Tuesday, March 9, 2010
This is not a post about hippie Flower Power (though I did mention having been a hippie in a recent blog post). No, today I'm writing about the wonderful power of flowers to cheer us up, wake us up and just generally help us feel better.
On a website called aboutflowers, I found a number of scientific surveys that show how beneficial cut flowers are when displayed in our homes and workplaces. Few people need to be told by scientists that fresh flowers look beautiful and cheerful, whether we've received them as a gift or have cut them ourselves from roadside fields or our own gardens.
However, this research shows that flowers don't offer only pleasing colours and scents. Cut flowers have also been shown to affect our emotional and mental selves. They can:
- decrease anxiety and depression
- help non-morning people wake up more happily and fully
- improve social interactions
- increase a general sense of well-being and satisfaction
enhance intimate relationships- foster creativity
- increase productivity
- improve learning
- decrease stress
So do yourself or somebody else a favour. Roam through a field or flowershop. Plant a windowbox. Buy a flowering plant for the kitchen table.
What a simple way for everyone to win.
4 comments:
Yes, flowers help to heal the soul. I enjoy flowers from the first dandelion that blooms in the spring to the last blooms of my garden.
Yea for flowers! And I love dandelions, too. I could never figure out as a kid why grown-ups seemed to dislike them so much. I used to have to use the dandelion-digger tool to pull them out, root and all. It seemed such a shame. Now, as an adult myself, I am proud to say I never inflicted such a task on my own children. Virtuous me.
Coincidentally I had though about writing of my thoughts on flowers (dandelions) in particalur and didn`t I dismiss that thought, thinking and saying to myself that nobody would want to hear about dandelions. These flowering weeds that are so disliked and yet they seem to grow just about in any place and/or conditions one could imagine, anyway; I to have come to appreciate that perfect sunshine yellow colour of a dandelion so much so that I imagine myself collecting the spent flower heads as they go to seed; and then, while winter is upon us I would plant these dandelion seeds and hopefully have brightly yellow flowering danelions just in time for Christmas. Wishful thinking, bid me encouragement and I`ll let you know what transpires come year end.
Hurrah for dandelions! They would be great in December. I look forward to hearing how it turns out. I imagine dandelions being one of the few flowers that could survive a natural (or person-made) disaster. Everybody would love them then.
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