Benefits of Flowers
A team of researchers
explored the link between flowers and life satisfaction in a 10-month study of
participants' behavioural and emotional responses to receiving flowers. The
results show that flowers are a natural and healthful moderator of moods:
- All study participants expressed
"true" or "excited" smiles upon receiving flowers,
demonstrating extraordinary delight and gratitude. This reaction was
universal, occurring in all age groups.
- Specifically, study participants reported
feeling less depressed, anxious and agitated after receiving flowers, and
demonstrated a higher sense of enjoyment and life satisfaction.
- The presence of flowers led to increased
contact with family and friends.
Research was
undertaken to learn how flowers and plants in the workplace impact productivity
and problem solving. The results are as follows:
- Problem-solving
skills, idea generation and creative performance improve substantially in
workplace environments that include flowers and plants.
- Specifically, both men
and women who work in environments with flowers and plants demonstrate
more innovative thinking as compared to environments with sculpture or no
decorative objects
- Men who participated
in the study generated 30 percent more ideas when working in environments
with flowers and plants than ones without.
- While men generate a
greater abundance of ideas, the research shows that women generate more
creative, flexible solutions to problems in workplace environments with
flowers and plants.
As a result, flowers and plants prove to be natural additions to
any work environment. During
the study, both women and men demonstrated more innovative thinking, generating
more ideas and original solutions to problems in the office environment that
included flowers and plants. In these surroundings, men who participated in the
study generated 15% more ideas. And, while males generated a greater abundance
of ideas, females generated more creative, flexible solutions to problems when
flowers and plants were present.
More than 100 seniors
participated in the Rutgers research study, in which some received flowers and
others did not. The results shed new light on how nature's support systems help
seniors cope with the challenges of aging. The results are as follows:
- Flowers Decrease Depression. Study participants showed a significant increase in happiness and
positive moods when flowers were present
- Flowers Refresh Recent Memory. Seniors performed higher on everyday memory tasks and experienced
enriched personal memories in the presence of flowers.
- Flowers Encourage Companionship. Seniors who received flowers re-engaged with members of their
communities and enlarged their social contacts to include more neighbours,
religious support and even medical personnel.
Specifically, 81 percent
of seniors who participated in the study reported a reduction in depression
following the receipt of flowers. Forty percent of seniors reported broadening
their social contacts beyond their normal social circle of family and close
friends. And, 72 percent of the seniors who received flowers scored very high
on memory tests in comparison with seniors who did not receive flowers.
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