Benefits of Flowers
A team of researchers explored the link between flowers and life satisfaction in a 10-month study of participants' behavioral and emotional responses to receiving flowers. The results show that flowers are a natural and healthful moderator of moods:
Flowers have an immediate impact on happiness. All study participants expressed "true" or "excited" smiles upon receiving flowers, demonstrating extraordinary delight and gratitude.
This reaction was universal, occurring in all age groups.
Flowers have a long-term positive effect on moods. Specifically, study participants reported feeling less depressed, anxious and agitated after receiving flowers, and demonstrated a higher sense of enjoyment and life satisfaction.
Flowers make intimate connections. The presence of flowers led to increased contact with family and friends.
Research was undertaken to learn how flowers and plants in the workplace impact productivity and problem solving.
Problem-solving skills, idea generation and creative performance improve substantially in workplace environments that include flowers and plants.
Specifically, both men and women who work in environments with flowers and plants demonstrate more innovative thinking as compared to environments with sculpture or no decorative objects.
Men who participated in the study generated 30 percent more ideas when working in environments with flowers and plants than ones without.
While men generate a greater abundance of ideas, the research shows that women generate more creative, flexible solutions to problems in workplace environments with flowers and plants.
As a result, flowers and plants prove to be natural additions to any work environment. During the study, both women and men demonstrated more innovative thinking, generating more ideas and original solutions to problems in the office environment that included flowers and plants.
In these surroundings, men who participated in the study generated 15% more ideas. And, while males generated a greater abundance of ideas, females generated more creative, flexible solutions to problems when flowers and plants were present.
More than 100 seniors participated in the Rutgers research study, in which some received flowers and others did not. The results shed new light on how nature's support systems help seniors cope with the challenges of aging. The results are as follows:
Flowers Decrease Depression. Study participants showed a significant increase in happiness and positive moods when flowers were present.
Flowers Refresh Recent Memory. Seniors performed higher on everyday memory tasks and experienced enriched personal memories in the presence of flowers.
Flowers Encourage Companionship. Seniors who received flowers re-engaged with members of their communities and enlarged their social contacts to include more neighbours, religious support and even medical personnel.
Specifically, 81% of seniors who participated in the study reported a reduction in depression following the receipt of flowers. Forty percent of seniors reported broadening their social contacts beyond their normal social circle of family and close friends. And, 72% of the seniors who received flowers scored very high on memory tests in comparison with seniors who did not receive flowers.