World Health Day sponsored by the World Health Organisation (WHO) is celebrated annually on 7 April. This year’s theme is ‘Healthy beginnings, hopeful futures’ urging governments to ramp up efforts to prevent maternal and newborn deaths and to prioritise women’s longer-term health and well-being.

In broader terms we’d like to promote how plants can help the health and wellbeing for everyone.

Indoor air can be 10 times more polluted than the air outside and as we breathe in 0.5 litres of air 12-20 times a minute (i.e. at least 17,000 litres per day), any help to make it cleaner is welcome.

So the fact that plants clean the air making it better for us to breathe – particularly important if you work in a sealed building or in a building in the middle of a busy city when outside air is contaminated by fumes and more

Of course one of the off-shoots of this is that planted offices can see a reduction in absenteeism.

Plants help to improve productivity too. This was endorsed by Dr Craig Knight and his research. He found that adding a few plants to a ‘Spartan’ environment increased productivity by as much as 17% and an improved sense of wellbeing by 50%. Most businesses would be pleased with that and an excellent return on investment in plants too!

Plants also significantly improve our creativity and our concentration by 23%.

Plants also decrease our stress levels. In Australia, research carried out by Prof Margaret Burchett found that just one plant can have a very positive effect on our moods…

All in all plants add not only to our pleasure but to our health and our productivity.