Affective and cognitive restoration: comparing the restorative role of indoor plants and guided meditation

This study investigated whether indoor plants were as effective as a guided meditation for enabling psychological recovery after fatigue induced by the abbreviated vigilance task. Sixty students were randomly assigned to an indoor plant, guided meditation, or control rest-break condition. The psychological processes most in need of recovery were identified as cognitive and affective restoration. Measures of affect, stress, and working memory were taken before and after the vigilance task, and again after a rest intervention. The vigilance task-induced fatigue as shown by a significant vigilance decrement and also significantly lowered positive affect and cognitive engagement, and significantly increased distress across all three conditions. After exposure to the break interventions, distress significantly decreased for participants in the indoor plant break condition while distress significantly decreased and engagement significantly increased in the guided meditation break condition. Indoor plants and guided meditation had a small, but significant positive impact on affective restoration and no significant impact on cognitive restoration.