Potted plants improve 'office workers' health: study

London, May 7 (UNI) Feeling tired and stressed at your workplace? Potted plants in offices can improve the health of stressed-out workers and reduce the number of sick days they take, a study claimed.

Research carried out by the Agricultural University of Norway suggests that plants in the working environment have a beneficial health effect.

Tina Bringslimark, an expert in environmental psychology, looked at 305 office workers in three offices with differing amounts of greenery.

"We investigated the amount of self-reported sick leave there was and compared it with the amount of plants they could see from their desk.

"The more plants they could see, then the less self-reported sick leave there was." Her study builds on work at the Norwegian institution which found that plants appeared to reduce office workers' fatigue, dry throats, headaches, coughs and dry skin.

An American study, at Washington State University, found that plants reduced workers' stress and improved their reaction times by 12 per cent.

Those who worked alongside plants performed better than those in a plant-free zone when they took part in a boring computer test that required concentration for 20 to 30 minutes. Workers in a green office also had lower blood pressure and less mental fatigue.

UNI XC NC MIR KP1322