Green Plants can Help us Reduce Stress綠植能夠幫助我們減壓

陳傳光

It is not a surprise that people in the modern times are having much more stressthan before. Luckily， a new study has found an easy way to deal with the problem.Researchers from a university in Japan have found that small green plants on thedesk can go a long way towards reducing peoples stress.

現代人的壓力比以前大得多，這不足為奇。幸運的是，一項新的研究發現了一種解決這個問題的簡單方法。日本一所大學的研究人員發現，桌上小小的綠植可以大大減輕人們的壓力。

More than 60 people from different jobs tookpart in the study. Half of them were asked to work asusual without any plants while the other half weregiven a plant to put on their desks. Researchers thenused a standard test to measure their stress levels.More than 90 percent of the office workers showedlower stress levels after taking a three-minute rest to look at their plants.

來自不同工作崗位的60 多人參與了這項研究。其中一半人被要求在沒有任何植物的情況下照常工作，而另一半人則被要求在桌子上放一顆植物。研究人員隨后使用一個標準測試來測量他們的壓力水平。超過90%的上班族在休息三分鐘看看植物后，顯示出較低的壓力水平。

The study has found that it does not matter whether people were directlylooking at their plants or only having the plants near their computers. As longas people had a green plant in sight2， their stress levels changed greatly.Moreover， this finding worked on everyone no matter how old they were andwhat their jobs were.

這項研究發現，無論人們是直接看著自己的植物，還是只是把植物放在他們電腦附近，都無關緊要。只要人們的視線范圍內有綠色植物，他們的壓力水平就會發生很大變化。此外，這一發現適用于每個人，無論他們是多大年紀，從事的是什么工作。

“People used to go outdoors into nature to relax themselves， but nowthey have less time to do so，”one of the researchers said.“Luckily， our studyhas proved3 that a small green plant can helppeople reduce stress successfully.”

“人們過去常到戶外去放松自己，但現在他們這樣做的時間更少了。”一位研究人員說，“幸運的是，我們的研究證明，一顆小小的綠色植物可以幫助人們成功地減輕壓力。”

Notes

1. reduce 減少；降低

2. sight 看見；見到；視野

3. prove 證實；證明