Flowers Can Bridge the Social Distance Gap This Mother’s
Day
This year, Mother’s Day
looks different for many of us. It may not be possible in light of COVID-19 to
visit with mom or other women who have influenced your life. Such separation
induces stress and loneliness but, according to several research studies, flowers
may be just the antidote moms and women in general need this season.
According to a survey by Wakefield Research, 68 percent of
people feel stress on a weekly basis, and 32 percent are stressed every day—numbers
that are now almost certainly higher in today’s COVID-19 environment. Women, in
particular, are affected, as one in four report experiencing stress multiple
times a day.
Research from the University
of North Florida shows that something as simple as flowers can
help. The findings show that people who lived with flowers in their homes for
just a few days reported a significant decrease in their levels of stress and
improvements in their moods. Additional research from Rutgers,
The State University of New Jersey, shows
that the presence of flowers around senior citizens decreased depression among
81%, refreshed recent memory among 72% and encouraged outreach to loved ones
among 40 percent. And research from Harvard
University found that people who live
with flowers report fewer episodes of anxiety and depressed feelings.
“Flowers have evolved to activate positive emotional
responses from people,” says Rutgers University researcher Jeannette
Haviland-Jones, Ph.D., director of the university’s Human Emotions Lab. “Each
bloom has the potential to put a smile on our face and sway our opinion of a
friend, colleague or loved one. That’s powerful.”
When you receive flowers as a gift, you know that someone
is thinking of you right now, this very minute, said. Flowers spark joy, something that everyone needs right now—especially
mothers.
