Plant therapy for depression, seasonal affect disorder and anxiety

LED Grow Lights & Plant Therapy For Depression and Seasonal Affect Disorder

Depression and Seasonal Affective Disorder are becoming much more prevalent, and each year we see new records broken in the number of people taking anti-depressant medication. In the United States alone more than 85 million people have prescriptions for anti-depressants. This is a staggering number given that there are roughly 350 million people in the United States. The US is not alone, either, as the rate of serious depression is also rising in Canada and many other parts of the world. 

Clinical Depression and Social Anxiety are often related to each other. Although there are many causes of depression and anxiety, one of the major causes is our individual disconnection. We become detached through a lack of community, by not feeding our spiritual lives, and by not having purpose or meaningful goals. We drag our way through dead-end jobs, debt, and the illusory trap of materialism. The list goes on and on. One way of alleviating some of the symptoms of depression is through plant therapy.  With plant therapy, I was able to witness a tremendous change in a group of students who were mostly placed in a specialized high school program after being released from the children's hospital for suicide attempts.

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Change starts with a bit of ingenuity, education, and inspiration. I worked with a local High School Special Education class called the Sanctuary Outreach Program.  The students in the program have been diagnosed with severe clinical depression and many have also been diagnosed with social anxiety. The students are highly intelligent and sensitive.  Most have suffered some sort of trauma. They were housed in a portable outside of the school that was built in 1978. The classroom had two small windows that were covered in steel mesh that was secured from the inside to prevent break-ins. The windows faced a brick wall about 6 feet away and no natural sunlight could penetrate the classroom due to the two-story wall.  The walls in the classroom were a sterile white. One cannot be blamed for thinking that the classroom somewhat resembled a prison, a less than ideal environment considering the students who would be making their home there for more than 6 hours each day.

Changing Our Environments to Fight Depression

The photo below was taken shortly after I first became involved with the program.  The students and I were celebrating our first thanks giving together and as you can see the classrooms low lighting made it a pretty dreary place to be.

The dark, institutional feel of the classroom clearly needed to be addressed in order to allow the students to feel comfortable, and after asking the students what they thought about their physical classroom space it became apparent that they did not like the lighting.  They found it to be dull and dingy. In addition they were not crazy about the underlying dusty, musky odor and the old carpets. The carpets looked to be the original carpets that were installed in 1978 when the portable was first commissioned. They were heavily soiled and the seams in the middle of the classroom were coming apart, creating tripping hazards. I spoke to one of the counsellors who worked with the program and he felt that, especially during the winters, the classroom was a very bleak place to be and that it was not an inviting working environment for students or staff.  He mentioned that the combination of poor lighting, small windows, and poor air quality caused him to have much lower energy levels and it also made it hard to show up to work on some days.  If the staff of the program felt this way, it made me wonder how students who suffer from depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and attendance issues really felt.  Perhaps they weren't truly aware of how our surroundings play a role in our moods, energy levels, and productivity as they have nothing to measure it against? 

Grow Lights With Daylight Spectrum to Fight Depression

The first order of business was to address the lighting in the classroom.  Most public spaces, including schools and offices, use T12 fluorescent tubes for lighting and they give off a yellowish hue that is similar in temperature to the light that is produced just as the sun is starting to set.  When the sun sets, the colour of light triggers our pineal gland to release melatonin, which in turn tells our body that it is time to go to sleep. The triggering effect of melatonin is hardwired into us and it lowers our energy levels and makes us drowsy. Research tells us that companies switching from the soft yellow hue to 12-noon daylight spectrum lighting see a dramatic increases in productivity as people feel more energetic and experience a sense of well-being. I informed a few school administrators over the years about the studies on lighting as related to mood, tiredness, productivity, and seasonal affective disorder, and the school's administration did not make any changes even though the cost of the two different options in T12 lightbulbs are exactly the same. I did not get the permission I sought to change the ceiling lights to daylight spectrum T12's, but I did gain permission to work on an indoor agriculture project that would earn the school more money by having more credits pushed through.  When one strategy does not work perseverance is needed as many people have trouble with change and when the administration was presented with a way of earning the school more money, then the change is a lot easier to accept.  The administrator, who at first resisted my efforts, stated that the reason why they buy the yellow-hued lights is because this is what they always bought, and he felt that it made the environment more cozy.  I associate the word 'cozy' with relaxing on a sofa in front of a fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate, but in my working environment I need something energizing and fresh, and with the proper lighting this can be achieved.

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Building an Indoor Garden With Full Spectrum Grow Lights

So began a very interesting and successful agriculture project with the students in the Sanctuary Program. I brought in a stainless steel shelving unit and high-output T5 fluorescent lighting that was daylight-balanced. The T5 grow lights are much smaller than our traditional T12 lights and they also give out higher lumens per watt.  A  four foot T12 light will range between 1800 to 2700 lumens for 40 watts of power.  The much smaller in diameter four foot, high output T5 light uses between 51 to 54 watts and produces 5000 to 5500 lumens.  The efficiency of the T5 light is between 92 and 100 lumens per watt whereas the efficiency of the T12 Light is around 45 to 67.5 lumens per watt. 

When growing plants with fluorescent lighting, T5's or induction lighting is the only way to go.  Getting cucumbers or tomatoes to fruit with T12's is impossible, as the lumen output is too low, but fruiting can be easily done with T5 or induction lighting.  More efficient technologies exist, such as LED and induction grow lights, but for this particular classroom T5 grow lights were the right choice as they were better suited to vertical shelving.  At the time I started this project, LED grow lights used loud fans and the fanless options were in their infancy and not capable of growing plants very well.  Induction lights are very large and efficient,  but the size would have made it more difficult to add to a shelving unit.  I chose the shelving unit as it would support the growth of up to 80 plants in 10 square feet of vertical space. I started the project off by using plants that used soil and I eventually switched over to hydroponic systems. (click here to read about the advantages of hydroponics over soil).

Full Spectrum Grow Lights and Positive Changes

The educational program historically suffered from major attendance issues, as it is often hard to get out of bed when suffering from clinical depression and social anxieties.  The sterile classroom environment that resembled a prison did not invite an engaging or stimulating learning environment and it was a place that both the staff and students would prefer not to be.  When the T5 daylight-balanced lighting was turned on for the first time, the feeling and mood of the classroom changed as soon as it was plugged in. Both the students and staff commented on how much brighter the classroom was.
The students reported higher energy levels and even made comments about how they hated when the lights had to be turned off for practice lockdowns and system maintenance. It was literally a night and day difference in the entire atmosphere  among the students and staff.
The plants were added next, and as the students got involved with the building of the shelving units, the planting of seeds, and the watering of plants, something amazing occurred. Within the clinically depressed and socially anxious students something shifted. They found a purpose, primal and organic. Here they were, some of them for the first time, planting a seed and nurturing it throughout its life. They even decided that they wanted to name the plants that they were each taking care of, and a little competition started in good-spirited fun to see whose plants were doing the best on a regular basis. Attendance improved dramatically as the students felt responsible for the life that they tended.

Indoor Gardening - Plants Create Fresh Air

The second benefit was that the plants produced rich life-giving oxygen.  I had the classroom's air quality tested prior to the plant project, and in the morning, before students arrived to school, the carbon dioxide was registering at 400 to 500 ppm.  During the afternoon after the students and staff occupied the space for a few hours the carbon dioxide levels would peak at 1500-1800 ppm.  At levels above 1000 ppm tiredness, increased yawning, and headaches become problematic. Once the plants were in full foliage, during the afternoons levels of less than 150 ppm were being measured in the classroom.  This means that oxygen was being produced, which was great for the students' blood flow, energy levels, and mood.  Visitors to the classroom would always comment on how fresh the classroom smelled and most people would hover around the plants while taking deep breaths of rich oxygen.  (Prior to the plant project visitors did not usually come and if they did they would get what they needed and leave as quickly as they came in). The plants gave the students a new sense of purpose and allowed them to connect with nature.  This was very calming and therapeutic for them.  Since they wanted to be there, this led to an increase in attendance.  It even got to the point that the students hated missing school, even for a scheduled appointments, as they wanted to check in on their plants!

Indoor Gardening - Healthy Body & Healthy Mind 

The program capped out at 16 students formally registered, and for a good four-year stretch prior to the plant project the daily attendance ranged between two and eight, as many had issues with attendance and would eventually drop out of school.  Once the plant project had begun, the therapeutic effects became apparent as there was an almost overnight difference in attendance rates.  Productivity, attendance, and mood in both students and staff increased dramatically and within a short time frame the program reached its cap on the maximum number of students allowed in the program. When visitors came to the classroom I also saw a difference in the social anxiety among the students as they would give unprompted tours to complete strangers and they spoke with both passion and excitement about what they were doing. 

The other health benefits came from integrating courses in agriculture and health. The students were shown documentaries that included The Future of Food, Forks Over Knives, Super Size Me, Food Inc. and Fast Food Nation.  The education on healthy eating had a beneficial effect on their mental and physical health. The typical lunch prior to the plant project was bought from a convenience store located less than half a block away from school.  Lunches usually consisted of energy drinks, large sodas, slurpees, hot dogs, and various forms of potato chips.  The lunches and food choices that the students made had no nutritional value and would cause them to crash soon after they ate.  I saw first-hand how poor nutrition had a direct impact on mental health as well.  Our bodies need proper nutrition that is full of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals.  Processed foods with high fructose corn syrup and energy drinks with a huge amount of caffeine would artificially energize their brains for a short time but then they would pay the price.  I suspected that many of students in the program also suffered from adrenal fatigue due to their traumas and the unhealthy nutrition choices made their energy levels even worse.  After viewing the documentaries and growing various plants that were fashioned into healthy salads, a healthy lunch replaced the convenience store fare.  The salads contained various types of organic heirloom lettuce, fresh herbs such as dill, parsley, oregano, and basil, cherry tomatoes, field tomatoes, cucumbers, and sweet red or green peppers.  Once the students had their first 'salad day' from the fresh produce that they grew themselves, it became something that they looked forward to and they would often ask when they could have another one.  As the agriculture program grew over time we were able to get to the point where we had enough produce to feed the students several times a week and sell the leftovers, which supported the continued growth of the project.

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Can plant therapy with full spectrum grow lights cure depression?

Plant therapy and light therapy are therapeutic approaches to help people with depression and anxiety.  I can't say that it cures people, but I can absolutely say with confidence that I witnessed a tremendous improvement, healing, and transformation of students in my program. I literally witnessed students who could not function in public settings became capable of talking to strangers.  I saw smiles, laughter, and an increase in attendance.  I saw healthier eating, which is often hard to sell to teenagers! These were students who put in  extra effort to help sell excess harvest in order to keep the project going, students who started to take initiative, who had increased self-esteem and increased confidence levels.  Most importantly I saw students who were passionate about the project because it brought meaning to their lives.  In my opinion, one of the best prescriptions available for depression is finding something that gives you purpose and that you can be passionate about.   As the students became educated in the agriculture courses and documentaries in the health program, they also started to teach others about what they were learning. This was the proof that I was looking for, for when one starts teaching others with excitement, it is clear he or she has found both passion and meaning in something. The hands-on approach to education with plant therapy led to better-functioning students, and as a result I saw the graduation rates increase from less than 30% to more than 95% within a few years!

If you are interested in introducing an Agriculture Program or Plant Therapy to your school, please contact us as we would love to help you with your project. Click Here if you would like to read more about fundraising through indoor agriculture. We would love to show you the possibilities!

Classroom after adding in plants - Back corner student lounge