
Can flowers help us with self-care?
I always considered myself lucky to be able to run a business and do a job that I love and during this month of January I guess there is a lot more talk about resolutions, making sure we taking care of our mental health and trying to improve how things are in our lives.
Without putting pressure on anyone, I wondered if this blogpost might give you some simple tips on using flowers to help with self-care. Because let’s face it, January in general can be a hard month, as we make and break resolutions etc etc. The Oxford Dictionary terms self-care as:
“The practice of taking an active role in protecting one’s own well-being and happiness, in particular during periods of stress.”

Four tips to consider
Tip 1
A very simple tip is to have flowers in the house, I always try and bring bulbs in from the garden as they will take a week or so to flower and are cost effective for the month where no one has any money. as studies show that simply looking at flowers can lower cortisol levels (thats the stress hormone) therefore helping you feel more relaxed. So if we are looking for small moments of joy, then that for me is flowers in the house. You can see what I had on our dining room last Spring in the photo above.
Tip 2
I might be teaching you to suck eggs but what about tip 2….

It’s the simple act of giving flowers to someone else. Its been shown to foster feelings of connection and gratitude which can uplift your emotional state.
Now Im not talking about giving a huge bouquet of flowers to someone, just some lovely daffs wrapped in a bit of newspaper and tied with a bow maybe?
Tip 3
Now gardening might not be your thing or you might not have access to a green space where you live but, growing and caring for flowers involves physical activity which can be linked to improved mental health and a sense of accomplishment.

There are some brilliant organisations that you volunteer for and get access to nature/growing/being in a community. I’m a trustee of a fab charity called meadowbrook. They have a site near melksham and are always looking for volunteers.
The other one that is more local to Trowbridge is Trowbridgeeco, they do some fab work within the local community and again are always looking for volunteers.
Tip 4
You ever heard of Biophillia? I hadn’t till I started researching this.
The word biophilia originates from the Greek, ‘philia’ meaning ‘love of’. It literally means a love of life or living things. Humans have a deeply engrained love of nature which is an intuitive and natural drive imprinted into our DNA.

You think about kids and their fascination of being in nature, this is my friends daughter and she absolutely loves flowers and fairly regularly comes to Young Blooms workshop to make stuff which you can see here.
I wonder sometimes that as we get older and life becomes fuller and more noisy, we loose the magic of being able to enjoy nature and the benefits it offers us.
I know that these are very simple ideas but I think its good to be reminded of them.
As always stay warm and I’ll be with you again very soon.
Grace x