Plants clear bad vibes

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http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/wellbeing/3699410/Office-plants-improve-health

As office manager of the Queensland Hotels Association, Wendy Collett knows the value of having foliage in the workplace.

"We are in a concrete jungle, you need living things around you," she says.

"It gives you fresh air, it makes it look like somebody actually lives here and they care.

"We would rather see our staff working in a healthy and happy and colourful environment."

Collett is on the right track, according to Australia's first ever study into the effects of indoor plants on wellbeing.

The Greening the Great Indoors For Human Health and Wellbeing report, released by researchers from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) this month, found that indoor plants make workers happier and healthier.

Researchers reported "clear reductions in feelings of stress, anxiety, depression, anger, fatigue, confusion and overall negativity among study participants with plants in their offices".

Even having one plant made a difference, they said.

A comparison group with no plants showed a trend towards increased stress.

"The findings show that indoor plants can be marketed for their demonstrated benefits to staff wellbeing, which research shows are also associated with improved work performance," the report says.

The study's author, Margaret Burchett, says having indoor plants fulfils a basic human need.

"We evolved in a parkland setting, we have gone into high-rise buildings for work where we have alienated ourselves from our contact with nature," she says.

"It is hard-wired into our heads that we need contact with nature to feel at home."

In addition, the study found that plants clean the air.

"They can take up all sorts of urban air-pollution," Burchett says.

Peter Dolley, the managing partner of Brisbane indoor plant seller Action Indoor Plants, says the popularity of indoor plants, which peaked during the mid 1980s, is experience a resurgence.

"Twenty-five years ago there were plants everywhere, offices were bigger, there was more floor space ... but right now there is certainly a resurgence."

"We probably put in one new job a week," says Dolley, who is also president of the National Interior Plantscape Association which provided funding for the study.

The latest findings support previous studies that found having plants in the office reduced sick leave by over 60 per cent, Burchett says.

"They contribute to most aspects of environmental criteria," she says.

 

"They also look attractive and are doing your spirits good."

Plus, employers just like having plants around.

"There was a bank in NSW about 20 years ago that took out all the plants and put in fake plants and the staff were so outraged that they finally brought all the real plants back.

"There is every reason to have some if you can."

The research team plans to submit their findings to international scientific journals