Imagine yourself in a garden with a seemingly never ending stretch of greenery and beautiful, vibrant blooms… Though momentary, but did you feel cool, calm, and relaxed?  The flowers that adorn your home and office don’t just add aesthetic value to your lives, but also have therapeutic values. Research shows that flowers aid in one’s holistic wellness as well.

Holistic Wellness is an approach to being healthy, that looks at a person's health in totality. This considers one’s body, mind and spirit. Flowers delight one on special occasions and lift their spirits on a mundane, routine day. Let’s read on to see how being surrounded by flowers influences one’s mental and emotional health; the finer details on what flowers can do that nobody has told you about, yet!

Reduce Anxiety

We understand that a very unavoidable part of our daily life is stress and anxiety. Flowers like chrysanthemums have been shown to lessen symptoms of worry and stress, and when consumed as tea, this flower cools and relaxes our body. Flowers can relax a person by triggering chemicals like serotonin inside the brain which acts as an anti-depressant or mood elevator. During a tough time, the very feel of flowers releases serotonin in the brain and make a person feel calm.

Help Cure Insomnia

After an eventful day, sleep is all you need, but do you find yourself tossing and turning, and sleep eluding you? We know that the body has to be in a relaxed state to fall asleep gradually.

The fragrance of certain flowers like jasmine and lavender helps to lower the heart rate and blood pressure, which in turn helps one relax and drift off into a restful sleep. Flowers thus can become a huge part of your bedtime routine. Try it next time around!

Improve Emotional Well-being

Dopamine is a chemical released in the brain when we are expecting a reward or an appreciation. And we know that appreciation can do wonders to lift your spirit high!  Bright coloured flowers trigger the same substance, dopamine, in the brain and thus evoke the happy senses.

Flowers available in various colours also significantly bring about a change in our emotions.

Yellow is associated with happiness and sunshine.

Red can mean love and passion.

Blue invokes calmness within a person.

Pink is for softness and care.

Green creates comfort and safety.

The ‘bonding hormone’ called oxytocin is stimulated when we see, feel and receive flowers. Therefore flowers also stimulate social trust in many ways. They communicate the intention to invest effort in a relationship. And they convey a respect for fragility. Emotional wellbeing of a person can be largely influenced by beautiful blooms. Next time when you gift flowers, remember you are forming a bond with the other person!

Enhance Memory

The power to recall is improved in close proximity to certain flowers. In 2015, researchers conducted a very interesting experiment in which participants went into one of three rooms and completed a memory test. One room smelt of rosemary, one of lavender and the other wasn’t given a specific scent.

The result observed was that the people in the rosemary-scented room scored highest in this test. The lavender room scored significantly lower, presumably because the people here were far too relaxed and sleepy to keep up with everything!

Put the test to practice in real, and share your observation with us!

Increase Efficiency

To begin with a clean workspace is a necessity but visual stimulation helps you focus and concentrate on the work at hand. Flowers help you do exactly that!

We spend a third of our lives at work, so we must feel motivated to continue working hard. Red colour is linked to focus and attention to detail. Blue encourages creativity. Fresh blooms of Lisianthus also aid in free thinking and enhancing creativity. Arranging flowers should be treated as a creative outlet that not only gives you a new skill, but also brings you closer to nature.

Now you know the perks of lighting up your office space with those vibrant bouquets.

Quicker Recovery of Patients

Ever wondered why people take flowers while visiting the sick in hospitals?

Here is an interesting study done in 2008 that found that hospital patients who had flowers in their rooms felt less anxious. They were also more positive about their recovery and needed less post-operative care than patients without plants and flowers.

Bright yellow or orange Calendula flowers are known for their antibacterial, antiviral and anti-fungal properties. Often used externally to ease inflammation, and healing wounds and rashes, they can also be taken internally to stimulate blood circulation and speed up recovery from colds and fevers.

When we please our sense of smell, sight, and touch through flowers, they create a gateway to mental happiness. Embracing flowers can thus only lead to positive outcomes and a state of well-being from within.

Now that you realise the importance of being surrounded by flowers, there can’t be a better occasion than International Happiness Day to embrace flowers as a part of your daily life.

Every year, the International Day of Happiness is celebrated worldwide on 20 March. It was conceptualised and founded by philanthropist, activist, statesman, and prominent United Nations special advisor Jayme Illien to inspire, mobilise, and advance the global happiness movement.

Being happy is a state of mind! Celebrate these everyday moments with us at The Flora. Check out our collection of farm fresh cut flowers and artisanal arrangements here. Order for your home, or gift one to your loved ones. With The Flora, you also have an option to subscribe to flowers and make them a part of your everyday life.