Our homes are where we go to get away from the stress of life. Still, it’s not always easy to make your home a place where you feel safe, at peace, and happy. We can let the stresses of life get to us, which can hurt our mental health and make it hard to enjoy our time at home.
With the right ideas, you can make changes to your home that will help your mental health. From getting rid of clutter to adding art that makes you happy, these tips can help you create an ideal living space that will make you feel better.
1. Declutter
First of all, getting rid of things you don’t need is a great way to make your space feel better and improve your mood. That’s because clutter can have a huge effect on mental health. You might not think that the piles of clothes in your bedroom, the piles of junk on your table, and the extra furniture you bought on sale are hurting you. But the truth is that these things can make you feel stressed out and tired.
Clutter has a way of messing with our minds, distracting us, and making it hard to concentrate. To avoid these problems, build a home that doesn’t have too much clutter and gives you more space. Here are a few easy ways to start:
- Kondo-style, get rid of things that don’t “spark joy.”
- Organize and make the most of built-in storage and closet space.
- Consider renting a storage unit for things you want to keep but don’t want taking up space in your home.
From here on out, it will be easier to keep your home clean and free of clutter. You can go even further by doing home improvement projects that add built-in or pull-out storage spaces. In turn, you can keep a cleaner space and a clearer head.
2. Bring The Light In
Next, look for ways to make your home brighter with natural light. Our health and well-being depend on sunlight. Sunlight boosts the production of serotonin, which is important for keeping a healthy mind and a good reason to move to a sunny state.
But not everyone can just move to a place like Austin, Texas, where it’s sunny 300 days out of the year. Instead, you should focus on getting as much natural light as possible into your home to make it healthier and brighter. Here are some ways to design your home to take advantage of natural light:
- Use light, bright colors to reflect the light that comes in.
- Align mirrors with windows to make more light spread through your space.
- Keep all of the windows clean.
These design choices will make your space brighter without making you use more electricity. Also, the natural power of sunlight will improve your mental health by making your brain make more serotonin and vitamin D.
3. Add Plenty Of Greenery
Another crazy way to improve your mood through design is to bring nature inside. This can help your mental health in a lot of ways, like reducing stress and making you feel better because caring for living things is often therapeutic. Biophilic (nature-loving) home design is a strong trend for 2022 and beyond because it brings us back to our roots (pun intended).
But there needs to be a balance. You want the plants in your home to improve the space without being too much or dangerous for your pets. Here are some safe and pleasant ways to add greenery:
- Do some research to find out which plants are safe for animals if you have pets. Yucca is a common plant that is very dangerous to cats and dogs.
- For a modern look, use plants with interesting shapes, like cacti and snake plants.
- Set up your plants to make the design you want while making sure they get enough sun.
With these tips, you can fill your space with plants that make you feel calm and at ease. By using them, you can make your home a relaxing place where you, your pets, and your plants can all thrive.
4. Use Mood-Enhancing Colors
Don’t forget that color can improve both the look of your home and your mental health in it. Colors in paint can help you feel better by making you feel calm or even giving you energy as you go about your day. But if you want to use these effects in your home design, you need to know more about how colors affect mood.
Even though how you feel about colors can depend a lot on your personal and cultural background, certain tones tend to make people feel a certain way. Check out how these colors make you feel:
- For a relaxing or “biophilic” feel, use blues, greens, and neutral colors.
- Think about purple, yellow, and white to get some ideas.
Try bold colors like reds, oranges, and yellows for a lively atmosphere that might help people think of new ideas and start a conversation.
Find out how different colors of paint make you feel, and then create a space that gives you the energy and creativity you need to keep your mental health in good shape.
5. Find Art That Makes You Happy
The next step in making a home look good is to add art. Our spaces show who we are and remind us of what’s important to us. Art in these places can make us feel a certain way and help us pay attention to what’s most important. What we choose to hang on our walls is a part of who we are, whether it’s a picture of a friend or family member or a huge abstract painting.
So, hang up art in your home that makes you happy. This tip is too general to be used to make specific suggestions. Everyone has their own tastes and ways of doing things. Think about how much you can spend and let the art speak for you and your space. The result will be an environment that helps you remember who you are and become (and show off) your best self.
Use these tips to make your home a place that makes you feel better. From getting rid of clutter to expressing yourself through art, you can make your home a more comfortable and appealing place where you can truly relax and get ideas.
