The Effect of Talking to Plants in Order to Improve Emotions and Reduce Stress in High School Students

Abstract

This study was designed to see if students could improve their emotional state and/or reduce stress by talking to a plant. One of the major benefits of using plants to study feelings or stress is that implementation of the plant does not need to be standardized in order to measure mood or emotional feeling. Plants make excellent listeners because they do not talk back. They allow a person to express their feelings and emotions without interruption or reciprocal feedback. Volunteer high school students, 9th through 12th grade, were given a plant and asked to document their pre-discussion feelings, talk to the plant for 15 minutes about anything they wanted, then document their post-discussion feelings. The study was conducted for 4 weeks through self-guided surveys. The analysis showed a decrease in stress and nervousness across all grade-levels, with an increase in relaxation.