A Healthier Living with Greener Interiors

We’re so used to living in a polluted environment that we often fail to realize how badly our health is being affected by it. It’s almost as if we’ve entered a perpetual state of denial. Whether it’s the constant addition of toxins or the spread of common airborne infections, or even the stress of our busy lives for that matter, the need to live in a revitalizing space in order to improve our health and lifestyle is absolute.

This is a guest post by Arsalan Ahmed, a passionate health and lifestyle blogger. We hope that you find it enjoyable and informative.

Speaking specifically about our interior spaces; while the architecture may not be in our control unless we’re starting from scratch, but there’s no better way to making our spaces naturally healthy than by increasing the amount of green indoors. And by green I don’t mean green paint; more indoor plants would do a lot better. Here are three ways indoor plants make you healthier and contribute to greener interiors.

Green calms us down

Colors aren’t just limited to the choices of what we wear; they are a lot more vital to our lives than that. In fact, it’s a well-known fact that they have a profound impact on our mood and how we react to certain things and situations based on the inherent connotations they carry with them.

Green has a calming effect on our mind, body and soul. Green is a color that represents harmony and balance; it creates equilibrium between the head and the heart and thus relaxes us.  There’s no better way of accomplishing this other than by adding green to your lifestyle – both naturally and literally.

As a naturally relaxing hue, it would be safe to say that having more indoor plants significantly drops the amount of anxiety we take owing to a number of personal and professional problems we face every day. And the benefits of reduced anxiety can be from cardinal to building a healthier heart to less unhealthy emotional food to lead you to obesity or diabetes and thus increased vitality

Plants cleanse the air you breathe

One of the greatest hazards of a constantly developing world is the threat to the very air we breathe. There is much talk about using eco-friendly solutions being implemented to prevent further damage to our environment – things like solar electricity generation and automobiles running on hybrid fuel that give off lesser exhaust, but there are probably still a number of years before technologies like these fully replace the ones that are currently taking a toll on the air we breathe and on mother earth herself.

While planting more trees is definitely a great way to purify the air around us, what would work even better is planting more and more indoor plants within our interiors. We spend most of times either at our work place or at our houses. True, trees help reduce environmental damage, but we should be more concerned about the space that we spend more hours in.

Plants are natural air purifiers. They help to cleanse the air by utilizing up nitrogenous gases and more importantly carbon dioxide and return oxygen to their surrounds. Oxygen is of course food for our cardiovascular system it is required by our bodies to produce chemical energy that is needed to perform physically. And breathing a healthy supply of oxygen being given out by an increased concentration of indoor plants greatly contributes to optimizing both these chemical and physical metabolic processes thus eventually leading to better health.

Humidity and limits common infections

A number of mundane medical problems such as dry skin, coughs colds and even the flu are generally associated with dry climates and seasons; and these are exactly some of the reasons why some of us don’t really like winters. Even though the spread of common infectious diseases has a lot more to do with the functionality of our immune system and how we interact as a community, there’s still no denying the fact that dryness triggers more viral and bacterial infections than otherwise. Doctors suggest that it’s not really the cold weather, rather it’s actually the dryness and the resultant increase in mucosa that serves as an excellent breeding bed for disease causing pathogens that’s the bigger problem – and of course the fact that we all love to bundle up with one another to share the warmth.

Here’s where having more indoor plants in your home and other interior spaces plays a crucial role. Just as transpiration accounts for a considerable portion of outdoor humidity (at least 10 percent), similarly indoor plants increase indoor humidity. In the beginning, this may obviously sound like a pretty unappealingly sticky idea during hot and already humid months, but it’s a blessing in dry months and arid climates.

Adding more green indoors

Whether it’s a green wall, green interior highlight or just green plants, green just adds a lot more vitality to our life and health – and indoor plants are definitely a better option. There are a number of indoor plants that can serve in both a functional and aesthetic manner by also adding in a few exotic hues. What plants are you going to choose?

If you enjoyed this post, check out our Home and Body Care page to assist you on living a holistic and natural lifestyle while contributing to your own health and a cleaner planet.