Why you need a plant for your desk
Having a bonsai tree or cactus on your desk to stare at while working can keep you calm and make your job less stressful, researchers say.
Japanese experts studied whether a small plant could really improve mood at work, given nature is known to improve general wellbeing.
Office workers were given an indoor plant, such as a bonsai, cactus or a kokedama, for four weeks and told to care for it.
Both their level of daily anxiety and heart rate – two measurements of stress – were compared before and after the experiment.
Results showed stress levels ‘significantly decreased’ among volunteers when they had a plant on their desk.
The researchers at University of Hyogo in Awaji said having a plant offers workers a distraction from the stress of nine-to-five life.
Lead author Dr Masahiro Toyoda said: ‘At present, not many people fully understand and utilise the benefit of stress recovery brought by plants in the workplace.
‘To ameliorate such situations, we decided it essential to verify and provide scientific evidence for the stress restorative effect by nearby plants in a real office setting.’
Sixty three office workers in Japan volunteered to be involved in the study. They had little exposure to greenery during the day.
Each was offered the choice of one plant – a kokedama, san pedro cactus, echeveria, bonsai, air plant or foliage plant such as parlor palm.
The participants were directed to take a three minute rest while sitting at their desks whenever they felt fatigued during the day. All the participants took part in two phases of the study, with the first being a control period that lasted one week and did not involve plants.
The second lasted for four weeks, and allowed volunteers to look after the plant they chose for their desk. In the control study, all 63 volunteers would simply stare at their desktop during the three-minute rest. In the intervention phase afterwards, they stared at their plant.
The researchers measured the participants’ psychological stress using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory twice – at the end of the control phase and at the end of the intervention phase.
The results showed that average scores of anxiety were reduced from 47.9 after the control phase without plants to 46.2 after the intervention phase with plants.
The results may not seem striking, however the researchers claimed in the journal HortTechnology that they are mathematically significant.
Twenty-seven per cent of participants saw their heart rate drop during the intervention phase when they stared at their plant, the results revealed.
In comparison, the rate was five per cent when the volunteers stared at their desktop without having a plant.
Dr Toyoda and team say a plant provides distraction from work thoughts but objects on the desk, such as a phone, computer screen or notepads, do not.
They wrote: ‘This natural object incorporates elements that may induce comfortable feelings, such as vitality, beauty, affection, and so on, which is speculated to be helpful in getting away from work-related thought. ‘Gazing at a plant creates separation from stressors and provides the participants opportunities to remove themselves from the strain of work, if only for a few minutes each time.’
Courtesy © Daily Mail