a 70 percent increase in attentiveness when a classroom had houseplants (3). Indoor plants help reduce stress and create a feeling of well-being, like the feeling you get when you’re walking through a park. Think about the effect when you bring flowers and plants to hospital patients. The plants not only decorate the rooms, but they also help patients feel less stress during recovery.
Using houseplants in your home offers many benefits. Houseplants can help to increase humidity levels in dry environments. Increasing the humidity in your home can benefit your respiratory and skin health and can help prevent nosebleeds, especially in wintertime or in dry climates (4). They can also reduce toxins and dust levels inside your home. Additionally, plants can help to dampen background noise in the way a line of trees or bushes helps lessen road noise along a highway. Improve your quality of life and add a few houseplants to your home.
In summary plants offer immediate benefits by improving mood and stress management. They also provide long-term benefits, such as improving air quality which may reduce instances of headaches — or by adding moisture to the air, which helps with dry skin. And if for no other reason they can add color and life to a room.
(1) Why Indoor Plants Make You Feel Better
(2) Five Benefits of Houseplants
(3) Effects of Green Plants on the Indoor Environment and Wellbeing in Classrooms—A Case Study in a Swedish School
(4) What Plants Humidify The Air: Learn About Houseplants That Increase Humidity
By Andrew Ellis
