Your home is your personal sanctuary, and it should be a space that makes you feel inspired and motivated each day. Creating a safe haven that resonates with positive energy is good for your health and a key ingredient to living a happy and fulfilling life.
Below, you’ll find science-backed tips to transform your space into a home full of warmth and happiness. Read on.
a) Get organized
Did you know that the average home contains 300,000 items? All this clutter isn’t just causing disorder in our closets and storage spaces — it’s causing disorder in our brains, too. Clutter subconsciously causes anxiety and stress and can make the simplest tasks, such as falling asleep at night harder.
You can fight these negative impacts by creating an orderly environment at home. Consider donating household items you no longer need to charity to free up some space. For items you can’t part with, find a space for them to live out of eyesight. This will keep the mess off the counters. Hooks can double the storage in your closets by allowing you to take advantage of hanging space.
Rather than doing monthly or annual cleans, make tidying up an everyday habit. Before you leave the house each day, practice putting everything back where you found it. Eventually, this will become second nature, and you won’t even have to think about organizing.
For bigger spaces and deeper cleans, house cleaning services can provide extra support. While they won’t declutter or organize your items for you, they’ll scrub hard to reach areas and leave your house sparkling clean.
Also Read: How To Decorate Your Home According to Zodiac Sign
b) Decorate your home
The next step to creating an inviting home is to curate it with decor that sparks joy or meaning. The objects in our home can evoke emotions, good or bad. You want to make sure the ones you display make you feel comfortable, safe, and even motivated.
Some higher-trafficked rooms, such as the living room, traditionally get more love, but you should challenge yourself to go beyond the obvious spaces and make every room a happy one. While your bedrooms may be full of color and personal belongings, home offices and kitchens should also have art, family photographs, or plants. Bathrooms can be a great area to display simple and proven mood-boosting decor, such as the art of green fields or forests.
c) Utilize natural light
If you position your furniture correctly, the natural light that spills into your home can help you get the expert-recommended 10 to 30 minutes of sunlight each day. Let the Vitamin D pour in by opening curtains and blinds each morning. Position chairs, couches, beds, and other lounge furniture near windows so you can easily soak up the rays. When night time comes, you can then close these for privacy.
Large mirrors are another great way to reflect light throughout your home. By strategically positioning the mirrors to catch sunlight and reflect it into dark-lit areas, you’ll give your space extra sunshine and joy. Home offices and garages are two areas of the home that typically need more sunlight.
Also Read: How Healthy Lawn and Yard Benefit Your Family Health
d) Embrace color
Neutral shades may help your home avoid mismatching, but they can also make a space feel drab and uninviting. We’re not saying you need to ditch light blue walls for neon pink, but rather incorporate pops of color instead. You can do this by hanging paintings, buying bright furniture, hanging plants, and dressing up spaces with objects such as decorative pillows and vases.
Wondering what colors to use? Here’s some science behind the colors in our homes:
- Green and blue are the colors most associated with happiness at home.
- Green prints and patterns help bring joy to hang out spaces such as the living room or dining room.
- Yellow helps stimulate creativity, making it great for craft rooms or studios.
- Muted blues in the bathroom evoke a sense of calm and relaxation.
- Sky blue can help promote productivity and reduce stress, making it a great choice for a home office.
e) Choose a scent
The way your home smells has just as big of an impact on your mood as the way it looks — possibly even more so, given that smells trigger emotions and memories more than any other sense. In addition to moods, the smell can also influence your immune system, mate choice, and hormones.
Here’s some of the science behind home scents:
- Vanilla or light floral is proven to naturally boost moods.
- Lavender can aid in sleep, so use this in the bedroom or bathroom to help unwind at night.
There are a few ways you can bring scents into the home. Candles, for example, are excellent choices for bringing scents into different rooms of the house. Essential oils help eliminate (not just mask) bad odors and can help boost the immune system.
Soaps can bring scent into the bathroom and kitchen, such as delicious-smelling hand soaps and bath salts. There’s even aromatherapy kitchen soap that can turn dishwashing into a relaxing activity rather than an evening chore.
f) Set up outdoor social spaces
Getting outside is also great for your health, so take advantage of the outdoor space on your property by optimizing it for social gatherings.
You can add a deck to give guests a space to socialize. Here, face the outdoor furniture such as chairs and couches towards each other to make commuting easy. An outdoor grill can be a great investment in time for summer, and displaying lights in the backyard helps create an intimate aesthetic when the sunsets.
