Flower Power: The Secret to Happiness & Wellness with Jill Brooke
Hey there, flower lovers! If you’ve ever stopped to admire a beautiful bouquet or smiled at a fresh bloom, there’s a reason for that—flowers have scientifically proven benefits for our health and happiness! On the latest episode of The Debbie Nigro Show, we dove deep into the magic of flowers with Jill Brooke, founder and editorial director of Flower Power Daily.
Jill, a floral historian and wellness advocate, shared some eye-opening insights about how flowers can:
Reduce stress by lowering cortisol levels
Calm the mind (Lavender has the same soothing compounds as Valium)
Boost happiness just by being in the room
Teach life lessons—resilience, patience, and adaptability
Why Flowers Are a Wellness Essential
Turns out, even medical experts like Dr. Andrew Weil have long recommended keeping fresh flowers at home for mental and emotional well-being. And guess what? Hotels, restaurants, and even supermarkets strategically place flowers at entrances because they make people feel good—so good that they even spend more money!
The Bud Vase Trick: Small Gesture, Big Impact
Want to brighten someone’s day without breaking the bank? Jill suggests buying mini bud vases (you can grab 48 on Amazon!) and gifting a single bloom. The sentiment matters more than the size, and it’s an easy way to spread love on Valentine’s Day, Galentine’s Day, or just because.
So, the next time you need a mood boost—or want to make someone smile—grab a flower!
Enjoy this podcast of my live conversation with Jill Brooke on The Debbie Nigro Show. If you’d rather read than listen the transcript of the audio is below.
Check out Flower Power Daily for more floral inspiration!
And stay tuned for Jill’s upcoming book, The Wisdom of Flowers!
Happy Valentine’s & Galentine’s Day! Spread the flower love!
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
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And now, back to the Debbie Nigro Show.
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Okay, we’re talking about flower power today and how flowers make everybody happy. It’s been proven scientifically. So if you’re thinking about sending a bouquet this week, do it because nobody’s not going to smile. Hi, everybody. I’m Debbie Nigro. I invited my girlfriend, Jill Brooke, to join me today on the show here on Wellness Wednesday. She’s the founder and editorial director at Flower Power Daily. And I wanted to talk about how flowers have an effect on your health and wellness. Hey, Jill.
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0:00:48
Hello Debbie! I’m so happy to hear from you and also to talk flowers, to spread the, you know, the cortisol, which is the stress hormone, and also activates a sense of calm. This is a very, very important study because it confirmed what intuitively we all know. Back in the day, do you remember Andrew Weil who would say, what’s the eight ways for optimal health and he is the one that advocated salmon and blueberries and everything else, but he also included live flowers. Really? And that, yes, and was such a proponent of having flowers in
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your home because of what it does for you mentally. Okay, I have a question for you, Jill. Okay, I can’t wait to hear it.
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The question is, since all you do all day long, since you’ve been on CNN and did all that stuff in your past, involves flowers and the world of flowers, are you constantly freaking happy?
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I don’t think anyone is constantly freaking happy. I think what we do need is something in our toolbox that we know what do we do when our spirits deflate, when life feels heavy and you need to squeeze joy somewhere. In my toolbox, which is why I started doing all this research on flowers and now I’m a floral historian, is for me the second when I’m not feeling good, I immediately go either to a nursery, to a flower store. I make sure I buy flowers and just look at them.
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Do you remember the artist, Georgia O’Keeffe?
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She was not the fifth girl.
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She was the number one selling female painter for 50 years. So, you know, the male art critics said, oh, the way she does orchids and the way she does flowers, it’s so central. But that wasn’t it at all. She wanted people to absolutely stop and just look at the intricacies of a flower, these living life forces. And what they do is just by looking at it, it calms you. And people think of flowers as just being decorative, but they’re such a tool to help you with mental health.
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And also physical health.
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I mean, you want to hear an amazing study?
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Well, I wanted to talk to you about lavender, because I read that article you wrote, how lavender may have the same healing effect as Valium. Do you remember writing that article? Because that was reported. Tell me about that.
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Well, when you take any synthetic drugs, of course, to manage whatever our mental health problems are, there can be side effects. But when certain scents enter your stream, and it immediately calms you. It turns out that a lot of the components that are in Valium are the same ones in Lavender. So instead of possibly having some of those side effects,
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not that there are many, I’m not saying that there are, but everybody reacts to them differently, but smelling and inhaling that scent of Lavender, it just immediately transports you and the whole idea is to calm your brain activity.
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Absolutely.
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And, you know, all the different things that it does and that is what flowers do and they do it so effectively.
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Yeah, I was thinking as, you know, we were going to talk today about all the places that walk into where flowers are prominent and how much effort and money hotels for their lobbies you know corporate offices and restaurants how much money they invest in flowers so that when you walk in they want you to have that feeling of happiness that’s very big money.
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0:05:33
And supermarkets too though now they have found that if they have if you’ve noticed, the flowers are being sold right near the entrance because people feel happier and they end up spending more money and it creates an ambience of feeling good and realizing because don’t forget, flowers are also the messengers of hope resilience and Whatever you’re feeling when you look at a flower You know this and I think that right now people question
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Are they sentient because you know if you think about it They’re there and still on the ground and yet they have this force field around them that protects them They know how to deal with whatever the environment gives you and how to adapt and even change your DNA. What that means is that flowers teach you so many lessons and that’s the book that’s coming out later this year that I wrote about, The Wisdom of Flowers.
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They teach you about patience. They teach you about resilience, they teach their medicinal cures are ancient. And what we’re finding now is that a lot of the synthetic drugs aren’t as effective as the actual flowers from the earth. A matter of fact, what I was just going to share Adalia, this incredible nun and scientist out of California, really believed that there was something medicinal in Adalia.
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Year after year, she kept on researching and researching, and they just found that within the Dahlia is a component which could potentially be a cancer cure, and especially for MS. Wow, that’s very big news.
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It is really big news.
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So, the idea of flowers just being decorative, it teaches you to be in the moment. It teaches you to appreciate the beauty that still exists in your life, no matter what else is going on, because it’s unassailable beauty, it meets the ugly of the world, and it wins.
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Let me tell you, yesterday I went over to Costco because I bought tires there and I got a five year warranty and I wanted to put the air in my tires and whatever. So I ended up going into the store and as soon as I walked in, they have a huge flower display. First of all, they have all the red roses that you could possibly imagine at the best price I’ve ever seen.
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And there was a woman standing there specifically they set up a flower section With all kinds of vases and gifts and I literally started to walk by and I went back and I just stopped and I just Smiled I said, oh, this is great. I Physically stopped to take in the moment because it was just so gorgeous. So it does without you even trying Make an impact on your on your brain on your body on your mood everything It just you know, it’s something I want to talk about and if you look at my phone Joe, I have
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I’m with you. I pay attention to these things now. It sounds a little goofy, but I’m with you. I’m with you. I’m with you. I’m with you.
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It sounds a little goofy, but I’m totally aware. What’s going on with the flower business this week? If you can just give me an update, what do you know about supply demand?
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940 million stems of roses have just arrived in Miami to be distributed everywhere, because Miami is the epicenter now of all roses. Only 10% are from LA and what happens is American farmers can’t grow the quantity needed because of warmer weather in Ecuador and Columbia. They all come from there.
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So we have roses all over but the average price is going to be expensive. Like out of curiosity, how much were they for you at Trader Joe’s?
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Well, I didn’t buy them because they were red roses and I wasn’t quite ready to give red roses to anybody yesterday. But it was $17.99 for a dozen. I thought, oh, I don’t think anybody could do better than that.
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Well, they can’t because, you know, they access all the farms. But this is the Oscars for local flower stores who, you know, create designs and, you know, send out the flowers. And the average in the United States is $90 for a bouquet.
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Yeah. I mean, these weren’t long stem roses. This was just red roses, you know, cut in a little vase. But they had a lot of other things there, $59, $60. Obviously they buy in bulk so they can get a better price, but I never suspected Costco to be a location where you would think to go to buy roses for somebody or flowers for
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somebody, just throwing it out.
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Well, everybody loves flowers and they’re also not only for these markets that it makes money, but it makes people happy. And if you have something that makes people happy just to see it, like a can of Goya beans is not going to make you happy, a bouquet of flowers, you just stop. And that’s what the study from Japan said called soft fascination. It doesn’t require anything.
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It doesn’t require even engagement. Being around this life force called plants and flowers actually connects us to something bigger than ourselves and it creates harmony in our lives. And that is why there is not one culture on the entire planet that doesn’t respond the same way to flowers.
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And it’s why we send them for all the different reasons. One to give comfort when somebody passes. One to acknowledge a happy occasion when a baby arrives for example. I like the idea and you mentioned it in your blog about sending flowers to a senior to brighten their day and then this week you know besides Valentine’s Day, it’s Galentine’s Day, it’s so great to just send a girlfriend who loves flowers, right?
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That would really blow her head. It would just be great and very unexpected and a big surprise.
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And also because of cost, here is a suggestion I have for your listeners. On Amazon, you can get 48 Bud Vases, literally, sent to you, right? And then just one flower has the same impact as a dozen. It’s the thought that counts. It’s letting someone know you matter.
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And what I do and am doing today is that I literally have right now on my counter all these flowers and all these Bud Vases that I am going to give to my friends and I’m also having a Galentine’s lunch which was actually started in 2010 by Parks and Recreation said, why don’t we just gather our girlfriends?
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Right. And it really, really picked up because not everybody has a loved one in their life and they don’t want to feel bad about Valentine’s Day is to celebrate people that you love. And in the Greek language, unlike English, there are different words for the love that you have for your friends, for your siblings, for your parents, for romantic love.
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And we don’t need to trust, you know, an aunt that has been really nice to you, somebody, a colleague at work who helps you out. It’s giving them a little thoughtful gift of a Budweiser with a flower. It says, I see you, I appreciate you, you matter. And so much negativity is around us right now. We need to lead with love.
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And these small acts of kindness really matter.
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That’s really nice. I like the Budweiser idea because then you could just buy a whole bunch and they’re very inexpensive. And then you just buy a bunch of flowers and put one in each. That’s just a really nice idea.
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How come I didn’t think of that? I’m glad you did.
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And have them always around, because what happens is that you will always use them. I can’t tell you, Deb, how often I go through them. And you go to someone’s house for dinner, you bring a little Bud Voss, and it just minimizes costs,
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but it doesn’t minimize impact.
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Okay, can you do me one favor after you finish your bud bozzes? Can you take a picture and send them to me?
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Sure.
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Because I want to see what an expert flower girl would put inside a little bud bozze. Okay, and copy you. Okay, you got it. I have no clue. I have no clue. Jill, so nice talking to you. Thank you for talking beautiful flowers with me today
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and I hope that brightened everybody’s day. Flower Power Daily, Jill is the editor-in-chief, she’s the founder, you might want to check it out. Sign up for her newsletter, it’s fantastic. And good luck on the book, I didn’t know you have a book coming out. You’ll have to come back when you get it ready.
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Can’t wait, I would love to do that, though.
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All right, you have an open invite. Thank you, Jill Brooke.
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Have a great day, my friend.
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Much love to everyone.
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Okay, happy Valentine’s Day, happy Valentine’s Day. Come on back, more to come on Debbie Nigro’s Wellness Wednesday edition of the show. .
