Once upon a time, writer Nora Ephron wrote how her love for New York in the fall brought out her longing to buy school supplies and send someone she loves a sweet bouquet of sharpened pencils (via USA Today). Rest assured, this is not how everybody feels about the end of summer. To lots of kids, the back-to-school sentiment feels more like doom lurking just around the corner and it has plenty of homes harboring families who feel like absolute nervous wrecks. With everything going on, parents are stressed too.
If the back-to-school unknowns are overwhelming your home crew, consider adding an often overlooked stress reliever to your kitchen counter in the way of cut flowers. A Rutgers University double-blind study showed compelling evidence that flowers can boost your mood. It’s not a comprehensive treatment for rattled nerves, but considering how fragile our mental well-being can sometimes feel, our mood can use every boost it can get. In order to get the best bang for your buck in cut flowers that tackle the back-to-school stress in your home, here are a few pointers to help you out.
Different flowers for different moods
Holistic counselor Dr. Brooke Stuart encourages using flower essence tinctures, which can be found at most holistic and health food stores, as a remedy to back-to-school stress. She breaks it down by matching particular flowers with a particular feeling. Need to break an old pattern? Try the chestnut bud. Feeling inadequate? The elm flower might help. For the back-to-school blues, she suggests that the walnut flower is best for encouraging an attitude of going with the flow.
More importantly, a Harvard study showed that it is the physical presence of the flowers themselves in your home that cuts the anxiety and goes even further to strengthen feelings of kindness and consideration. The study found that after just a few days participants reported feeling less negative overall, and after less than a week, participants felt more compassion for others. These are traits many of us would like on an average day, but having a cool calm confidence for those first days back to school would be priceless.
Furthermore, participants of the study felt a reasonable boost of energy at work, which is to say that the energy of flowers in the home has the potential to carry on with a person wherever they are off to that day, including kids heading back to school.
Where to place them and which to pick
The Harvard study suggested that when it comes to cut flowers, placement in your home counts. The study’s participants made a point to display their flowers wherever they spent the most time in the home, adding that they wanted to get a good look at their blossoms at the start of their day each morning.
Another consideration to keep in mind is picking the best possible color of cut flowers for your kids’ needs. The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that certain flower colors stimulate specific emotions. For instance, they discovered yellow flowers actually do drive a bit more cheer in participants just by their presence in a room. Red is a strong choice too, since it helps undermine fatigue. Any kid still sluggishly clinging to their summer schedule in the face of the back-to-school grind might appreciate the boost.
Orange could prove to be a good bet for your home as well, since florists at FTD (via Patch.com) suggest that orange flowers bring with them feelings of happiness and elation. Don’t forget blue blossoms either, which can boost an extra spark of creativity. No matter how you decide to adjust your home space for your kids’ back-to-school transition, count on cut flowers as a positive and worthwhile addition. Kids will appreciate the combination of calm and joy that can elevate the mood for everyone aroundd.
