Skip to main content

Green Pets: how house plants can benefit your health🌱

Hi Everyone!

Today I wanted to tell you about the benefits that house plants can have to your health. Enjoy :)

1. Reducing stress levels

A study proved that having house plants makes you feel calmer and more natural, which in turn makes you feel less stressed and overwhelmed. I definitely agree that plants are very calming and I'm not surprised that it is scientifically proven!

2. Allergy relief

Having house plants can reduce dust and mould, which could be amazing for people with those allergies. Obviously, you would want to avoid plants with a lot of pollen!

3. General Happiness

Plants can boost your mental health and make you feel better about yourself. Employees who work in offices with plant life feel better about their jobs, feel less stressed and have less time off for health reasons. Some therapists even use plant therapy to help people with depression, anxiety and other mental health problems.

4. Boosting humidity

If you are in a more humid environment you are less likely to get a cold or the flu and studies have shown that having house plants can very much help with that. This also means that your home will be less static, so you are less likely to get electric shocks when you touch things.

5. Air quality

I found a website called WebMD and they have a great paragraph on this so I'm just going to share that because I can't put it any better! "Carpets, paint, cleaners, printer toners and inks, and many other indoor objects give off pollutants called volatile organic compounds (VOCs). They can build up in the air and irritate your eyes and skin, worsen your asthma, or make it hard for you to breathe. Houseplants can soak up VOCs. Some good air-scrubbers are English ivy, asparagus fern, and dragon tree.".

6. Recovery from illness

Please don't think this is me being lazy, but there is again a really good piece on this from WebMD so I'm just going to paste it in, "Taking a bouquet of flowers or potted foliage to a loved one in the hospital can be more than just a thoughtful gesture. It may actually help them recover more quickly. Researchers found that people who had surgery got better faster if they had plants in their room or even a view of the nature from their window. They also tolerated pain better and needed fewer medications when surrounded by greenery."


So as you can see, houseplants are very beneficial to your health! I hope this has been useful to you all and let me know if you have any ideas for posts in this series!

Green World Blog Team



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

16.08.2020 Animal of the week: Elephant

Hello. On the 12th of August it was International Elephant Day, so we decided that this week's post should be about elephants. Elephants are the largest living land mammals. There are three types of elephant; the African bush elephant; the African forest elephant and the Asian elephant. African elephants have larger ears, whereas Asian elephants have smaller ears. Elephants use their trunks to breath, bring food and drink to their mouths and to grasp objects. Elephants' legs are like pillars. They carry the Elephant's massive weight. African bush elephants weigh 6000kg, Asian elephants weigh 4000kg and African forest elephants weigh 2700kg. Basically, they are very heavy.Elephants eat grasses, small plants, bushes, fruit, twigs, tree bark, and roots. Elephants can live up to 70 years old in the wild. They communicate by sight, touch and smell. Sadly, these wonderful mammals are in danger. African elephants are listed as vulne...

Energy comparison: wind turbines

Hello, Finally, we are back with another energy comparison. Today we're looking at wind turbines. Wind power is a fast-growing renewable energy source. In the US, the wind power industry currently employs 120 000 people across all 50 states. It could grow to employ hundreds of thousands of people by 2050. 9% of the electricity in the US in 2021 came from wind turbines, that’s 136 000 megawatts. The wind power industry saves 329 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year. General knowledge and categorisation We should probably start off by clarifying how wind turbines actually work and what types there are. I’m not going to give an in-depth description of how wind turbines work because I don’t want this post to turn into a physics lesson. To put it very simply, the wind turns the blades, which turns the rotor. The rotor then turns the generator, which converts the kinetic energy (movement) into electricity. There are obviously a lot more...

How well do you know the Arctic and the Antarctic? - Quiz

Welcome back to Green World, As announced last week, we're starting our new monthly series: quizzes! This post contains the questions, you have to write down the answers and compare them with the solutions right at the bottom of this post.  Questions: True or False? The Arctic is not actually a land mass, it's a frozen ocean. How many people live in the Arctic circle? a) 500 000 b) 4 million c) 10 million True or False? Narwals don't actually have unicorn-like horns. That's just a legend. What percentage of the world's freshwater is frozen within the Arctic's ice? a) 10% b) 15% c) 20% True or False? The Arctic covers parts of 15 different countries. Scientists exploring Antarctica have measured winds of up to... a) 100 km/h b) 150km/h c) 200km/h True or False? The driest (natural) place on Earth is in Antarctica...

Energy comparison: solar (PV) panels

Hi everyone, Today I'm looking into the first on a long list of energy sources: solar (PV) panels. Are they actually sustainable and could they become our main energy source in the near future? After all, enough energy from the sun reaches the earth in 90 minutes to cover the entire world's energy consumption for a whole year! How they work There are a couple of ways to transform energy from the sun into electricity. The one we are looking at today is solar panels also known as solar photovoltaic technology. Photovoltaic (PV) technology is the key to solar panels. A solar panel is made of many PV cells. A single PV cell will produce 1-2 watts of power. They are very thin and are normally protected by glass and/or plastics. This is the best explanation I could find (click here for the source): When the semiconductor is exposed to light, it absorbs the light’s energy and transfers it to negatively charged particles in the material calle...

The life of ... an alcon blue butterfly

Hi everyone, Today we are going to be looking into the life of an alcon blue butterfly (Phengaris alcon). After mating, the females lay their eggs on marsh gentian, a blue-coloured wildflower. The eggs can only be laid on these flowers, as this is what the newly hatched caterpillars will eat. Although in some alp regions, they can also be found on willow gentians, a close relative of the marsh gentian. Once the caterpillars have hatched from the eggs, their main predator and danger are the ants that swarm below. But high on their plant homes, the caterpillars are safe. However, this isn't where the alcon blue caterpillars are going to stay forever. Eventually, they drop down to the ground using silk strings. With no protection, they are soon dragged off by the ants. The most amazing part is, the alcon blue caterpillars give off the same scent and chemicals as the ant larvae. So the ants take the caterpillars back to their brood chamber, wher...

Discussion || Should Everyone Switch To Electric Cars?

Hi Everyone! Thank you so much for joining me today, as I hop on the blog to discuss whether everyone switching to electric cars would really help the environment. In other words, should everyone switch to electric cars? This is the first part of a two-part series, discussing electric cars, so stay tuned for part two!! I would like to start this post by stating that I am by no means an expert. This is knowledge I have from my own experience, and from research I have done. If anything is incorrect please take it as it is and accept that this is a discussion and I am taking on board all opinions from reliable sources on this complex topic. Electric cars are a huge topic when it comes to sustainability and "saving our planet". There is no debating the fact that electric cars are better for the environment than diesel or petrol once they are on the road. But the production of them is often very polluting, with one study show...

The life of ... a koala

Hello everyone, Today we're talking about koalas. Also known as koala bears, koalas are marsupials. So they're actually not bears. Koalas, phascolarctos cinereus , are tree dwelling and probably best known for spending most of the day sleeping. They live for up to 15 years in the wild although captive koalas generally live for longer. Koalas have a stout, gray body and a cream-coloured chest. They have a broad face, small yellow eyes and big fluffy ears. In adaptation to climbing, their feet are strong and clawed. Adult individuals in South Australia weigh 14kg and are 60-84cm big. Their Eastern cousins are considerably smaller. Koalas are found in Eastern and Southern Australia, where they live in eucalyptus trees. They feed on the leaves of these eucalyptus trees, eating up to 1.3kg a day. With a body weight of up to 14kg, this means they eat just under 10% of their body weight every single day. However, the le...

June Top Tips | Fast Fashion and Consumerism

Happy June everyone! This month you'll get introduced to the topic of fast fashion. It is a big thing, not only because of environmental reasons but also touches on topics such as child labour and exploitation. We know this sounds pretty grave once again, but here is some good news (surprise, surprise!): You can do something! Read on to learn about what fast fashion is, where the problems are and what you can do better. 1) What is fast fashion?! Fast fashion is a term for the ever-changing demand and supply loop of the clothing industry. Every season people want to wear different things, and different clothes are in style. That leads to people buying clothes, wearing them as long as everyone else thinks they're great and then jumping to the next wave of clothes. The demand of the masses changes quickly and the clothing industry has to react just a step ahead of them to make money. The goal is to produce the wanted clothes as quickly, as chea...

10 Animals on the edge of extinction - you did not know about No.2

The Kākāpō ~ New Zealand's green teddy bear-parrot The Kakapo is a bird mainly found in New Zealand. It is a rather curious creature, a pretty big, green, nocturnal parrot that cannot fly and looks like a mixture of a parrot, a penguin, an owl and a teddy bear. Kakapos are on the verge of extinction due to their peculiar breeding habits, predators, and hunters. They are flightless and nocturnal and are the biggest parrots in the world. They can also live for up to 120 years! History Like most living creatures, the number of Kakapos in New Zealand was healthy before humans arrived. They waddled across the islands like nothing else. However, when people came to New Zealand, they started hunting the Kakapo for its feathers, meat and skin. They also brought alien species such as rats, weasels or cats that posed a threat to which they were not accustomed to. Their survival "trick" (not really a new thing, maybe the Kakapos like it old-fashio...

10 animals on the edge of extinction you didn't know about no. 7 - tooth-billed pigeon

Hi everyone, We're back with another endangered animal. This time it's a pigeon, but not the kind that we're used to seeing in cities. The tooth-billes pigeon, didunculus strigirostris, is the only remaing species of the Didunculus genus and is one of the closest living relatives of the world-famous Dodo. The adults have chestnut coloured bodies and wings, a greenish head and neck with red skin around the eyes, reddish feet and an orange bill with a characteristic jagges tip (hence the name tooth-billed). They are 31-38cm long and weigh about 400g. The juveniles are duller with a brown head and a black bill. Tooth-billed pigeons are shy and are belived to live in small groups. These terrestrial birds are endemic to the islands of Upolu and Savai'i. They are Samoa's national bird and can be found on the local currency. In Samoa they are known as Manumea and are eaten on a local and national level, but not internationally. They ...