Science debunks the myth that plants "steal our oxygen" while we sleep.

Choosing the best plants for our home is no small matter. Before greening up the living room, terrace, or any other room in the house, you need to be clear about which ones to choose and choose them based on the weather conditions where you live, whether indoors or outdoors. In the latter case, they fill the space where they're planted with life, reduce stress, and provide oxygen . Of course, you need to know which one to choose, where to place it, and how to care for it.

To do without them is to forgo advantages and benefits. Several studies demonstrate the positive benefits of growing them indoors in the spaces where we spend much of our time. It would suffice to mention that they improve our concentration and reduce stress levels , but there's more.

In 1989, NASA conducted a project to investigate ways to clean the air in sealed environments like space stations. They concluded that several plants, in addition to absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen through photosynthesis, also helped eliminate organic pollutants such as benzene, formaldehyde, and trichloroethylene.

In this context, we've been told on numerous occasions that we shouldn't have them in our bedrooms with the excuse that "they steal our oxygen." However, we now know that this isn't actually the case. Science has proven this to be a myth : the amount of oxygen they absorb is insignificant for human health.

In the absence of light, plants stop photosynthesizing and switch to cellular respiration, a process in which they absorb oxygen and expel carbon dioxide. According to calculations by scientist Martin Gent in the book "70 Curious Questions About Science" (Siruela, 2013), over the course of a single night, a person consumes between 2% and 3% of the oxygen in a closed 20 m² room , while a potted plant consumes barely 0.1%. Compared to sleeping with another person or a pet, the impact of a plant is minimal.

And according to Alberto Romero Blanco, a biologist at the University of Alcalá, in an article published in The Conversation , our bedrooms are not airtight compartments, but rather ventilated rooms in which oxygen is constantly being renewed. However, even if we slept in completely closed rooms, plants would not pose a serious risk . "There is no plant large enough to fit in our bedroom and match the amount of oxygen consumed by a human being," he points out.

"To achieve the same impact as a normal one-hour ventilation, it would be necessary to place between 100 and 1,000 plants in a single room," indicates a review published in Nature by Michael Waring of Drexel University (USA), following more than 190 experiments. There's no need to be alarmed by this unfounded myth. There's plenty of oxygen for everyone . The key, as experts remind us, is to keep the room ventilated at least once a day for an hour, a sufficient measure to guarantee the air quality in any home.