With so much awareness regarding the concept of ‘mental health’, the existence of stress in a working environment is an issue people have stopped taking lightly. A recent study was conducted with reference to the different levels of stress of workplace individuals. It was discovered that if a plant is placed at your work desk, it can lead to a reduction of stress to some extent.
The study was conducted at the University of Hyogo, Awaji which is situated in Japan. It revealed that a small plant if kept on a desk with a proper viewing range can help reduce stress.
The aim of the study was to discover whether indoor plans can affect a workplace individual’s stress levels, especially the ones who are deprived of the visual greenery of the environment. Marni Barnes, Masahiro Toyoda, Midori Kaneko and Yuko Yokota were involved in this study.
It is already a popular belief that plant life creates mental peace. This study has now scientifically proven that plants really do have a psychological and physiological impact on humans in terms of lessening of stress.
A total number of 63 workers were involved in the study. The study observed the psychological effects that occurred before and after the plants were placed on their desks. State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was used to measure the stress levels of the candidates. It was found that a significant amount of individuals had a lower heart rate after a 3-minute engagement with their plants.
Toyada, one of the researches involved in the project mentioned, “At present, not so many people fully understand and utilize 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.”
The study has been published within "Potential of a Small Indoor Plant on the Desk for Reducing Office Workers' Stress", which is an article under HortTechnology, an open-access journal. The journal has been released by the American Society for Horticultural Science.