Healthy Spaces: 5 Interior Design Ideas to Improve Your Mental Health
Interior design is not about creating a “Pinterest-perfect” house but rather a way to help you connect with your home so that it becomes your safe haven. Design choices, whether it’s color, furniture or lighting can completely change the way you feel when you enter a room. For instance, if you paint a small room white or grey, it can make it feel cold and depressing but a sunny yellow would make it vibrant and a soft green color would make it soothing and relaxing. A good interior design can completely transform your home and make you feel good from the moment you step through the door.
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5 Interior Design Ideas to Improve Your Mental Health
Your bedroom is one of the most important rooms in your house as this is a place that you associate with rest and relaxation. Turn your bedroom into a soothing space as this will help reduce stress and improve your mental health. This will also make it the ideal place to practice meditation and other de-stressing techniques. You can try mind-body therapies such as somatic therapy which allows you to release any stress and tension that you have in your body. When your space is designed specifically for you, it will help your mind and body relax. Here are a few interior design ideas that will improve your mental health:
1. Increase Natural Light
Vitamin D is called the sunshine vitamin because when our skin is exposed to sunlight, it produces this vitamin. Studies show that vitamin D plays a role in the regulation of multiple hormones including melatonin and serotonin. Melatonin is the hormone that regulates sleep while serotonin is the “happy” hormone that makes us feel emotionally stable and happy. In addition to this, increasing natural light in your home will make it appear more spacious which will also have a positive impact on your mental health. Strategic window placement will help to increase the natural light in various areas of your house.
2. Choose the Right Colors
While red or black may be your favorite color, it’s unlikely that you would want to walk into a home that is painted in those colors. There’s a reason for that – colors have the ability to impact the way we feel about a space. For instance, a study on the impact of color found that participants described rooms painted with warm colors as exciting and stimulating while the same room painted with cool colors was described as spacious and restful. Soft pastels work well in the living room as they go well with a variety of décor so that you can add personal touches to this space and make it welcoming, calm, and homey. Muted greens or blues create a relaxing space and are ideal for bedrooms while yellow works well for the kitchen. Using the right colors and the correct shades in each room will go a long way in creating a home that makes you feel comfortable and relaxed.
3. Create an Indoor Garden
There are plenty of studies that prove that spending more time in nature helps to reduce stress and improve overall mood and mental health. Even if you don’t have the outdoor space, you can still create a thriving indoor garden using houseplants. Some houseplants like pothos plants don’t require direct sunlight and can live on a shelf or even in a green corner. Peace lily flowers with their white flowers on tall stems provide greenery with a touch of elegance. If you have
4. Reduce Clutter
Keeping your home organized and tidy can take practice but it is absolutely worth it! A cluttered room will make you feel stressed and frustrated and have a negative impact on your mental health. Sometimes we don’t know where or how to start decluttering so we ignore the problem and leave it for another day but this results in clutter piling up in different areas. You can get small storage containers to store things that you do not use very often and slide these under your bed. If you have items that you need to use on a regular basis but they don’t have a permanent spot, you can get a cabinet to store them.
5. Personalize your Home
Personalizing your house goes a long way in turning it into your home – a place that reflects not just your aesthetic preferences but also who you are as an individual. There are plenty of ways to personalize your home whether it’s memorabilia, photographs, artwork, rugs or even themed cushions. Be mindful of your choices and don’t try to fill every space or your items will just get lost in a sea of clutter. Each of us has different tastes so if you found an online image that you like, don’t try to blindly recreate it but use it as inspiration for your room so that you can make it your own.
