How plants can positively affect our mental health and wellness

Living surrounded by plants is a house goal for many people! Plants help create a relaxing and natural environment, a kind of domestic jungle that can have many positive effects on our mood. There are many types of plants that are perfect for every need, even for less green thumbs: from houseplants to outdoor plants, from flowering plants to cactus and succulents.

Houseplants are not only loved for the way they can make a room beautiful but also for how they positively affect our mental health and well-being. Plants can illuminate the environment and make the air fresher, they are quite cheap and usually perfect as a background for a call or a photo to be posted on Instagram, but more than any other thing, taking care of a plant brings mental benefits and on the our mood. For example, having a plant on your desk in the office can reduce work stress, according to research from the University of Hyogo in Awaji. So how can surrounding ourselves with plants affect our mental health and well-being?

Plants can really help us breathe

Many plants, in addition to being aesthetically beautiful, help purify the environment by producing clean oxygen and absorbing the pollutants present in the room. The sansevieria is an example, in addition to being very cool, it is also perfect for purifying our rooms.

Choosing aromatic plants can also be a winning choice. This is because aromatherapy in nature has many benefits for our mental well-being. The scent of jasmine flowers, for example, has euphoric powers, which means it is perfect for enhancing self-esteem, keeping our mood high and relaxing the nerves. Lavender is also excellent for calming anxiety and stress and is perfect to help us sleep.

Plants can help us increase our mindfulness

Taking care of plants, even with just a few daily gestures, can distance our mind from negative thoughts, relieve stress and have a calming effect. Watering plants, moving them, removing dry flowers and branches, allows us to distance ourselves for a moment from our hyper-technological life and give us a moment of precious nature. In nature, life is calm and has its own pace, an aspect that in our daily lives we are forgetting more and more often.

Seeing a flower bloom can help our self-esteem

Having the awareness of growing a healthy plant, and seeing the first flowers bloom can give us a great satisfaction, satisfying our ego! Returning home after a long day at work and seeing new colorful flowers that have just blossomed is one of the best feelings ever. Gardening can be a fairly simple way to feel satisfied.

Plants remind us that our actions have positive effects

Plants show us that our actions can really make a difference. In bad moments, sometimes it may seem that there are many forces beyond our control that cause chaos and negativity in our life. Taking care of plants can keep us down to earth and stop overthinking. They are a reminder that our actions count and have positive consequences.

Plants help us understand how to manage responsibilities

One of the best aspects of being surrounded by plants is about understanding how we manage our responsibilities. If we water them every day, surely we will have pleasant surprises. If, on the other hand, a plant dies it can also be because we have not used all our love and dedication. Or at least that's almost always the case. This is the perfect time to look at the rest of our lives in a wider dimension too. Are we taking good care of ourselves too? Or are we forgetting to take some time for ourselves? How our plants are feeling is also an excellent starting point for personal reflection.

As we take care and grow our plants, they start taking care of us back, and this is wonderful.

Illustrations by Ilaria Carnesecchi for nss G-Club