Six things humans can learn from plants this spring
Our pal, James Wong aka @botanygeek shares all...
After months and months of monochrome, it’s so exciting to see the world around me bursting back into colour and life. But how do plants know how to ‘wake up’ again after months of winter dormancy? It’s a simple question with a surprisingly complex answer which helps us understand our own health and wellbeing…
1. Plants are essentially biological solar panels
We might not always think about them this way, but plants capture the radiation emitted by the nuclear reactions in our nearest star. Plants come in hundreds of thousands of shapes and forms - in order to adapt to every niche from underwater seagrass meadows to snow-covered mountain tops - but pretty much all of them are aiming to do the exact same thing.
2. Plants go into a wintry state of suspended animation (sound familiar?)
In winter, as sunlight levels dip, the energy benefit plants are able to gain from these lower levels of light starts to decline. The energy captured is actually lower than what’s needed to maintain their tissues. Lower light is also often accompanied by freezing temperatures which can damage their cells, meaning that most plants have found it worth their while to ditch delicate structures like leaves and retreat into more durable structures like branches or even underground.
“As spring days get longer and lighter, rather like plants, it can have an enormous impact on our energy levels, immune systems and our mental health, much of which we are only beginning to uncover!”
3. Some plants have a ‘body clock’?!
Some plants appear to have temperature sensors attached to chemical clocks. Only daring to emerge from slumber when a genetically predetermined number of hours below a certain temperature have passed. Some react directly to rising temperatures, as the genes responsible for growth are only ‘switching on’ by warmth. Others just need the right light intensity to be reached for a long enough period, and yet others have a ‘body clock’ that is triggered by a specific number of hours of darkness each night.
4. Our bodies react to light levels in the same way plants do.
Light levels detected through our eyes are one of the key ways our own body clocks function, determining everything from how our tissues heal, to how we detox our cells, to even our state of mood. Exposure to low amounts of UV light is also essential to our bodies generating Vitamin D, which is created when our skin detects sunlight. As little as 20mins of sunlight on your forearms a day is all you need.
“As Vitamin D is found in such trace amounts in most foods, it is considered essentially impossible to access from diet alone, so a walk in the spring sunshine can be great for your health for a range of reasons.”
5. Plants are also vulnerable to UV rays & free radical attack - just like us!
Just like in plants the very sunlight that is so vital to our health can also come with downsides. Ironically despite being fuelled by UV rays, the cells of plants are also highly vulnerable to the injury that UV light can produce, resulting in DNA damage, scorching and free radical attack. That’s why over millions of years plants have evolved a huge range of ingenious strategies to defend themselves against excess sunlight. For example, many have created antioxidants that help mop up free radicals produced by blue light. If you see new leaves in spring, for example, with a reddish or pink tinge that they lose in summer as they turn green, those are antioxidant pigments (the same ones that give blueberries their colour) that act as biological sunscreen.
“As 80% of human skin aging has been attributed to excess sun exposure and 80% of that occurs through daily life, I am fascinated with what we can learn from the botanical world to defend our own skin the way plants do theirs.”
6. Humans can harness the same bioactive compounds as plants - woot!
The great thing is that as humans we are able to harness these UV-protecting bioactive compounds in plants, so their protection becomes our protection. I am proud to be part of a team that has chosen blueberry seed oil, for example, for its ability to counter the skin-damaging effects of blue light in our new Liz Earle Environmental Defence Cream SPF25.
Protect your face on wildy beautiful jaunts
Receive 10% discount when you spend £10 or more at Liz Earle’s online shop. Use the coupon code LE10GJ. Enjoy!
Fun Flower Fact!
Did you know that other plants ditch chemical protection in favour of physical shields that act as mirrors to reflect UV rays back?
You will often see this as a silvery sheen or white fuzzy layer coating plants that grow in sun exposed sites like deserts, beaches and mountain tops. The soft, white, downy coating that makes Edelweiss flower white, for example, is a physical sunscreen. Inspired by this mirror defence, our Environmental Defence Cream SPF25 also harnesses the power of naturally occurring minerals like zinc oxide to shield your skin like an Edelweiss flower does, without blocking pores or causing irritation as can happen with synthetic alternatives. Crucially however, unlike with these flowers, we have carefully formulated our mix to be essentially invisible once applied, with no ‘ashen’ appearance.
Enjoy the wonders of nature
Choose from one of our self guided Liz Earle routes and enjoy the wonders of nature all around you, protected by the power of nature at the same time.
