Most of us have seen people smile when receiving flowers or felt the flush feeling of happiness and excitement when receiving a surprise delivery from a florist. It was natural to assume those emotions were simply our reaction to an act of affection or admiration from someone else.  Knowing someone else cares is sure to elicit a smile, but apparently that may not be all there is to it.

According to Nancy Etcoff, who is the director of the Program in Aesthetics and Well-Being at Harvard, there was a recent study where twenty-seven women received fresh flowers while a second group received scented candles, yet within one week it was the women who received flowers who reported feeling less depressed, less anxious, more compassionate in their home lives and more enthusiastic in their work lives.  I found it surprising that the study was made up only of women but according the theory behind the lift in mood it might apply to both sexes.  The theory used currently to explain this “flower delivery effect” as I will call it, is potentially some sort of innate, hard wired attraction toward vegitation, which makes sense when you consider that during earlier eras they were a sign of food and water being nearby, according to Etcott.   I suppose its only anectdotal but when I moved in with friends after a particularly harrowing period I remember they had placed a vase of favorite orchids my room and  every morning they were one of the first things I would see.  I don’t know how much of  ”flower delivery effect”  was being near vegitation or just the timely reminder that there were people who cared but regardless each morning they made me feel better.  Its just a reminder that sometimes when there aren’t words, or necessarily a way to immediately fix things for someone or even ourselves…there are always flowers.