Inspiration
Installing WINDOWSHELF and bringing the outside in can improve your health and wellbeing
Breathe Easy
Indoor plants offer a variety of benefits, contributing much more to your wellbeing than you might expect.
By increasing oxygen
When you breathe, your body takes in oxygen and releases carbon dioxide. During photosynthesis, plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. This opposite pattern of gas exchange makes plants and people natural partners. Adding plants to your interior spaces raises oxygen levels.
Even at night when photosynthesis ceases and plants switch to absorbing oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide, there are some plants that continue taking in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. These plants, which include orchids, succulents, and epiphytic bromeliads are a great choice for bedrooms.
By raising humidity
To support their photosynthetic and respiratory processes, plants need to take in water from their roots. More than 95% of this water is released by the foliage as a vapor which naturally cools and increases the humidity of the surrounding air. Dry skin, colds, sore throats, and dry coughs are reduced if interior environments are more humid.
By purifying the air
Plants quietly and efficiently remove volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the air. Common VOCs include formaldehyde, benzene, and trichloroethylene. Many modern manufactured products including soft furnishings, carpets and rugs, vinyl, cigarette smoke, inks, solvents, and paint.
Modern climate-controlled, air-tight buildings trap VOCs inside. Plants extract these contaminants from the air and eject them into the soil via their root systems. Here microorganisms in the soil convert these VOCs into food for the plant.
Improve Learning
Research conducted by Amanda Read of The Royal College of Agriculture in Cirencester, England demonstrated that students attending lectures in rooms with indoor plants were much more attentive, with distractions reduced by 70%. Students were also almost 100% more likely to return to lectures in the planted room.
Source: The Royal College of Agriculture, Cirencester, England.
In another piece of research carried out at a Norwegian primary school, plants were introduced into classrooms to improve the indoor atmosphere. The school was delighted with the findings from the research, as it showed that there were less health problems in the classrooms where the plants were located, resulting in a healthier place in which to learn and work.
Source: Plants for People
Support Recovery in Healthcare Settings
According to researchers at Kansas State University, adding plants to hospital rooms speeds recovery. When compared to patients in rooms without plants, those in rooms with plants request less pain medication, have lower heart rates and blood pressure, experience less fatigue and anxiety, and are released from the hospital sooner.
Better Working Environment
The Dutch Product Board for Horticulture commissioned a workplace study that discovered that adding plants to office settings decreases fatigue, colds, headaches, coughs, sore throats, and flu-like symptoms. In another study by the Agricultural University of Norway, sickness rates fell by more than 60 percent in offices with plants compared to those without.
Plants are air-cleaning power houses
On average, we spend almost 90% of our time indoors, and indoor air quality isn’t always the healthiest. Airborne viruses, moulds, and toxins from furnishings and electrical equipment are often present in our homes and workspaces. Indoor plants clean the air and raise humidity levels, creating healthier inside spaces.
Plants improve indoor air in three important ways:
- They replace CO2 with O2.
- They improve humidity levels.
- They remove harmful toxins, dust, mould, and bacteria.
Hard to believe? It has been shown that plants can:
- Improve indoor acoustics; especially helpful in open plan home or office settings
- Increase moisture levels in a room by 17% in Winter (Wageningen Environmental Research)
- Remove over 80% of airborne indoor toxins in a 24-hour period (NASA)
- Reduce airborne moulds and bacteria by 50-60% compared to rooms without plants (Stennis Space Centre)
- Reduce sick leave by up to a fifth (Wageningen Environmental Research)
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