Plants and Human well being

Plants have always played an important role in people's lives. Throughout the history, plants have been the source of food, building materials, fuel, medicine, paper products,cosmetic, fibres and spices. in recent years people have begun to realise that plants can also provided people with sense of well being. The following are some of the ways in which plants make our lives more pleasant.

• Plants provide us with clean air to breathe each day
• Plants can modify extreme climate such as high temperatures in the cities. Plants reflect most of the sun's radiation and give off moisture to the air through transpiration. The shady areas under trees are cooler due to a decrease in the intensity of sunlight and the cooling effect of transpiration
• Plants can help to control the glare from car headlights. This can be archived by planting trees or shrubs along the highway or road dividers. Plants can also reduce the glare caused by reflected sunlight from pavements or glass windows and walls.
• Plants can effectively control erosion. Tree, shrubs, ground covers and grasses help prevent erosion by intercepting and breaking the impact of raindrops and holding the soil in place with their roots.
• Plants can reduce noise by absorbing and breaking up the sound waves. Densely growing plants can be effective for controlling sound such as highway noise

 
  From the above, we can see that plants have numerous functional purposes as well as aesthetic value, all of which are of increasing importance to the physical and mental health of the modern man due to the change in life style and increasing urbanisation.