Plants boost effectiveness and decrease stress

Creating a life you love isn't a just-add-water affair. It takes persistent, consistent action to get (and stay) there. One of the things I work with my clients on is how to create a system that feeds their long-term energy and motivation. We explore ideas they can incorporate into their lives that keep them on track, energized, and engaged, even after the initial burst of excitement.

That system might have any number of facets to it. For example, plants.

Plants?

Yup. Plants. A recent study out of Washington State University suggests that plants on your desk both increase your effectiveness and decrease stress. As the study's abstract summarizes it...

This study documents some of the benefits of adding plants to a windowless work place - a college computer lab. Participants' blood pressure and emotions were monitored while completing a simple, timed computer task in the presence or absence of plants. When plants were added to this interior space, the participants were more productive (12% quicker reaction time on the computer task) and less stressed (systolic blood pressure readings lowered by one to four units). Immediately after completing the task, participants in the room with plants present reported feeling more attentive (an increase of 0.5 on a self-reported scale from one to five) than people in the room with no plants.

Sounds like plants just might be a simple yet surprisingly powerful part of the equation.

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM