Polished Wood

Wooden surfaces, on walls, furniture, floors, etc., are often highly polished and shiny—so their use has all the neuroscience implications noted in the first article in this month’s articles.

All on its own, however, seeing wood with visible grain does great things for what goes on in our heads. Seeing wood grain has been linked to:

• Feeling mentally refreshed and less stressed (even lower blood pressure, for example)

• Being in a more positive mood

• Enhanced cognitive performance

• Increased creativity

• And, when warmer finishes are used, sounds (particularly music) seeming richer and more pleasant and spaces, in general, more hospitable.

To get these effects, the wood grain has to be visible, so ebony finishes aren’t too useful.

Artificial wood will generate the same effects as real wood as long as it is a truly good fake. Something that often trips up fake wood is repeating distinctive elements in unnatural ways. For example, real wood flooring may have a distinctive knot on a board. Artificial flooring often shows distinctive knots as well, repeating them over and over again, on nearly all boards, making those boards clearly fake as no knot repeats that many times.

As in many things, too much wood with visible grain doesn’t lead to the positive benefits noted here, just as too much cake, even if delicious, can result in a stomach-ache. Make sure that no more that about half of the surfaces in a room (excluding windows but including table tops and other furniture) have visible wood grain.