There are countless great reasons for filling your home with beautiful plants, but can they be good for your health? Certain houseplants can do more than look pretty – they clean the air in your home and improve the whole environment.
Peace lilies naturally purify the air by removing pollutants and improving the quantity of oxygen in your home. However, this impact is relatively small from a single plant.
Read more to discover how this works and why plants can be great for your well-being.
How Do Peace Lilies Work As Air Purifiers?
It’s an idea you’ve probably heard before – that plants clean the air and make things feel fresher – but you might not be aware of the science behind this concept.
In 1989, NASA conducted a study on “Interior Landscape Plants for Indoor Air Pollution Abatement,” which investigated how well certain houseplants could clean up pollution from the air around them.
The study found that peace lilies can extract harmful chemicals from the air and destroy them through their root systems and the microorganisms within their soil. In their testing, peace lilies could remove tens of thousands of micrograms of chemicals like Benzene, Trichloroethylene and gases like Carbon Monoxide in just 24 hours.
That said, the environment in your home is different from a lab. The purifying effects of peace lilies are undoubtedly incredible. Still, they aren’t going to make your entire house fresh and clean on their own – and recent studies have shown that you may need many plants to make a significant difference.
If you are experiencing genuine pollution problems, you need to remove the source or look into air replacement purifiers.
What Other Health Benefits Do Plants Provide For Your Home?
Of course, not every houseplant can absorb significant amounts of chemicals from the air in the same way, but they all make the environment appear fresher and cleaner just by looking at them. The mere presence of green and healthy plants has been shown to:
- Reduce Stress
- Lower Fatigue
- Improve Concentration
- Heighten Mood
- Benefit Productivity
Caring for your plants and keeping them alive and healthy also has a positive impact on mental health and general well-being.
Best Plants For A Healthy Home
So, what kind of plants should you be looking at if you want to have a healthy home? Although there has been little scientific research into which specific species might impact air quality the most, you want to look for plants that naturally thrive indoors and are relatively easy to care for.
Some great options for houseplants to consider:
- Peace Lilies: Hardy and beautiful; they clean the air and flourish in a warm, humid environment like a bathroom.
- Spider Plants: There are more than 200 species of spider plants that grow quickly with little effort.
- Golden Pothos: This plant seems practically indestructible. It will grow and grow and grow, and it barely needs watering at all. The same NASA study also found this plant to be very effective at removing chemicals from the air, just like the peace lily.
Final Words
So, how do peace lilies clean the air? They can absorb harmful chemicals and break them down using microorganisms within the soil and root structure. They are not the only plant that has been proven to reduce toxins in your environment.
More recent studies, however, have shown that the air purifying capacity of individual plants within the home is not quite as powerful as some might have believed, though the benefits to mental well-being and overall mood are undeniable.