Specifically, what should your furniture, literally, feel like?

We tend not to think too much about what a design option feels like when we’re pondering choices available to us—but what we feel with our skin has a powerful effect on how we think and behave—and not just if what we’re feeling is itchy, icky, or sticky.

Humans find soft textures, like flannels soothing to touch and the more textures that get added to a space the higher our energy levels go, more textures means more information that we need to process.

Rougher textures, ones that offer even the slightest resistance to our fingertips are unpleasant to touch with our hands and can lead us to feel stressed.  When we can feel a rough texture underfoot we go on alert, looking for danger ahead or around.

Both men and women have the same number of nerve endings at the ends of their fingers and since women’s fingers are generally smaller than men’s they have a more acute sense of touch.  That means that a husband may sit in a chair and believe it to be tremendously comfy but when a wife decides to give the same chair a try, she may find the armrests on the same chair unpleasantly rough.

When our fingertips have recently touched something warm recently, we have much warmer feelings about other people, which can be quite a handy thing in many situations.  There are also materials that warm quickly under our touch and then retain that heat, which can be wonderfully handy.

Humans have very positive feelings toward shiny surfaces, probably because pools of water often have shiny surfaces.  Shiny can be bad glare-wise, however, and experiencing glare is very stressful for people.  It can often be confusing—for example, people often interpret shiny floors as slippery, even when they’re not at all.  Shiny can also have negative effects on acoustics in a space because they are usually hard.  In any area we need some softer surfaces, whether those are wall hangings, or rugs, or upholstery or something else to stop the bounce of soundwaves.  If there aren’t enough a space starts to echo and echoes are also stressful, unless you’re on vacation in the Alps and yodelling from one hilltop to the next, generating all sorts of echo-y sounds.

Having cushions on chairs will smooth the social interactions between people seated in them, so investing in a set for your dining chairs may be a very worthwhile investment before your next holiday season family gathering.  The cushions don’t have to be luxurious, padding can be quite conservative and still do the trick.  There is also some evidence that sitting on even a slim cushion will boost creativity, so a cushion for your desk chair may also be in order.

Temperature influences all of our skin, and science has identified the perfect temperature (well pretty much perfect, the best temperature is influenced by things such as what you’ve got on and your muscle mass, with more muscles you can be warm in a space where others are cool or comfortable). The science all says that our brains thrive in areas that are between 70 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit (that’s about 21 to 22 degrees Celsius) and relative humidity levels between 40 and 70%.