Most people assume that interior design choices are primarily based on aesthetics or functionality. In truth, there’s a lot more complexity to interior design, and the way you plan your home has a significant impact on your mental health, influencing your mood, creativity, and so much more.
Ultimately, anything that boosts your mood and relaxes your mind will also improve your physical wellbeing, since stress and anxiety have been linked with unhealthy behaviors and a variety of chronic conditions including high blood pressure and type-2 diabetes.
I’m sharing about this topic of how interior design affects mental health – and how your home can boost wellness – because I’m a bestselling author and happiness researcher. I wrote a book called Happy Habits.
As more health experts have come to this realization, interior design has aroused the interest of neuroscientists and somatic therapists or psychotherapists, prompting closer collaboration with architects and interior designers.
While your home’s design is not going to eliminate the need for therapy, it can make healing and recovery from mental health challenges much easier, whether it’s everyday stress or a traumatic loss.
Your choice of colors is the most obvious factor to consider because there have been numerous studies over the years showing that different colors evoke different emotions. While rich blues and greens are associated with calmness and tranquility, brighter yellows and oranges can evoke feelings of energy and joy.
Soft greens and blues are particularly effective at lowering stress levels, making them great choices for any room that you will mainly use to relax. Here’s a more detailed guide to help you pick colors that boost your mental health.
Lighting is an important consideration for architects and designers because they recognize how it can change the atmosphere of a home completely. Natural lighting is particularly important as some amount of exposure to sunlight is regarded as essential for the synthesis of vitamin D, which in turn affects your mood, lowering the risk of depressive and anxiety disorders.
Researchers have also found that inadequate sunlight exposure increases the risk of cognitive impairment. Depending on where you live, sunlight could be limited and, in such circumstances, you can use soft and warm lighting that closely mimics natural lighting.
While indoor vegetation is no substitute for enjoying the great outdoors, incorporating green spaces into your home design can dramatically boost your mental health. There is plenty of evidence showing that people who spend more time in green spaces, specifically around plants and trees, tend to have lower stress levels and higher levels of satisfaction with life.
You can do this by adding a herb garden, potted plants, and flowers to areas of your home, where you spend most of your time.
One of the most common complaints from people living in cramped urban housing is that they feel trapped and closed in. These feelings are greatly exacerbated by living conditions, making it important to design your home in a manner where there is minimal clutter and better organization.
This allows for greater mental clarity, improves efficiency, and makes it easier to relax and de-stress. An interior designer with experience working with small apartments will be able to help you maximize your space, with features such as strategic lighting, in-built storage, and multifunctional furniture.
You don’t have to be an art aficionado to recognize that paintings, sculptures, and other works of art inspire a range of emotions in people. You can use art in your home to give you a sense of comfort and accomplishment, to motivate you, or to inspire creativity, depending on your preferences.
It’s important that you are involved in the selection of any art pieces because they should resonate with you personally to produce any mental health benefits.
Advances in AI and digital technology during the past decade have been transformed and we have a choice to use these developments in a way that supports mental health.
Not all smart home features are helpful and affordable, but many are. Integrating inexpensive smart lighting systems to intuitively adjust brightness according to the time of day can help strengthen your circadian rhythm, improving sleep quality and mood.
Other technologies can be used to optimize temperature, save energy, lower utility bills, limit noise, and so on, creating a low-stress environment.
If you’re designing your own home from scratch, give window design and placement a lot of thought because they play a huge role in mental health and wellbeing. Aside from the fact that windows influence access to natural light, they also provide you with a view of the outdoors.
Since green spaces and natural surroundings are strongly associated with improved mental health, try to position windows so that they overlook trees, gardens, or other natural surroundings, rather than man-made structures.
Get more tips to live a life you truly love! Check out my bestselling book Think Happy!
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