The physiological and psychological relaxing effects of viewing rose flowers in office workers

Abstract

Background: In recent years, the physiological relaxing effect brought by nature is becoming clear; however, many workers find it difficult to be exposed to nature in their working environment. Exposure to fresh flowers represents an opportunity to incorporate nature into their working lives. In this study, we examined the effects of exposure to roses on physiological and psychological variables (heart rate variability, pulse rate, and subjective responses) in office workers.Results: The experimental site was Mizuho Information & Research Institute, Inc., in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Thirty-one male office workers were included in the present study. The subjects were exposed to thirty unscented pink roses (Rosa, Dekora) arranged in a cylindrical glass vase for 4 min. In the control condition, the subjects were not exposed to flowers. After the experiments, the subjects completed a questionnaire. The order of exposure was counterbalanced among subjects. Among subjects exposed to roses, the high-frequency component of heart rate variability was significantly higher than in controls. Similarly, 'comfortable,' 'relaxed' and 'natural' feelings were more common in subjects exposed to roses.Conclusions: Data from this study support the presence of physiological and psychological relaxing effects of being exposed to flowers on office workers. © 2014 Ikei et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.