Get more of a plant-life-balance in 2020

2020 let's start this year off right and go green. But wait, there's an app for that! (isn’t there always?)

Plants improve your health and wellbeing (it’s just a fact) so you’re already on the right track. To help you out the genius folks over at Plants Life Balance, The University of Melbourne and RMIT have come up with a few rules to follow to ensure you’re getting the most out of your green planty friends, and starting your year off fresher and healthier than ever! Here’s the scoop:

Here’s what they found

Point 1: Their estimates show that urban dwellers (that’s city folk) spend 90% of their time in indoor environments (eeek not great! But don’t worry)
Point 2: People holidaying in outdoor/wilderness environments returned with heightened concentration compared to those who visited a city instead (see where this might be headed?), leading us to,
Point 3: Studies show that indoor plants can remove 75-90% of airborne pollutants depending on the plant and type of pollutant - which means improvement in air quality of your home. They also found an increase in relaxation, inspiration and positivity - so you can get those outdoorsy benefits by bringing a little piece of the wilderness into your home.

But how much greenery do you need to harness these benefits?

We’re not expecting you to turn your abode into a full on indoor jungle (though we would be jealous if you did). The super smart research team came up with a rule of thumb to help you get the balance right.

They found that adding one medium sized plant (about 6cm wide x 1.2m tall) to a medium room (4m x 5m - like a master bedroom) improved the air quality up to 25%, and gave the owner a little increase in wellbeing. But adding in 5 plants to the space sent those numbers up to 75% cleaner air and 60% better wellbeing! (you wait to see what adding in 10 plants does) So what we’re saying is more pants = better air and healthier, happier you.

They’ve created an app

Using the app, you can assess your current “plant life balance” – based on the size of your room and number of plants you’ve got in there – and then choose more plants to get more benefits. Some plants are better suited to purifying the air than others, you can see our list of the best air purifiers here. 

Some of the positives include improvement in mood, concentration and productivity. If you want to dive deeper and read the full report you can here.