Some people say that getting a dog can improve your mood. For me, it was a recent flower experience.
The experience came from a company called Avas Flowers. Like anything, I checked Avas Flowers out on Twitter, Yellow Pages and even the Avas Flowers Offers.com page – just to try and gain a little more insight about them (I go a bit research-heavy when I’m buying something new!).
They arrived in good time and not before long, my mood started to pick up. Of course, this is a really vague case study and there’s no scientific proof behind my example. However, I did find that there is a lot of research on the links between flowers and mental health – which is what I will focus on today.
Flowers will improve anxiety
This first point was the biggest for me. I found a study performed in a hospital which assessed the anxiety levels of those sleeping with flowers in their room, and those without them.
It’s worth mentioning that in my experience at least, not all hospitals will allow flowers in your room. Regardless of that, it was found that those who had them in their room were much calmer.
They can boost your memory
Let’s turn to 2015 for this next study, where the BBC ran a memory test which involved the use of flowers.
Put simply, participants were sent to different rooms. One of these rooms smelt of lavender, another of rosemary and the final one was a placebo.
The results? Well you can probably guess for yourself at this point. Those who ventured into the rosemary-room performed much better on the memory test.
*Some* flowers will help you sleep
Firstly, not all flowers will fall into said category. However, some plants are renowned for this – with lavender often grabbing the headlines. Will it cure insomnia? Most probably not. It might just provide you a little more shut-eye though, which can obviously benefit your mental health as well.
Gardening can improve mental health
There’s a loose tie into flowers with this last point, but there is a lot of work being invested into the effects of gardening on mental health at the moment. Some people are effectively using it to fight depression and while this might not link directly to the flowers themselves, it’s encouraging signs.