1% Thursday: Flowers

This week:  Buy yourself some flowers.

… and wait, men, don’t tune me out on this one.  This is for you too.

There’s more than one reason why flowers can be therapeutic for someone prone to headaches or migraine attacks.  For example, there’s the scent of flowers.  Good old fashioned nice smelling 100% natural flowers, whether fresh cut or potted or growing outdoors.  We’ve talked a lot about aromatherapy, and I believe you can get a lot of the same benefit from flowers.

Also, as we talked about in The Forgotten Therapy, natural beauty itself has an incredible power that is little appreciated.  Sometimes we put beauty in the category of "things we don’t need".  That’s a serious mistake – we all need beauty, maybe more than we need some of the pills we take.

This is actually a coincidence, but this post comes at an interesting time – when there’s some debate going on in the UK regarding whether or not to allow flowers in hospital wards.  Some of the concerns may be valid (for example flowers in an emergency ward that are just getting in the way), but some seem to be based on bad "science" – the belief that flowers are depleting the room of oxygen, or adding dangerous gases or bacteria.  And yet no one can seem to produce any evidence that flowers (or the water they’re in) pose any real risk to the patient.

I’d have to suggest that the real benefits far far outweigh any imagined problems.

But here are a couple tips to help you get the most out of the flowers you’re going to buy this week (you are going to do it, right?):

First, avoid "grocery store" flowers (including potted plants).  I know they seem like a great deal, and they’re oh-so-convenient.  But in my experience they don’t last nearly as long and don’t compare to the quality of those found in the market or flower shop.

Second, here’s what I do with fresh cut flowers.  This will keep the water fresher, and the flowers will last longer.  First, re-cut the flower stems at an angle under water.  If your flowers came with special "food" from the florist, use that in the water as per instructions.  Otherwise, try a vinegar/sugar mix – 3 tablespoons of sugar and 2 tablespoons of white vinegar per quart (about 1 litre) of water.  I’ve found it makes a big difference.

Now go buy a bouquet of your favourites!  (And please, don’t ban flowers from the hospital rooms!)

What is 1% Thursday?

Every Thursday at Headache and Migraine News (weather permitting) we’ll talk about one measurable, practical thing we can do to make our lives just 1% better.  Usually it will be something very easy, sometimes it will be a challenge.  Let us know if you try it, or share an idea of your own – and maybe a year from now we’ll see that things have really changed for the better!