Houseplants Make Us Happy
Living Happy
When I was little there was a dividing line in our family. There were the people with the green thumbs and there were the people whose thumbs were decidedly ungreen.
My mom would stare at a trailing ivy, a bird’s nest fern, even a Christmas cactus and bemoan the leaves dropping, the leaves turning brown at the edges, an overall droop.
“This is going to have to go to my mother,” she’d announce with equal parts relief and annoyance.
Her mother had about 27 green thumbs that she must have hidden somewhere on her body. She’d take one look at a plant and say, “Poor thing. Let me take her home.”
A week or two later—sometimes a month—Nana would return, plant in her arms and triumphantly place it on our formica kitchen counter and announce that it was all better and then go through a litany of how to keep the plant that way. Mom would roll her eyes and tune her out.
But she was always, always grateful to have the plants back home.
One day I cornered her on our living room couch, yellow and tweedy all at once, and I asked her why and she said, “They make the house happier.”
Obviously. Duh. And I said something like “why?”
“They just do, Carrie.” She inhaled another puff of her Marlboro 100 before tapping it out in the ashtray that was right next to a weeping fig that trailed from the end table to the yellow carpet. “They just do.”
They just do.
When I went to college, Nana was very upset that I wasn’t bringing Felix the Fern with me. She was right. Mom forgot about Felix tolling away in my bedroom. He did not make it.
Dr Jenny Berger recently wrote an article for the Greater Good Science Center that agrees with my mom, but goes a little deeper than that.
She writes,
“In both Europe and the U.S., people spend up to 90% of their time indoors. But spending so much time inside can have consequences for your mental health.
“The World Health Organization estimates that 5% of adults globally suffer from depression. Stress, depression, and anxiety also accounted for 55% of all working days lost in the U.K. during the year 2021–22. Small improvements in our mental health can bring significant personal and financial rewards.
“For those of us who are stuck inside all day, houseplants are an easy way of connecting with nature. This is particularly true for young people, many of whom may lack access to a garden.
“Indoor plants have several mental and physical health benefits. Research has linked houseplants to reduced stress, lower blood pressure, and an improved state of mind. And office environments with plants have been associated with higher job satisfaction and reduced health complaints.
“Houseplants make us feel good due to our inherent desire to connect with nature, and because we consider the green colors of most houseplants to be calming.”
A study actually looked at people’s preference for wide canopies and rounded leaf shapes and how some plants’ leaf shape, leaf size, and so on impacted the amount of their calming effect. Japanese research, she writes, even found that creativity can be enhanced with a plant hanging out near you, but too many? It can be distracting. You want to be able to take care of them without too much work, especially if you don’t have a nana to come over and save the day, over and over again.
How about you? Do plants make you happier? Do you have any in your home? And more importantly, if you do, how do you keep the cats from digging up the soil in the pot? Asking on behalf of one cat in particular, of course. That cat is Cloud.
