Plants and health

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Since ancient times, man has sought to decorate his home with plants. He, feeling himself one with nature, transferred its particle to his home. Turned to plants for healing. But the desire was more intuitive. Currently, scientists have found that in addition to aesthetic properties, plants have another useful function - indoor plants improve the composition of the air and clean the atmosphere.

The benefits of indoor plants

Domestic plants provide considerable assistance in improving the indoor climate. They emit oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide, purify the air of germs and dust. In addition, the invigorating aroma emitted by indoor essential oil plants that emit a large number of volatile phytoncides improves our well-being, enhances the functional state of the body, stimulates its performance and defenses.

It should be remembered that plants, evaporating moisture from the surface of the leaves, moisten the excessively dry air of the apartments (humidity is easy to increase by putting plants in the tub in the room). In a word, they heal, ennoble the air, creating a microclimate favorable for humans in the room. All this helps to increase the body's resistance to infection and, therefore, is of great healing value.

The most pronounced antimicrobial effect of volatile white-spotted begonias, fragrant pelargonium, white oleander, spring primrose, elastic ficus, domestic geraniums and other indoor plants is most pronounced. They are very useful both for patients (for example, with diseases of the upper respiratory tract and lungs), and for healthy people. With an increased tendency to diseases of the upper respiratory tract, a positive effect is also exerted by the inhalation of volatile production of room lemon. This plant has a beneficial effect on people with diseases of the cardiovascular system.

Plant aromas, irritating the olfactory nasal receptors, have a reflex effect on the central nervous system, which depends on the type of plant and can be soothing, dulling perception (up to narcotic effects), stimulating and, finally, causing a state of nervous excitement. Knowing these features of plants, you can purposefully plant them at home.

So, for those who have increased excitability of the nervous system, it is useful to have fragrant geranium in their room. Inhaling its aroma calms, improves sleep, and in people with high blood pressure - leads to its decrease. The smells of chamomile, mint, rose, garden violet, orange and lemon refresh the air and have a beneficial effect on the emotional state of a person, improving mood and stimulating performance.

With the help of flowers you can create a cozy corner in the apartment, a kind of green oasis in which you will spend your free time with pleasure. Indoor plants will help you transform the interior, decorate and revitalize it.

Plants help not only create comfort in places where people work and rest, but also contribute to the creation of a favorable microclimate. However, everything is good in moderation, it is not necessary to clutter up an office building or an apartment with indoor plants. So, for example, flowers placed on the windowsill should be low (12-15 cm) and occupy no more than 15% of the window opening.

Remember that some plants (geranium, primrose, calendula, etc.) can cause allergic reactions, manifested by acute runny nose (rhinitis), photophobia, poor health, headache, skin rashes, and in more severe cases - attacks of asthma bronchitis and bronchial asthma Such plants must be removed from the apartment.

Which plants to choose

Geranium

The most common home flower is geranium (pelargonium). She performs the role of a kind of room doctor with diseases of the nervous system, especially with its functional disorders, neuroses of various etiologies, with insomnia. The main active component of geranium is geraniol. It has antibacterial and antiviral activity. On rainy autumn-winter days, the aroma of geranium, its bright red or pink flowers and scalloped leaves can improve mood, help relieve stress and fatigue.

Geranium preparations have an astringent, hemostatic, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic effect. In folk medicine, rhizomes and less often geranium leaves are used for various external and internal bleeding, gastritis, bronchitis, kidney stone disease, rheumatism, gout.

Infusion or a decoction of geraniums is used to rinse the mouth with stomatitis, tonsillitis; in the form of lotions - with eczema, ulcers, fistulas, with itchy dermatitis; for washing your hair - with hair loss. A decoction of the leaves is used for baths in case of bone fractures (hence another popular name for geraniums is bone chopper). Infusion and a decoction of geraniums are prepared at the rate of 2-4 teaspoons of dried leaves of the plant for 2 cups boiling water.

Geranium oil helps with depression, fears, neuralgia, impotence, hypoglycemia, softens menopause. For the prevention of colds, you can before leaving the house or, conversely, returning home to knead a torn leaf of geranium and put it in your nose. Geranium oil will cleanse the nasal mucosa and protect against a possible cold.

Aloe

Everyone knows the agave, which for many centuries has been used as a home healer. Agave (aloe vera) has many health benefits: anti-inflammatory, choleretic, antibacterial, wound healing, anti-burn. It enhances the secretion of digestive glands, improves appetite, normalizes digestion, increases the protective functions of the body and its immunoreactive capabilities, and enhances recovery processes in damaged tissues.

Aloe is prescribed for anemia, radiation injuries, for progressive myopia, inflammation of the eyelids, peptic ulcer, bronchial asthma, chronic gastritis, accompanied by constipation, pharyngitis, laryngitis, after dysentery, and also as a general tonic and a means to increase immunity. Typically, for these purposes, aloe juice is mixed in equal proportions with honey and take a third of a teaspoon of this mixture 3 times a day 30 minutes before meals, washed down with warm milk. The course of treatment is 3 weeks, then a break of 10 days.

For the treatment of purulent wounds, trophic ulcers, burns, abscesses and boils, aloe juice is applied externally in the form of irrigation and lotion, changing the dressing moistened with aloe juice twice a day. Compresses with aloe juice with dermatitis of the head of radiation origin relieve pain, accelerate tissue repair and hair growth.

For diseases of the oral cavity and gums, laryngitis, rinses are prescribed rinsing with aloe juice diluted with water in a ratio of 1: 1. Three instillation of juice in the nostrils (5-8 drops) at intervals of 3-5 hours stops the development of the common cold.

For pneumonia, it is useful to add 1 teaspoon of salt to a glass of aloe juice and take 1 tbsp. spoon 3 times a day an hour before meals. Exhausted patients and children make a nutritious mixture of 100 g of aloe juice, 500 g of walnut, 300 g of honey and juice of 3-4 lemons. Take this mixture 1 teaspoon 3 times a day 30 minutes before meals.

In pulmonary tuberculosis, as an additional treatment, the patient is given a mixture of 15 g of aloe juice, 10 g of cuff juice, 100 g of butter (pork or goose fat), honey and cocoa. Take at lunch or in the evening for 1 tbsp. spoon with a glass of hot milk.

To make aloe juice, pick the side shoots, lower and middle leaves of a 2-4 year old plant, soak them to enhance biological activity for 10-14 days in the refrigerator on the lower shelf, then pass through a meat grinder, squeeze, filter through 3-4 a layer of gauze and boil the resulting juice for 3 minutes. Use immediately after preparation, as the juice quickly loses activity during storage.

It should be noted that with numerous indications, aloe also has contraindications, which should be paid attention to. Aloe juice is not recommended for liver and kidney diseases, for severe cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, acute indigestion, uterine and hemorrhoidal bleeding, long periods of pregnancy, as well as for people over 40 years old.

Kalanchoe

Kalanchoe is popularly called a home doctor. It has soft, juicy leaves, from which juice is squeezed, which has been successfully used to treat wounds, including purulent, non-healing trophic ulcers, pressure sores, erysipelas. Kalanchoe juice is also used for tonsillitis, sinusitis, stomatitis, periodontal disease, gynecological diseases (erosion, inflammation of the cervix and others).

To obtain juice, it is necessary to withstand the leaves of Kalanchoe in the dark at 5-10 degrees for 7 days, then rinse and pass through a juicer. Kalanchoe ointment, which is prepared from 40 parts of Kalanchoe juice, 60 parts of lanolin and taken in equal amounts (0.25 parts) of furazolidone and novocaine, also has a healing effect. The ointment can be prepared for the future, so that it is always at hand in case of emergency or emergency care.

Peppermint

On your window, you can grow peppermint, which summer residents usually ruthlessly pull out, weeding their gardens. If in the fall it is transplanted into a pot and put on the window, then already in the cold December you will see delicate light green leaves with a fresh and strong smell.

The smell of peppermint calms the nervous system, helps relieve irritation, fatigue, aggressiveness. In addition, this smell helps to concentrate, so American psychologists recommend that anyone who works on a computer for a long time put a pot of mint or a vase with a bouquet of dried mint next to it, inhaling its aroma from time to time.

Peppermint is widely used in official and traditional medicine. It has an analgesic and anti-inflammatory effect on the body, improves appetite and secretion of the digestive glands. Many housewives know her as an excellent culinary supplement.

If you have grown mint on your window, then by the New Year you can make a very simple and exotic dish from it - candied mint: the mint leaves are dipped in whipped protein, then for 1-2 minutes - in boiling sugar syrup, laid out on plates and slightly dried . Your guests will be pleasantly surprised to try this delicacy.

Lemon

Homemade lemons should be grown not only for the fruit. Their fragrant leaves also have healing powers. They secrete 85 different healing substances. In the room where the lemons are located, the air is almost sterile. If a lemon grows in the room, then many pathogenic microbes living in this room will lose the ability to reproduce. Lemon is known to everyone as a storehouse of vitamin C, but other vitamins (P, PP, B1), as well as various trace elements are present in it.

It is believed that lemons were first cultivated in China in the 8th – 9th centuries. Then lemons appeared in several countries of Asia Minor and the Mediterranean coast of Europe. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of lemon as a factor contributing to the strengthening and increasing the elasticity of the walls of blood vessels, and people have long known about this. Known and in some cases used the ability of lemons candied in honey to reduce high blood pressure.

The aroma of cut lemon increases working capacity, eliminates drowsiness even in very tired and weakened people. Japanese doctors believe that the aroma of freshly cut lemon positively affects the nervous system and enhances visual acuity.

Lemons are primarily obliged by the pleasant specific smell to the essential oils contained in their peel. According to Russian scientists, essential oils of citrus crops (lemons, tangerines, oranges, grapefruit, etc.) act on Escherichia coli several times more effective than known antibiotics (e.g. streptomycin), and on staphylococci - stronger than chloramphenicol.

Tea with lemon is a powerful sokogonny remedy, therefore, with diseases of the pancreas and stomach with high acidity, lemons sometimes need to be abstained. For kidney diseases, tea with lemon juice rather than a slice of lemon is preferable. It is also good to add to dishes with salt-free diets and diets with a small amount of salt.

For dessert, healthy people and some diseases, but after consulting a doctor, you can cook the so-called lemon milk. To do this, squeeze the juice from one lemon, pour it into the mixer, add a glass of cold milk, 3-4 teaspoons of sugar, beat and cool the resulting mixture. This healthy cooling drink is best drunk through a straw.

Now there are specialist phytodesigners who can make special compositions from plants, given their decorative and medicinal properties. But this pleasure is quite expensive, so if you want to make a small therapeutic and aesthetic composition, then know that oregano, snakehead, lavender, lemon balm, monarda have a calming effect, and juniper is able to reduce streptococcus colonies in the air by 8 times.

By making compositions of phytoncide plants, you will be less sick. They will help you maintain and strengthen your health, get rid of stressful conditions and increase your performance.

Indoors, you can use medicinal rosemary, phytoncides of which are indicated in the treatment of chronic bronchitis, emphysema, catarrh of the upper respiratory tract, bronchial asthma and other diseases. Noble bay helps with spastic conditions (angiospasm), intestinal cramps and bile ducts.

If you want the phytocomposition to have a general healing effect and purify the air of pathogenic microbes, then use the original combination of aloe tree or pinnate Kalanchoe with various forms of chlorophytum.

When growing indoor plants or making phytocomposites, be careful if someone in the house has bronchial asthma or any other allergic diseases. Indoor plants can cause allergic reactions not only to their own flowers and leaves, but also to the ground in which they grow.

As a rule, microscopic fungi develop on the ground, which form a white coating on the surface of the soil. It is these mushrooms that are the most powerful allergens and can provoke attacks of bronchial asthma, allergic rhinitis (runny nose), conjunctivitis (inflammation of the eyes), or other allergic manifestations. In these cases, indoor plants will have to be abandoned.

Near the bed you can put a simple geranium composition (with different colors of inflorescences) and fragrant geranium. She will have a beneficial effect on sleep. A composition of myrtle, eucalyptus and rosemary will have a bronchodilator effect, antimicrobial and antiviral effects.

Some more interesting facts about indoor plants

Indoor plants purify the air

Everyone knows how important air cleanliness is in a home and how widespread air pollution is inside the apartment.

NASA scientists conducted a study on the influence of indoor plants on human health and found that ordinary indoor plants can improve air quality. During the study, it turned out that home plants are able to remove up to 87% of harmful air toxins in 24 hours.What is needed for this? Use from 15 to 18 indoor plants of a decent size in pots with a diameter of 15-20 cm for a house with an area of 160 square meters. m

Indoor plants will help remove a variety of toxic emissions, including ammonia, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, benzene, xylene and trichloroethylene. Below you will find a list of the most useful plants in this regard, and remember, the healthier the plant, the more benefits it will bring to your health.

Indoor plants make you happier

Bruno Cortis, a cardiologist from Chicago, writes that home plants make you calmer and more optimistic. What is remarkable, he says, is that those patients who have the opportunity to look at the garden from the window in the hospital recover faster than those who are forced to stare at the wall.

Indoor plants fight fatigue and the common cold

According to research by the Norwegian Institute of Agriculture, indoor plants help relieve cough, sore throat, fatigue and other symptoms associated with colds by more than 30%, in part because they increase air humidity and reduce dust.

Home plants in the office

Even large corporations are beginning to realize that the placement of indoor plants adds to the health of workers and mood. According to one study published in Rehabilitation Literature, a manufacturing company placed indoor plants in such a way that no worker was further than 14 meters from the plant. The management of the company reported on increased creative activity and increased efficiency.

Of course, some house plants are poisonous, and you need to handle them carefully or not at all if you have small children.
But acting with some caution with the plants that you have chosen, you can fully use all the benefits that the plants bring to the house.