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Instagram is full of seemingly happy plant owners cultivating succulents and philodendrons.
Ins上到处都是看起来很开心的植物养殖者，他们种植多肉植物和蔓绿绒。
You might have even seen local plant stores advertise their wares as stress-reducing roommates.
你甚至可能看到当地的植物商店把他们的商品宣传为能够减压的室友。
And the truth is, there is some evidence that houseplants are good for your mental health.
事实是，有证据表明室内植物对心理健康有益。
It's just not really clear why.
目前还不清楚原因。
We've been studying how houseplants make us feel for decades in a range of different indoor situations,
几十年来，我们一直在研究室内植物在各种不同的室内环境中对我们的影响，
but some of the most robust evidence that houseplants can improve mental health comes from hospitals.
但医院提供了一些最有力的证据，这些证据表明室内植物可以改善精神健康。
For example, a study from 2009 looked at how the presence of plants and flowers affected the recovery of 90 patients in the hospital for hemorrhoidectomies — and that is what it sounds like.
例如，2009年的一项研究考察植物和花卉如何影响90名痔疮患者的康复——听起来就是这样的。
It's a time in your life when it's probably not bad to have a plant friend around.
在你的生活中，身边有一个植物朋友可能并不是一件坏事。
They found that patients in rooms with plants did fare better: their blood pressure was lower and they reported less pain, anxiety, and fatigue.
他们发现，患者在有植物的房间里，确实恢复得更好：他们的血压更低，报告的疼痛、焦虑和疲劳程度更低。
The patients also said that the plants helped them to relax and feel less anxious, and made them feel more positively about the hospital staff caring for them.
患者还说，这些植物帮助他们放松，也减少了焦虑，使他们能够更加乐观地看待照顾他们的医院工作人员。
And the researchers who led this study have found similar results with plants in the rooms of appendectomy and thyroidectomy patients as well.
领导这项研究的研究人员也发现了，与阑尾切除术和甲状腺切除术患者室内有植物的情况下相似的结果。
The thing is, these hospital studies don't tell us a whole lot about why this effect occurs—just that it seems to.
问题是，这些医院的研究并没有就这种效应发生的原因提供很多的信息，只是似乎看起来是这样。
Researchers have tried to drill deeper into mechanisms by looking at plants in other indoor environments, like offices.
研究人员试图通过观察其他室内环境，如办公室中的植物，深入研究各种机制。
And these studies seem to back up the idea that plants can positively affect our moods, but the data start to get a little bit murkier.
这些研究似乎支持植物可以积极影响我们情绪的观点，但数据开始变得有点模糊。
One of the big questions is whether plants affect specific cognitive processes, and therefore make us feel better by lifting our mental load, or are just generally de-stressing.
其中一个大问题是，植物是否会影响特定的认知过程，从而通过消除精神负担而使我们感觉更好，或者只是一般性减压。
Some psychologists think that indoor plants and other living things have a restorative effect, based on the idea of Attention Restoration Theory.
一些心理学家基于注意力恢复理论的观点认为室内植物和其他生物都具有帮助恢复健康的作用。
According to this theory, voluntary attention—the attention needed for things that aren't inherently fascinating, but must be focused on nonetheless—is finite.
根据这一理论，对于那些本来就不引人入胜但必须关注的事物所需要的随意注意来说，这种注意力是有限的。
But, if you can just stop focusing so hard on things, you can give your mind time to replenish its attention reserves.
但是，如果你能停止非常专注于事物，就可以给大脑时间来补充注意力储备。
And plants may help you do that because they are inherently interesting— so you don't have to force yourself to pay attention to them.
植物可能会帮助你做到这一点，因为它们本身就很有趣，所以你不必强迫自己去关注它们。
One research team found that having plants in a room did help the 34 student participants to increase their attention capacity after a proofreading task.
一个研究小组发现，把植物放在房间里确实有助于34名学生在完成校对任务后提高注意力。
But, they felt that may have been because the plants made the room feel more pleasant and reduced the participants' stress levels in general rather than having a real restorative effect.
但是，他们认为这可能是因为这些植物使房间感觉更舒适，并且总体上降低了参与者的压力水平，而不是真的具有恢复健康的作用。
And there are good reasons to suspect that the presence of plants is just kind of relaxing.
有充分的理由怀疑植物的存在只是让人感到放松。
Like, in a 2013 study, 18 tested participants reported being more comfortable in an office environment with plants than a space without them.
比如，在2013年的一项研究中，18名受试者报告说在有植物的办公环境中比在没有植物的空间里更舒适。
But even if a relaxing effect is real and directly induced by the plants themselves, it still doesn't tell us what about plants makes us feel less stressed.
但是，即使这种放松的效果是由植物本身直接引起的，它仍然不能告诉我们植物是怎样使我们感到压力更少。
Researchers in that 2013 study asked the participants to say what they preferred in terms of color, odor, and plant size,
在2013年的研究中，研究人员要求参与者说出他们对于植物颜色、气味和大小方面的偏好，
and found that the group favored small, green, lightly-scented plants.
结果发现他们喜欢有轻微气味的绿色小型植物。
So it may be that those sensory experiences—seeing small bits of green or smelling living things—somehow triggers relaxation.
因此，这些感官体验，可能是看到一些绿色的小东西或闻到生物的气味，使人感到放松。
But unfortunately, studies that have tried to tease out whether it's the color, three dimensional shape, scent, or some other aspect of a plant that really matters haven't shed a ton of light on things.
但不幸的是，那些试图梳理出植物的颜色、三维形状、气味或其他一些真正重要方面的研究并没有对事物产生太多影响。
In part, that's because many of the studies use surveys to ask participants about their emotional and psychological responses to the plants.
在某种程度上，这是因为许多研究使用调查来询问参与者对植物的情感和心理反应。
While these results are relatively consistent across studies, they're subjective measures prone to all kinds of biases.
虽然这些结果在研究中相对一致，但它们是容易产生各种偏见的主观衡量标准。
And, linking mental states to more objective measures like physiological changes is tricky at best.
而且，将精神状态与更客观测量，如生理变化联系起来也很棘手。
Many studies look at changes to blood oxygenation in parts of the brain, for example.
例如，许多研究着眼于大脑某些部位的血氧合变化。
Participants in these studies wear a special sensor that uses spectroscopy to measure near-infrared light absorption;
这些研究的参与者会戴上一个特殊的传感器，它使用光谱来测量近红外光的吸收；
you see, red blood cells absorb light differently when they're carrying a lot of oxygen.
你看，红血球携带大量氧气时吸收光的方式不同。
And since oxygenation and blood flow in the brain have been linked to neural activity, this measure might give the researchers a peek at how the brain is responding to different conditions.
由于大脑中的氧合和血液流动与神经活动有关，这项测量可以让研究人员了解大脑对不同情况的反应。
But studies often get confusing results.
但是研究往往会得到令人困惑的结果。
Like, in a 2016 study, researchers had 24 men in their 20s look at either live plants or an empty flower box for 3 minutes.
比如，在2016年的一项研究中，研究人员让24名20多岁的男性观察活的植物或空的花箱，时间为3分钟。
After that, the scientists detected a decrease in blood oxygenation in the right prefrontal cortex in the plant viewing group.
之后，科学家们在植物观察组的右前额叶皮层检测到了血氧合减少。
That went hand-in-hand with reports of feeling more Comfortable and relaxed by viewing the plants.
这与通过观看植物感到更舒适和放松的研究报告是一致的。
So you might think less prefrontal cortex oxygenation equals a more relaxed state of mind.
所以，你可能会认为前额叶皮质的氧合减少就等于一种更放松的心理状态。
But another study from 2015 found significant increases in blood oxygenation in both the left and the right prefrontal cortex
但是，2015年的另一项研究发现，当18名参与者看到一个真实的植物而不是它的投影图像时，
when 18 participants viewed a real plant as opposed to a projected image of it.
左前额皮质和右前额皮质的血氧合都会显著增加。
This lack of consistency shows just how difficult it can be to untangle the correlations between physiological and psychological responses.
结果缺乏一致性表明，理清生理反应和心理反应之间的关系非常困难。
And some researchers have been critical of the methodology of studies looking at indoor plant effects on mood in general.
一些研究人员对研究室内植物对总体情绪影响的方法论持批判的态度。
A 2009 review of 21 studies took issue with a number of methods in the field, including the fact that studies often used small sample sizes.
2009年对21项研究进行回顾的一项综述类研究，对该领域的许多方法提出了质疑，包括研究经常使用小样本量的事实。
You wouldn't expect the effects of indoor plants to be huge—and if they have small effects, from a statistics perspective, you'd need a large number of participants to pick them up.
你不会期望室内植物有多大的影响效果，如果它们的影响小，从统计学的角度来看，需要大量的参与者才能收集到这种影响。
Similarly, they criticized the variation in how the plants were presented in different studies.
同样，他们批评了植物在不同研究中的呈现方式存在差异。
The type, size, and placement of plants, as well as duration of exposure all differ greatly—and that makes results difficult to compare.
植物的类型、大小、摆放位置以及摆放时间都有很大差异，这使结果难以比较。
But the reviewers did feel that the question of whether or not indoor plants can affect our mental health is worth studying, so they made some recommendations for future experiments.
但是，这项综述研究的作者们确实认为，室内放置植物是否会影响我们的心理健康这个问题确实值得研究，所以他们对未来的实验提出了一些建议。
These included implementing more systematic approaches to plant exposure
这些措施包括实施更系统的植物放置时间，
and making sure that studies looking at the "restorative" effects of plants actually had the participants do something taxing enough to require restoration.
确保考察植物的“恢复性”效应的研究确实会让参与者做一些身体复原所必需的事情。
So...Even though we've been studying this for decades, we still don't seem to understand why we see such positive effects from plants in places like hospitals.
所以，尽管我们已经研究了几十年，但我们似乎仍然不明白，为什么看到像医院这样的地方放置有植物时，会对我们产生如此积极的影响。
Or if those mean houseplants boost your brainpower or improve your mental health in general.
或是否这意味着室内植物可以提高你的智力，或提高你的总体心理健康水平。
But look, here's the situation, those plants on your desk and by your couch are almost definitely not harmful to you, as long as you're not allergic to them or something.
但情况是这样的，你桌上和沙发旁的那些植物，只要你对它们不过敏或有其他反应，这些植物几乎不会对你有害。
So if you feel like your world is better when your desk or living room looks a little bit more like a jungle, you do you!
所以，如果你觉得办公桌或起居室看起来更像一片丛林时，你的世界会变得更好，那就这样去做吧！
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych, which is produced by Complexly!
感谢收看由Complexly制作的这集心理科学秀！
If you enjoyed it, you might also enjoy our podcast SciShow Tangents.
如果你喜欢收看，你也可能会喜欢我们的播客Scishow Tangents。
Several of the minds behind Complexly shows—including me—get together each week to nerd out about science in a playfully competitive way.
Complexly节目的几位制作人，包括我在内，每周都会聚在一起，以一种充满竞争的有趣方式调侃科学。
Sam, who is sitting here making sure I don't say any words incorrectly, is currently winning, significantly, and we're getting a little bit more aggressive about trying to bring him down
萨姆坐在这里确保我不会说错话，他目前正出于绝对领先的地位，我们正在试着努力把他往下拉一拉。
But the real point is that we share all sorts of astounding facts about our universe, our planet, and our species.
但真正的问题是，我们彼此分享关于对宇宙、对地球和人类的各种令人震惊的事实。
You can listen for yourself by searching for SciShow Tangents on the podcast platform of your choice.
你可以在播客平台上搜索SciShow Tangents收听各种节目。
