The living space is where we work, rest and communicate with others and we spend most of our time here. However, not all of us have noticed the importance of the quality of living space! It includes the cleanliness of the spaces, the basic necessities and also the freshness of the air. But usually we only noticed the physical items like the quality of furniture, electrical appliances and decoration. We forgot that air quality is as important as physical comfortability. We ignore the bad quality of work space that might cause sick building syndrome that affects our health. We also ignore the air pollutants (organic volatile pollutants) which are released from the vehicles, motor, cosmetics, cleaning materials occupied in the air of our living spaces. We ignored the unhealthy air quality and allowed ourselves to live within it without any consciousness. Actually, we may solve the problem easily by inserting some indoor plants into our living spaces.

Improve Air Quality

First we have to understand the reason for placing indoor plants in the house? How could indoor plants play a role in improving our quality of air? And this is related to the ability of plants in producing phytoncide. Phytoncide is an organic volatile compound which is emitted by plants naturally to protect itself from attack by pests and diseases. Phytoncide release antiviral and antibacterial agents to protect the plants health and it is useful for protecting humans too. The function of phytoncide in fighting against the air borne virus and bacteria could purify the air. And indirectly reduce the chances we fall sick because of inhaling harmful pollutants in the air. It could reduce the sick building syndrome which is caused by bad air ventilation in the building.

Improve Health

Phytoncide is scientifically proven to be good for physical and mental health. It has been proven to help in lowering blood pressure, reduce anxiety, confusion, enhance the immune system and help with sleep. If we live under pressure and anxiety will weaken our immune system too. Phytoncide may increase the activity of the natural killer cells in the body. It helps the body fight against cancer and disease more effectively and enhances our immune system. Scientifically proven, the living spaces occupied with plants could reduce the cardiovascular response to reduce the high blood pressure and stress. Another research also proved that working spaces with living plants could reduce the frequency of the workers taking sick leaves. Therefore, we may conclude that placing indoor plants could improve the overall health condition.

Improve Learning & Creativity

Phytoncide could improve sleep quality while it could improve our performance in focusing on the next day. Besides that, the phytoncide could improve the parasympathetic nervous system, which could help us to keep calming. Therefore, by improving the ability of focusing and keeping calm may improve in learning and creativity. Besides that, improved performance in focusing could help to increase the work efficiency too. The workers who work in the office occupied by the living plants have higher efficiency compared to the office without living plants.

Phytoncide is an amazing natural produced substance, which may help us improve our quality of life. As a busy person, we may not always have chances for forest baths but we may bring the indoor plants to our house and create small greenery spaces ourselves. Besides that, keeping the air circulating at home is as important as inserting the greenery plant at home. Always open the window to encourage the air flow within the house. Only we could achieve good ventilation at home and placing more green plants at home could keep the air fresh. Only if we are healthy physically and mentally enable us to lead a high quality life.