Flowers in the Home

I love flowers so so much, but who doesn't?!

There is a flower for everyone. They come in every color, shape and scent, are used to celebrate OR commemorate, not to mention the purpose they serve in our ecosystem! I have been drawn to flowers as long as I can remember and am always growing them and displaying them in vases all around the house. If you ask any one of my family members, they will tell you that I'd rather have flowers than a fancy gift on my birthday and Mother's Day. My husband always comes through on this - thank you honey!

For the past 11 years I've worked in clinical research, so trials and studies tend to catch my eye. When I heard that there was a Harvard study that looked at the emotional and behavioral effects that having flowers in the home has on a person, I had to look into it. The study is called The Home Ecology Study and it was conducted by Nancy Etcoff, Ph.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. You can read the full study in more detail here.

To summarize, they took 65 women ages 24 to 60 and recruited them through an advertisement for a study on “use of the home environment and well-being.” They were told there would be questionnaires, 2 visits to the home, a gift and they'd be paid $100. At the first visit pictures were taken of the home for baseline documentation. Then they completed the questionnaires and received a "gift" -- the gifts, either a flower arrangement or a candle in glass hurricane (the control), were a key component of the study, although the participants did not know this. The second set of questionnaires were given 3 days after delivery of the gifts, then another visit took place within 6 days after delivery. Researchers surveyed the home and compared what they saw to the photos taken at the first visit.

Final results from the questionnaires were that the participants felt less anxious, less worried and less depressed at home, as well as more compassionate after only a few days with the flowers. They also reported a surprising boost at work, feeling happier and more energetic in the workplace. These same changes were not reported by the group with the candle.

Final results from the visits in the home were that the participants were observed to display the flowers in the rooms they "visited in the morning" such as the kitchen, family room and living room. Some also bought additional flowers so that they could increase the amount of flowers they had in their homes. Many participants sent thank you's after receiving the flowers, whereas no thank you's were sent after receiving the candle.

"Other research has proven that flowers make people happy when they receive them,” Etcoff says. “What we didn’t know is that spending a few days with flowers in the home can affect a wide variety of feelings.”