Bring Nature Indoors: The Benefits of Wood

view of treetops from below looking up into sunny sky

Bring Nature Indoors: The Benefits of Wood

“Nothing is more powerful than nature.” 

-Dr. Guenther Amann-Jennson
Creator and CEO, SAMINA

In the aftermath of severe storms here and abroad, while wildfires rage and the earth shakes with tremors, it is impossible to ignore Nature’s immense capability to destroy.  Its capacity to heal, however, is just as great—though easier to overlook in our daily lives.

The benefits and healing that Nature brings are of a gentler, more subtle quality. Modern lifestyles can make it easy to become disconnected, while we have become largely separated from nature in its raw state. Many of us now live in urban forests of concrete and glass but our earth still has a greater effect on us than we might think.

Healing Properties of Natural Wood

As modern as our surroundings might be, far away from trees and forests, nature’s healing touch remains in our homes, sometimes in the most unexpected forms. Take, for instance, your heirloom hardwood armoire. Surprised to learn your furniture has healing properties? According to scientific research, having wooden furniture or accents in our home, if not pressure-treated or laden with chemicals, can affect us for the better. It may not look much like the forest it came from, but your wood furniture can have some surprising health effects.  Wood is a naturally antibacterial surface, partially due to the volatile compounds it contains.

Anti-bacterial Properties

Dr. Tiina Vainio-Kaila, a biotechnology researcher at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, has extensively studied the properties of wood. She was involved in a study concerning the bacterial survival rate on raw wood versus glass and came to some interesting results:

“When the amounts of bacterial growth on different surfaces were cultured and compared in a laboratory, both e. coli and listeria bacteria gradually died on the wood surface but survived on the glass plate serving as a control.

Even more surprisingly,

Wood extracts have also been found to be reasonably effective against hospital bacteria… Many of the dozens of different wood extracts have been found to have antibacterial properties as the lignin that binds the fibers together has an antibacterial effect. In addition, wood surfaces dry quickly; this dryness puts bacteria at a disadvantage.”[i]

According to a similar study, harmful bacteria levels decreased significantly faster on pine and oak wood than plastic, because of their natural properties and potent essences:

The survival of two hygienically relevant bacteria, Esche-richia coli pIE639 and Enterococcus faecium, was followed on wooden sawdust of seven different European woods (pine, spruce, larch, beech, maple, poplar, and oak) versus polyethylene chips…The survival of the bacteria on wood was dependent on various factors such as the wood species, the type of the inoculated bacterium, the ambient temperature, and humidity. The bacteria…decreased fastest on pine followed by oak compared to the other woods and plastic… The presented study shows that pine and oak exhibit substantially better hygienic performance than plastic and indicates an antibacterial effect caused by a combination of the hygroscopic properties of wood and the effect of wood extractives.”[ii]

Stress-reducing Properties

Not only is wood naturally antibacterial, but it may help to reduce stress.  In a 2010 study, people subjected to a stressful task in an office setting showed less sympathetic nervous activity (lowered fight-or-flight response) when wood was added to the environment—although, at first glance, they could not be further away from nature’s calming influence:

“This study provides evidence that wood provides stress-reducing effects similar to the well-studied effect of exposure to nature in the field of environmental psychology. The practical implication of this effect is that wood may be able to be applied indoors to provide stress reduction.”[iii]

Less stress and bacteria in your bed!

What better place to have a naturally antibacterial, stress-reducing material than where you sleep? That is why the top recommendation for the SAMINA healthy sleep system is a bed frame made from solid, sustainably sourced, natural hardwood. SAMINA brings the best of the outdoors indoors for your healthy sleep.

We invite you to bring a bit of the forest into your home and explore the Pummer line of organic, master-crafted bed frames today. All are made with 100% FSC-certified hardwoods and designed to sleep inclined or not and are made exclusively for the SAMINA healthy sleep system. In case you didn’t already know, the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) makes sure that forests are responsibly managed with more than 380 million acres of certified forests under their system including more than 150 million acres in the United States and Canada.

We also have a preferred partner that shares our values for environmental protection, respect for nature, and natural health principles. Luxlet is an Italian line of custom designer bed frames that you can assemble yourself without tools. You’ll have peace of mind knowing the Luxlet line is made without chemicals or metals to interfere with your naturally healthy sleep.

You may not be able to sleep under the trees tonight, but you can be resting on vibrant, naturally-finished wood with the Pummer bed frames for SAMINA—we bring the forest to you!

 

Citations:

[i] “The antibacterial properties of wood should be leveraged in construction.” Woodproducts.fi, Published Friday, September 21, 2018, View Here

[ii] Milling, Annette. Wulf, Alfred. Kehr, Rolf Dieter. Smalla, Kornelia. Abstract of “Survival of bacteria on wood and plastic particles: Dependence on wood species and environmental conditions.” ResearchGate, View Here

[iii] Fell, David Robert.  Abstract of “Wood in the human environment: restorative properties of wood in the built indoor environment.” UBC, View Here

 

 

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