The Positive Effects Of Flowers
With these uncertain times we are all living through it is becoming all too common for us to experience higher levels of stress, anxiety, and even depression. High speed work environments, Covid-19 quarantine/isolation, uncertain foreign wars, raising prices and higher inflations are just some of the many causes of stress, anxiety, and depression in today's world. Most of those problems we have very little if any control over which can be an added stressor. Lucky for us there may be a natural solution to rising stress levels, flowers and plants!
A study at Rutgers University shows that the presence of flowers triggers happy emotions, heightens feelings of life satisfaction and affects social behavior in a positive manner far beyond what is normally believed. “What’s most exciting about this study is that it challenges established scientific beliefs about how people can manage their day-to-day moods in a healthy and natural way,” said Jeannette Haviland-Jones, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at Rutgers and lead researcher on the study.
During the 10 month study participants level of happiness were monitored as well as their emotional response to receiving flowers. The study shows the immediate positive effects of the flowers, from visual facial expressions of delight to sustained feelings of joy. These reactions were universal occurring in all age categories. Participants who received flowers during the study reported a higher level of overall life satisfaction! “Common sense tells us that flowers make us happy,” said Dr. Haviland-Jones. “Now, science shows that not only do flowers make us happier than we know, they have strong positive effects on our emotional well being.”
Jeannette Haviland-Jones, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Rutgers University and the director of its Human Emotions Lab. An internationally recognized authority on the role of emotional development in human behavior and nonverbal emotional signals and response, Haviland-Jones has published several books on adolescence and emotion and is co-editor of the Handbook of Emotion, for which she won a Critics Circle Award.
This phenomenon of flowers increasing levels of happiness could be caused by the modern world we live in. We live in homes cut off from the natural world, in Air conditioning and heating, watching TV on screens and working from home on our computers and laptops while messaging our friends and family through our smart phones. This life may sound all too familiar to some of us and could explain exactly why keeping something beautiful and natural in our homes would brighten our days. Flowers are the pinnacle of natural beauty and it is no surprise that bringing the best of nature into your home would boost your mood.
