Calm your soul and breathe easier with indoor plants

If it’s ever felt like you could breathe easier on a walk in the forest, it’s not your imagination! Can You Get These Health Benefits At Home?

Gardens have played an important role in salvation history, from Eden to Gethsemane. Monks and other Christians have long cultivated gardens as places for nourishment and reflection. And Gregor Mendel conducted his research on inheritance in the Brno monastery garden, proving that gardens can also be places of learning and discovery.

Case in point: When my kids recently learned about photosynthesis, their little minds were blown away.

Do you mean that plants eat what we exhale? And do they do what we breathe? So plants keep us alive?!

Sure. My children’s understanding of the whole process might be simplistic, but their amazement made me stop amazed too. It’s truly amazing how plants allow us to live and breathe!

If it’s ever felt like you could breathe easier on a walk in the forest, it’s not your imagination. Trees filter out germs and pollutants, making the air in forests cleaner and fresher than elsewhere.

Can You Get These Health Benefits At Home? It turns out you can, albeit in a smaller way, of course.

A recent study found that plants can effectively remove toxic gasoline fumes, including carcinogenic compounds like benzene, from indoor air. The bottom line is that the best, most affordable, and most sustainable way to combat harmful indoor air contaminants in your workplace and home is to introduce plants.

Sign me up for cleaner air at home! Here’s how to get started.

Choose a houseplant

There are a wide variety of plants that will do well indoors. You’d be surprised how adding a few plants can change the air quality of your living space while also providing a more comfortable environment for prayer and reflection.

My personal choice would be to start with an herb, like basil, so that I can use it in cooking for added health benefits. Basil is a hardy herb that grows extremely well both indoors and out, so it’s a reliable choice even for those of us who don’t have a green thumb!

Here are some tips to help your basil plant thrive

• Place the basil in a warm, sunny location
• Keep the soil moist, giving at least an inch of water a week
• Pinch off the leaves from the tips as soon as the plant has two sets of true leaves (you can cook with these leaves and they are delicious!)
• When harvesting, cut the stem just above where two large leaves meet

Health benefits

We already know that having a leafy plant like basil in your home will help you breathe easier and clean the air. But what about the benefits of eating it?

It turns out this fresh herb is super healthy! Having antioxidant and antibacterial properties, basil helps maintain healthy skin, stimulates digestion and detoxifies the body. It also helps in the prevention and treatment of diseases. Fresh basil contains vitamin A, vitamin K, iron, manganese, calcium and essential oils.

Where does the name come from?

Although no one knows for sure, the name basil may come from Greek words basilus meaning king or basilikon real meaning. It feels like a little reminder of God, our king!

Plants and children

If you have little ones around, you know that indoor gardening can be tricky if your toddler tries to go digging in the dirt inside those terra cotta pots. Our solution was to place the plants high on a shelf or on a windowsill to keep the plants visible but the kids away from them.

One last plus

Basil plants improve indoor air quality, and eating them is chock full of benefits. But there’s another little benefit to growing basil and other herbs indoors.

Gardening and plant care is in itself a way to improve your health:

For people suffering from symptoms of mental illness, indoor gardening may be beneficial Horticultural therapy increases feelings of well-being among people with depression, anxiety, dementia and other conditions Medical clinics in Manchester, England are now prescribing plants potted to patients with depression or anxiety symptoms.

It’s no wonder so many people proudly claim the (ironic) label of plant dad or plant mom.

The more I learn about plants, the more awe I feel at God’s wonderful creation. I’m glad my kids have made me understand, and I think it’s about time we added a few more plants to our indoor garden!