Plants Do That Inside

According to scientific research from NASA and others, plants clean indoor air, stabilize carbon dioxide and create comfortable ambient air humidity. Plants also boost healing, happiness, and productivity.

Where We Live:

Rooms with plants have fewer pollutants like VOCs

(volatile organic compounds)

Plants in our homes increase room humidity by 10%

Plants remove up to 90% of formaldehyde in a room.

Where We Learn:

“When plants are around, students are just smarter and pay more attention,” says Dr. Charles Hall, Ellison Chair, Texas A&M.

Classrooms with plants have many positive effects, including:

Test scores increase by 10%

Children are 7% healthier

Symptoms of ADD are reduced

Where We Heal:

Want to shorten the stay in the hospital and heal faster? Research shows plants can help people do that.

“Patients spend less time in recovery and go home faster when there are plants in the room,” says Dr. Charles Hall, Ellison Chair, Texas A&M.

Plants in rooms help people heal faster. That’s true whether or not there are plants present in the room, viewed through the window, or on the wall in a picture.

Other positive effects of plants to help us heal include:

Reducing stress and lowering blood pressure

Helping new breast cancer patients better tolerate their diagnosis and treatment

Reducing the amount of pain relievers taken after surgery

“For centuries we have known that Nature is a great healer. Now we have the science to back it up,” says Debbie Hamrick, NICH Economic Committee chair.

Where We Work:

Want workers to be more comfortable, more productive, more creative and healthier?

Add plants. Plants are good for business. “Plants have the power to help make people more productive, and that’s good for business,” says Debbie Hamrick, NICH Economic Committee chair.

“People say they’re just in a better mood when plants are around,” says Dr. Charles Hall, Ellison Chair, Texas A&M.

Plants in offices, on factory floors and particularly in windowless rooms have very positive results for the bottom line, including:

98% of workers say they are more motivated

30% say they feel less tired

12% show they are faster at completing computer tasks