When you live a stressful life – whether this is due to work, relationships, or social life – sometimes all you want to do is collapse at home and destress. Our environment is essential to our mental wellbeing. For this reason, ensuring your home is a soothing environment is key.
But what triggers that relaxed feeling in our brains? Plus, how can each room in your house be used to imbue you with a sense of peace?
Living Room
Your living room is likely the place you spend most of your free time at home. Therefore, it’s essential that you make this a soothing atmosphere.
Focus on comfort
Considering a large portion of your time is spent in your living room, it’s key to focus on comfort. Soft furnishings like throw blankets and cushions can work to create this atmosphere. Even curtains can help to achieve this.
If you do a lot of reading in this room or like to binge-watch TV after work, ensuring you have a comfy couch is essential. Depending on what makes you feel soothed, your sofa might be small and squat, enveloping you in cushions, or long and deep so you can stretch out on it. If you want the best of both worlds, getting a footstool can give you that option to stretch while maintaining the comfort of close pillows.
Speaking of binge-watching TV, creating comfort in a room can often relate to the relaxing pursuits you follow. Investing in these things that bring you comfort is absolutely worthwhile. Whether you feel relaxed by doing a thousand-piece puzzle or by watching boxsets of 24, work these activities into your life.
Fill it with things you love
When we look at things we love, we feel relaxed. Therefore, it makes sense to surround yourself with these things. Depending on what you love, the way you implement this into your space will change.
You might love something that is simple to work into your living room, like books. If you are a voracious reader, add in some bookshelves to make yourself feel at home. If you love art, hang some up on the walls, or decorate the surfaces with sculptures.
But the decor doesn’t have to be this literal. Maybe you love a specific place – like a beach you visited on holiday. It’s easy to incorporate pieces of this place into your design, whether a hung photograph or decorative shells. Maybe you’ll even paint the room to echo the colors of that place.
If you are a pop culture fan, finding aesthetic prints on Etsy is a great way to display this love while avoiding a room looking tacky.
By surrounding yourself with things you love, you’ll find in no time that you feel calm in your surroundings.
Bathroom
It might not be immediately apparent to you that your bathroom is an essential room for destressing. But think about it: lots of calming practices are done in the bathroom. Showering or bathing, getting ready for the day, and getting ready for bed.
Making changes to your bathroom can either be big or small. You could call a plumber in to make significant changes or just add a few items to create a relaxing environment. It all depends on the state your bathroom is currently in.
Taking a bath
If you have a bath, one way to increase the soothing potential of your bathroom is to invest in some bathing products. Bath bombs, bath salts, and bath oils are perfect for a relaxing evening. Then, around your bath, you can create a comfortable atmosphere with candles (scented, obviously) and light music. Finding a waterproof speaker might be wise for that last one.
If you are the kind of person who loves a long bath, there are plenty of bath gadgets that can improve the experience. For example, a bath tray that rests on the sides of the tub can help. These give you a place to put a drink, a candle, or a book to keep you occupied.
Taking this time to yourself can help you to destress. A bath can relax your muscles as well as quiet your mind.
Skincare routine
You probably also use your bathroom for your skincare. It might be the first thing you do when you wake up or the last before you go to bed. These times are essential for relaxation. In the morning, you set your mood for the day, and at night you soothe yourself into a place of rest. Therefore, by setting the atmosphere in your bathroom right, you can influence your mental state both in the daytime and night.
Lighting is key when you are focusing on your skin. In the morning, you might want a bright light to wake you up, whereas, at night, you might want a soft light to soothe you. Therefore, looking into lighting that can be influenced, like smart bulbs that can be controlled from your phone, can help.
It’s also key to create an environment that suggests cleanliness. Clean colors like blues, greens, and whites can look lovely in bathrooms. Decorating with plants can ensure this clean feeling – especially if they are purifying plants. By choosing the right plants, you can actually make the air in your bathroom better for you.
Getting beautiful mirrors for your bathroom will create a soothing atmosphere. It will be great for your skincare, as you can see your own movements better. Filling your bathroom with a mirror will also make it look bigger. This spacious feeling should alleviate the trapping feeling of stress from your day-to-day life.
Bedroom
Good sleep is essential to a relaxed life. If you work a high-pressure, stressful job, sleep is vital for coping with the high stakes and for helping your brain to perform at its best. Even if your job isn’t high stakes, but there is something else stressful in your life, sleep is a great way to alleviate that stress. After a good night’s sleep, you will feel refreshed and better equipped to face the things that are stressing you.
Create a sleepy environment
When you are stressed, it can often be challenging to get to sleep. You toss and turn, thinking things over in your head until it’s the middle of the night and you’ve lost precious hours. By influencing the environment around you, you can try to lift some of these pressures and trick yourself into sleeping.
Starting with the walls, choosing the right wallpaper or paint color can suggest you into sleep. Darker colors, like navy or plum, can induce sleep.
Having soft lighting will help with sleep. Don’t use your overhead light: instead, fill your room with lamps or even fairy lights. By using lots of light sources, the light you receive will be softer and more relaxing.
Then: your bed. For a good night’s sleep, you need a comfortable bed. If you find you are struggling to sleep, look into changing your mattress. The change itself can reset your brain. Plus, if your mattress is more comfortable, you’ll have no choice but to fall immediately asleep.
Make sure you’ve got soft bedding. Depending on the temperature, you could also benefit from a throw blanket to keep you warm. Often a chill can keep you awake, so make sure you are always warm enough.
Write down your thoughts
It can help to keep a notebook by the side of your bed. Before going to bed, write out a list of everything you are stressed about. Also, write a list of things you need to do tomorrow. By getting these thoughts out of your head and onto paper, you can shed them, and hopefully, get a night of better sleep.
Some people also find help in writing in a notebook their dreams as soon as they wake up. Our dreams are our brains processing what’s going on in our lives, so you can often see what is stressing you out when you write them down. If you feel stressed but are not sure what the cause is, this can be a helpful trick.
Keep relaxed from your stressful life
Focusing on self-care and relaxation may feel like a waste when you live a busy life. You have so many things to do; why waste time having a bath? But the truth is that these moments of quiet are essential to mental wellbeing. By taking good care of yourself at home, you are investing in your ability to do a good job the next day.
When you focus on productivity, reminding yourself to take it slow can be tricky. That’s why it is important to make your house a center of relaxation. The aim is to walk in the door and do a big sigh. Yes, I need to relax; you should think, then flop onto the couch and take a break.
However, you decorate your house should suit your needs. If you feel relaxed in walls of bright pink, go for it! Whatever you do, remember to make it feel like you.
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