We enjoy hygge because it responds to the very core aspects of who were are as people and as a species and makes us feel profoundly comfortable.  It incorporates design elements such as warm, dimmish light from candles and fireplaces, soft textures, and natural materials into one great welcoming wonderfulness (for more on designing in hygge, read this article).

My favourite aspect of hygge is the dancing firelight.  All of those flames flickering around in the fireplace create a symphony of natural fractals that is immensely relaxing to view.

In the cold winter months, avoid arguments over the setting of the thermostat by focusing on what your home smells like.  Add in relaxing scents that will calm and refresh regardless of the temperature, such as lavender, and both you and your partner can relish the winter months. See here for more tips on scent and air.

My top tip for kitchen/dining area design is to tune the colour palette for how you want your family to eat.  Warmish colours increase our appetite while cool colours have the opposite effect.  Choose your wall colours, etc., according.  If you have someone who tends to eat a little too much that lives in your home, go cool; with someone who tends to eat not enough, go warmer.  For more information on designing for healthy eating, read this article

If your bathroom is teeny tiny, paint all the walls light colours to make the space seem larger and also install a mirror.  The mirror will not only make the space seem a little bigger but if you position it just right you might be able to see out your window after all (this may require placing your mirror so that it hangs at a slight angle to the wall and not flush against it, for example).  Soundscape your bathroom to make it a little more haven-like; particularly good for this purpose are nature soundscapes, which we’ve discussed here in a past issue.

Nothing drives us into the house faster than the cold and darkness.  Light your outdoor space with a warm-coloured light source and find a way to pump a little heat into the area (a fire pit, if you can install one, would do both of these things).  No fire pit possible?  Make sure your seat has a sold back (no drafts from the back!) and buy a warm blanket to cuddle up under during your winter outdoor times.

Your best bet here is to position your desk so you can’t see your husband’s and manage your own space as you see fit; for example, a screen/tall piece of furniture/big plant or just angling your desk might help with this (the big plant might help keep stress levels lower in general, as discussed in this article).  Tidying up after someone more than on the rarest of occasions breeds resentment—you definitely can’t do so at the end of every workday.  Some of us are more conscientious and some less (for more on the Big Five personality factors and design, read this article and people who are conscientious are much more concerned about tidiness than those who aren’t.  As long as someone isn’t hoarding (which is a serious psychological issue), a little understanding of reasonable alternative perspectives is definitely in order.

It seems that there’s lots of visual clutter in your office, so spend your weekend being a clutter-buster.  Get those papers, etc., into some sort of container you can’t see into, even a cardboard box will do—and if you can put that box, or whatever behind your chair or somewhere where you can’t see it as you work, all the better.

While you are picking up, make sure your office smells good; consider lemon-y air freshers as smelling lemon has been shown to boost professional performance.  Also, while you’re at it, work some cooler lights into your space for work requiring concentration and some warmer ones for when creativity is the goal.  Turn on and off lights based on what you’re doing.

Place the warmer bulbs in floor or tabletop lamps and the cooler ones overhead.

Finally, add a green leafy plant where you can see it while you work.  If you have any time left over, take a nap!   Next free weekend—get rid of that old wallpaper and paint the walls in your office a cool, not very saturated, light colour, such as a very pale sage green.

Create a biophilic oasis for your daughter, using the material in this article  this is a perfect way to inspire her to focus, work and also be creative! Have a look at our Work page too for some more tips.

To keep you on track with the piano, make sure you can take short, mentally refreshing mini breaks as you practice.  Add a couple (no more) green leafy plants and some photos/artwork featuring nature scenes—more tips on creating a mentally refreshing enclave are found here  or here.

If you’re sure you’re OK physically (not anaemic or something similar) and not depressed (clinical psych is not our training/expertise) it could be that part of the reason that you feel that you feel you don’t have much energy is that your house is boring you.  Change things up!  Not everything and not all at once but pick a few elements and make changes that align with that we’ve talked about in previous issues regarding surface colours or light colours and intensity or biophilic design or something else entirely.  We like our physical environments to seem familiar, as we discussed in this article, but that does not mean that they’re exactly the same forever!

The best colours for positivity are colours that align with what you’re up to.  That means relatively unsaturated and lighter shades when you’re trying to relax or do something that requires focus and more saturated, darker colours when you’re trying to do something that requires energy (say exercise) or that doesn’t require much concentration (for example, laundry).  Also, red is never good when you may be trying to do analytical work and greens are always a fine idea when creative thinking is a priority.  For more on using colour to enhance your life, read this article or search “colour” on our search bar top right… there is some essential reading in those articles.

Yes!  Go with moving water but make sure that water is moving gently, like a burbling brook, not like a raging torrent.  Things that remind us of great Spring days boost our mood, ones that call to mind hurricanes and floods do not.

For more inspiration on how to use water in your home, search for “water” in our search bar, top right.

If your son has ADHD, adding an indoor water feature may be distracting, something for him to focus on instead of eating lunch, or doing his homework, or disconnecting and falling asleep.  Carefully curate your son’s indoor experiences to keep him “on track.”  Outdoors, it may be hard for your son to avoid interacting with a water feature, but if muddy boots and the occasional wet sock is OK with you, a fishpond may give your son all sorts of things to study and tinker with—you may set him up for life as an ichthyologist if you add an outdoor pool.

White noise is a good option for you if you want to focus and not be distracted or stressed by background noise. Hearing it makes other noise nearby harder to process in ways that can ultimately capture and hold your attention.

Your yoga room should be a less-saturated, lighter colour, like a sage green with lots of white mixed into it—but don’t feel compelled to pick green!  As long as you go with a less saturated and lighter colour anything goes (as long as you don’t pick a red, for the reasons discussed here).  If your yoga room is always a little too warm or a little too cool, go with a cooler colour to reduce how warm it seems to be in the space or a warmer one to have the opposite effect. To make it that much more pleasant to go through your yoga routine, try using your favourite colour, which for most of us is blue.  Work out with others and want to have a great time together?  Go with a warmer wall colour.

Your options here depend on why your neighbours are noisy.  If it’s because they are jerks, there’s not much you can do.  If they’re noisy because they are over-energized and need to relax, any green leafy vegetation that you can grow that they can see can help.  Also, consider growing plants with relaxing scents, such as lavender – the odours will definitely drift next door and help your neighbours calm down.

The best solution for stinky stuff is to open the windows and let in fresh air – if you have windows that open and if you live in a place with even clean-ish air.  Natural air and its movement through a space are also biophilic design try-to-do’s.  Masking one odour with more of another doesn’t usually work, it ends up being nauseating—your best bet if the window-based solutions don’t work is to clean really well, even the spaces where you might not think to, such as the tops of cabinets in the kitchens where aerosolized fat from frying may be deposited, for instance.

Designing for living well with ADHD,  is discussed here.  Relaxing, focusing, etc., will go best in dedicated areas that are customized for those purposes with minimum distractions bringing other potential activities to mind.  It may sound like a cliché, but targeting a task light on your desktop on the material you need to focus on will help get work done, for instance.  When you’re considering distractions to remove be thorough – you know if the temperature in the space you’ve set for relaxing isn’t just right you’ll be continuously distracted and popping up out of your chair to adjust it, for example, so make sure everything is “set” before you start to try to relax or to focus.

Go with a nature soundscape, and you can find them online.  You need a soundtrack with burbling water, gently rustling leaves and grasses, and quietly singling songbirds – the sort of sounds you are likely to hear in a meadow on a lovely Spring day.  Stay away from bad weather sounds and ones linked to danger, such as screeching tropical birds.

Under the stairs and other “left over” places can be a challenge.  We wrote about what’s best in these spaces in one of our first issues, here. 

The number one thing you should do in your study to keep from being distracted all the time is to orient your chair so that you don’t have a view of whatever else might be going on in your home.  Not enough to keep your mind on track?  Listen to music or a peaceful nature soundscape though headphones.  Both visual and audio distractions capture and hold our attention when they relate to other people, we can’t ignore whatever info comes our way about what others nearby are doing.

If you and your partner have tried and failed to establish or maintain during-work-hours space sharing protocols, rent a seat at a co-working site.  When people living in the same place can’t develop workable, time-sensitive zoning systems (maybe because one partner’s needs are just not too predictable), shifting work to outside the home is most likely to keep everyone on speaking terms.

Biophilic city design will keep us going as a species.  It will sustain humans, as a group, in good mental and physical health—after all, it’s aligned with how our brains work best. If you visit www.journalofbiophilicdesign.com their April/May issue 2023 will be packed full of articles, opinion pieces, design inspiration, science, research, wellbeing and cities, and much more. Plus Dr Sally Augustin writes in there every issue, and Dr Vanessa Champion is the editor. Have a click through and have a read! Let us know what you think too.

Make sure the colours in your entryway are relaxing, comforting, as discussed in this article or this one and that there are one or two green leafy plants in view, bathed if at all possible in natural light.  Make sure hardwood floors, with their pleasant times-inducing natural grain, are looking good and visible if you’ve got them.  Cut the clutter, places that seem to be spacious spaces are places that get sold.

Is your bathroom a calming oasis or a space where you get ready to take on the forces that make your work life a challenge?  If it’s an oasis, heed the material in this article on creating relaxing areas.  If it’s a daily life battle-prep zone, read this article on creating spaces that will boost your mood as well as your energy levels.

Make the space where your sister will spend the next year her space.  Let her guide how it’s furnished for example, if that’s at all feasible, by bringing a few pieces from home, for example.  You and your sister may be able to agree on a wall colour that you both like, one that will make you feel good after she leaves and that your sister will enjoy during her stay. Give your sister the reigns in her temporary refuge.   Let her rule in her little kingdom in your home.

Open the drapes and the blinds!  Let as much natural light as you can into your home—use sheer curtains and arrange your furniture to make glare a non-issue.

Yes, walking, particularly outside whenever you can is a good idea.  Winter walks can help you feel better about your body, which is great.  Walks anytime are not only good for your waistline but also for how your mind works.  You’re better at problem-solving and are more creative when you walk and just after you walk.  Walk with company – walking with someone else establishes a bond between you and your walk-mate.

Study after study shows that lights of different colours and intensities get your brain working in different ways.  Use cooler light to concentrate and warmer light when you’re more interested in thinking creatively or having a good time hanging out with other people.  Brighter light will rev you up like a shot of espresso while dimmer light calms and helps you decompress.  To get the most out of the various bulbs that you can turn on and off as you need their effects, put the warm-coloured bulbs in fixtures that sit on a tabletop or in floor lamps.  Those cooler bulbs belong overhead.

There are several great ways to bring the calm of winter into your home and office.  Start with adding the scent of winter cooking (vanilla, from all of those holiday cookies) to your place year rounds, research has shown that this smell relaxes us, wherever we’re from.  Winter itself actually has a fresh smell, at least in the country, and you may be able to find an air freshener with this sort of “green” odour, and if you do you’ll find it relaxing.  Another idea:  there is a certain not very saturated and lightish blue that’s very relaxing for us to look at—and it’s the colour often linked to winter snow in all sorts of different images, some photos, some painted.  Adding to this colour can be a plus.  In winter, larger percentages of any daylight we experience are slightly dimmer and warmer, and reduced light levels of golden light are a great relaxer.  Think about things you yourself love about the winter and use a little common sense to see how you might choose to add them to your world.

Odds are that in your neck of the woods you can’t just put tranquillizers in your kids’ food (a joke folks) – so try playing quiet peaceful nature sounds where they spend their time to calm them down.  Also, lower the lighting levels, another thing that will calm some, as will green leafy plants (as long as the children don’t eat them).  Try a relaxing smell, as discussed in this article, we find it hard to stay too energetic when the odour we’re pulling in through our nose says “slow down,” even if we’re a way too energetic toddler.  Consider giving your kids options to relax, comfy chairs they can collapse into, etc.  Your kids may sometimes get cranky and active because they don’t have opportunities to decompress.

First, read this article to understand healthy eating.  The other thing about Christmas eating is that a lot of it ties into seasonal habits—you and your cousins always exchange Christmas cookies, for example, and you have to eat them once you get them.  Try changing up your holiday rituals, and exchange holiday potpourri instead of cookies.  If you’re still exchanging, it will still seem like the holidays.  You may take lots of walks downtown in the holidays, where there are lots of restaurants; try walking in the lovely Winter countryside instead—and invite the people you normally go out to lunch with on those walks instead of meeting them for lunch.  Your waistline will thank you!

If your dog has something to think about besides you (sorry) there is less likelihood that he will misbehave.  Make sure he can look out the window and has toys to play with.  Does he watch TV?  Lots of dogs do and if he’s one, leave the TV on when you go to work.

I’d paint a guest bedroom a light dusty blue.  We link blue with the idea of sleeping and light dusty blues are not very saturated and relatively light/bright, the perfect shades to relax viewers.  Plus, worldwide, blue is more likely to be people’s favourite colour than any other shade, and people often get a psychological boost around their favourite things.

From an environmental psych perspective, anyone who is really applying biophilic design—not just adding a few plants to a space and calling it done—is worth taking a look at. Have a search in our search bar top right of our site here for “frank lloyd wright” and also “Biophilic Design” there will be lots of ideas and research for you to explore. Also go visit our sister publication www.journalofbiophilicdesign.com and the podcast that accompanies it, there are lots of interviews with architects using biophilic principles there.

When you move back in with your parents you need to establish a territory of your own, one that’s appropriate for you as an adult and how you plan to live your life.  Hopefully you will be able to have your own bedroom at your parents’ house.  If the bedroom you’ll move into is the same one you slept in as a child, it’s important that you get rid of the childish elements (e.g., posters of musicians on the walls, bed that’s now too short for you) and make it seem more adult by adding things that align with your current tastes and how you will be using the room (e.g., if you will be doing a lot of drawing, you’ll need a surface/table to draw on).  To make the territory a little more yours you may want to add a small, dormitory room size refrigerator so that each time you’re up for a cold glass of water you don’t have to interact with your parents, etc.  You’ll also want in your room support for the home entertainment options you plan to use—such as good wifi to watch shows on Netflix.  You need to create a stand-alone, independent living space, to the extent that is possible.

Beyond favourite colours, I’d focus on what you intend to use the space for, what mood you want to establish, and select colours accordingly, as discussed in these articles (or search for colour in our search bar top right).  Happy, however, there are many lovely rooms that have both pink and green elements.  Compromise is at the root of sharing any space.  How about putting a light, not very saturated pink on the walls and using a not very saturated green for upholstery?

Wear the same perfume/cologne when you work at home and in the office to link the two work experiences in a very, very fundamental way.  Beyond scent, think of duplicating the same sorts of small green leafy plants in each space as well as photographs you’ve taken (of nature, other people, whatever) that you treasure.  Seeing green leafy plants and nature while you work will keep you calmer, mentally refreshed, and even more creative.

The single most important thing you can do to make your new beau feel comfortable is to let them stake out a territory in your place.  When we’re in our territory, our space, we feel especially comfortable and relaxed.  A territory can be defined by walls, the edge of a carpet, or the glow of a lightbulb (when things start to get dark, the territory ends), for example.  Territories can also be time-based—an armchair may be someone’s space after they get home from work at night but belong to someone else’s entirely in the late afternoon when homework’s being done.  Bonus points to you if the territory provides privacy, which means that visual and acoustic info doesn’t flow in or out unless the territory holder wants it to (for example, they open the door);  we get a particular boost from feeling in control of our territory.  Your new housemate has to select their own territory and you need to let them call the shots while they’re there (don’t turn on the TV and flood the area with sound if your companion prefers to sit in a quiet spot and do crossword puzzles at the end of their day.

People with different personalities often find themselves in relationships and we do best when the spaces where we live align with our personality, in the ways discussed in this article.  Read the linked to article, think about your beau’s personality and act accordingly so they can feel comfortable—which may mean you’ll find yourself investing in some storage bins or even more carefully curating the sensory inputs in your sitting room (tech speak for making it a more peaceful place to spend time) for example.

Too many mirrors, so many mirrors that mirrored surfaces reflect mirrored surfaces, create a fun house effect that makes us feel like we might have finally lost our last marbles and actually gone crazy.  A single mirror or mirrors arranged so that they don’t reflect what’s captured by other mirrors can make a space seem larger, however.  Paint the inside of your bathroom a very, very light pink—that’ll make the space seem spacious (or at least as big as it possibly can) and everyone’s complexion, no matter their race, looks healthier in the sort of pink glow that will radiate from your slightly pink walls.  If you look good to yourself, you’ll feel better mentally and (at least a tiny bit) physically. Use warmer light in your bathroom and keep the light levels low-ish (unless you’ll be doing surgery in your bathroom then make the lights as bright as you can).  In warmer dimmer light, you’ll feel more relaxed.

Paint the inside of your bakery a warmer colour, say a light peach.  That’ll increase the appetites of the people who find their way into your store and you’ll seem like a friendlier sort with a warm-coloured wall behind you, which is likely to encourage sales also.  Warm-coloured surfaces in stores can also “motivate” people toward impulse purchases.

The best seat for you as you fly will depend a lot on how you like to travel.

If you’re the person who spends a flight capturing the best cloud images, the window seat is the only option for you—and if you’re doing a lot of cloud watching, that’s great. Clouds are visual fractals, which means looking at them is relaxing and mentally refreshing, so if the flight isn’t too bumpy or otherwise exciting if you watch them as you travel when you land you’ll be in great shape.   If you hope that some of the pictures you take on your trip will be of cool things on the ground, particularly the city where you’re landing from the air, you’ll need to talk to someone who flies the route you’ll travel who can recommend the best side of the plane for you—in the good old, old days, someone at the airline might have given you this info, but that person is not frantically busy trying to reschedule people whose flights have been cancelled.

Even if you’re not keen on taking pictures, sitting by the window means that no one will be trying to climb over you on the way to the bathroom which means you can likely sleep uninterrupted.  Sitting by the window gives you more privacy as you work, read, etc., and also prospect and refuge, something we talk about a lot in the context of biophilic design.  We’re most comfortable in spaces with prospect and refuge because we feel secure (like no one can unexpectedly approach us from the rear, for example), but have a view out over the space we’re in (which shorter people definitely will not have from the window seat).

If you sit by the window, don’t be mean to the people sitting in the middle and aisle seats—keep the window blind up unless the glare is intense so that others can look out of the window, even when you aren’t.

Aisle seats are lower on privacy but you’re able to leave your seat (when the seat belt sign is off) when you choose and easily, no one needs to get woken up so you can get by them to the aisle.  Aisle seats can also seem more spacious because you only have one neighbor and a “big” open space beside you.  Since so many people who sit by the window immediately put down the window shade and then act like they’re asleep, if you sit on the aisle you’re apt to never have any sort of access to outside views, which can make the on-plain experience sort of claustrophobic.  You do gain views of what’s happening on the rest of the plane and you know before anyone else in your set of seats when the drinks cart is approaching.  Having ready access to these longer views is nice for your eyes, it gives them a real break from closer up focusing.

Also, it can be dangerous to sit on the aisle.  Lots of drinks get spilled on people sitting on the aisle by flight attendants (I’ve gotten several free flights after getting soaked while sitting on the aisle) and lots of people slam into the aisle seats as they walk down the aisle or carry things (or children) at just the right height as they walk to cause bodily harm to people sitting on the aisle (for example, when corners of boxes or children’s feet in shoes hit the side of the heads of seated passengers).  Also, if you’re on the aisle, it’s likely that sometime into the flight (probably just after you’ve fallen asleep, someone will ask you to stand up so that they can use the restroom), so the control you gain by being able to get up when you want may not be as great as the control you lose by having to get up for other travels.

There is nothing good about sitting in the middle seat except that, with very, very rare exceptions, you do arrive at your final destination.

It’s nice to feel at home even when you aren’t-but unless your luggage is much, much larger than the suitcase I travel with, you can’t take much of your home with you when you travel.

There are some things that you can do to feel at home where you are, wherever that may be:

• Keep the same smells. The scents we smell are processed in such a primordial part of our brain that they have a direct route to our emotional core.  No sensory experience effects our emotional state as quickly as the smells we smell.  After our discussions of smellscaping your home (for example here), you’ve likely started to add scents to parts of your home.  Bring the one you use in your bedroom with you, to a hotel room, a dormitory room, wherever you might be going.  You’ll feel at home fast.  The same goes for using the same lotions and potions on your skin, to wash, etc., when you’re at home and away, that way YOU’LL always smell the same.
• Manage the sounds. If you start to listen to a specific soundtrack as you relax or fall asleep, and store that track on your phone, you’ll always have it with you and sound continuity helps us feel very comfortable very fast.  A nature soundscape, the sounds of burbling brooks, rustling leaves and grasses, peacefully singing song birds, is a great de-stressor, whether you find yourself at home or away.
• See what’s adjustable. There may be more ways than you think to tune the space you’re in to the conditions that you like.  In many hotel rooms thermostats can be adjusted or windows opened, for example.  Lights can be repositioned or their intensity changed.  Even if you don’t have a nature view, you may be able to turn the television to an all-nature-video-all-the-time channel.  Customizing your space to the conditions you prefer, will make you feel both more comfortable and more at home.
• If you’ll be somewhere for more than just a few days, make sure that you customize the space to you. It helps if you start out in a place whose design aligns with your values.  For example, if you live green at home, you’ll do better living green away.  Is your home style shabby chic?  Then try to stay in shabby chic on the road.  Also, and this is where the personalization comes in, make sure that your suitcase includes a few things that remind you about what you value about yourself and want others to know about you.  See yourself as a craftsperson?  Bring the cool and complicated sweater you knit for yourself and leave it out where you can see it.  Feel you’re an athlete?  Make sure you’ve packed your sneakers and take them out of your suitcase—even if you don’t actually have time to go for a run.  Setting up your phone to play a loop of photos of you and the people you care about doing the sorts of things that you feel define you and leaning your phone against the ubiquitous (and always incorrect) in room alarm clock also helps you keep track of what’s really important in your life.

Once you’ve settled in, don’t let the clutter build up—it’ll make you tense and may prevent you from finding things you need.  Take a few minutes before you make dinner or head out to whatever night spot you’ve chosen to pick up the things that have gotten scattered across the floor, beds, table tops, etc., as you’ve been enjoying your day.

Environmental psychology definitely applies to cars, but even more important from a safety perspective is ergonomics.  Make sure you really “fit” into your car and that all of the stuff that you need to drive safely is within your comfortable reach (some people are too tall for particular cars just as other people are too short for other models).  Also, spend a lot of time sitting in different seats in the car before you buy.  Being confined to a seat that’s uncomfortable is stressful and when we’re stressed we don’t think as clearly and we also get grumpy.

The things that we’ve shared about colour, textures, scents, and sounds through all of The Space Doctors newsletter apply when you’re in a car, just as surely as they do in your house, office, etc.  So does what we’ve said about clutter and making sure all present have a feeling that they have some control—after all, brains are brains no matter where they are.

And for your consideration:  Things that are red seem to be moving faster than things that aren’t, so if you are thinking of buying a red car, be advised.

Your best quick fixes for beating the bulge:

• Turn on the lights and open the drapes.
• Switch out the warm-coloured light bulbs in your kitchen for cool ones.
• Put photos of nature scenes wherever you can in your kitchen—ones that look like a lovely Spring meadow you could step into (like Mary Poppins steps into Bert’s chalk drawings), will work best.
• Play a nature soundtrack in your kitchen
• Buy fruit that looks good and don’t buy any you don’t like just because it’s good for you (no bananas that coat each of my teeth in furry little mittens for me!)
• Hide the biscuits and put the fruit where you can’t miss it—if you’ll ignore the fruit in the refrigerator, de-fridge at least some every day and put it on your most visible countertop

 You’re drawn to the idyllic spot you describe because it’s mentally refreshing to be there.  After all that thinking you do at the library, your mind needs a pick-me-up, and it gets it in the spot you describe—as you bathe in the natural light flowing into the library and the views of the trees outside it.

Some easy things that you can do to keep to your budget:

• Shop after sunset when natural light streaming into the store can’t encourage you to spend more than you should.
• Store owners expect you to be drawn toward brightly lit spaces and warm colours on store walls and displays and will “move” you from one part of the store to another using them. The store owner’s goal is to encourage you to pick up all sorts of impulse purchases before you get to the back of the store where the milk and other staples are.  Don’t.  Go pick up your staples first, what you really need in the store, and only visit the brightly lit, and/or warm-coloured areas if there’s money left after the staples for some more discretionary items.
• Wear headphones – don’t get caught up in the purchase-inducing soundscapes (but pay attention, no need to run into someone you don’t hear with your cart).

Lighting is very important when you’re doing needlework.  It has to be bright enough so that you can see fine details and be a neutral shade (neither so warm or so cool that it’ll distort the colours of threads that are in use.  Natural light is great, but you may not be doing your needlework during the day; glare on needlework quickly leads to eye strain.  Carefully consider ambient conditions before you start to stitch because stopping work over and over to reset the thermostat, get rid of a draft, etc., distracts from the fun and breaks continuity in ways that might influence stitch similarity from row to row (if you’re colder you may stitch more tightly than if you’re warmer, for example).  You’ll also stitch differently if your back or some other part of you hurts, so make sure that your seat is comfortable and your needlework is supported just the way you like.  Since most of us needlework to relax (it is not, thank goodness, how we earn a living), you’ll want to use sights, and sounds, and textures to relax, as discussed in this article.  (also search top right for “relax” in our search box for more articles – it’s a great search tool to help your research!)

Science says that the walls in your bathroom should be painted a soft, soft, not very saturated pink, one that tends a tiny, tiny bit toward grey.  No matter what your skin tone you’ll look great in the light that bounces off your slightly pink bathroom walls, and that’s what we all (or at least I) need in the morning.

If, however, you have a medical condition that requires that you very accurately assess the colour of your skin in your bathroom (say you’re prone to jaundice for some reason), paint the walls of your bathroom a very light dove grey, you’ll get the best read on what you actually look like that way.

The light colours on your walls will make your bathroom seem larger too, and I think most of us are not burdened by having a bathroom that’s too large.  Make sure that your floor is a darker colour than your walls, because that’s what those of us who live on Earth-like.  When you’re lighting your bathroom, you’ll probably be happier with fewer lights than you think—unless you plan to do surgery there, a softer, more relaxing light scheme is best.  Bathrooms tend to get cluttered up—heed the decluttering advice offered here.  LINK Your bathroom will seem a little warmer (which can be handy if it tends toward being a little cold air temp-wise) if your feet feel warm because they’re walking on some sort of soft throw rug (best is radiant underfloor heat, but that is a big, big project).

Tile size doesn’t matter so much EXCEPT with smaller tiles, there will be more grout in use and grout can mildew and get yucky, which requires lots of time cleaning with a toothbrush before company comes by—and who has time for that?  Tiles or something on the wall that’s biophilic can be a plus.

Biophilic tiles could be embossed with plant-like forms or nature-suggestive shapes, for example.  You can also lay out tiles in nature reminiscent patterns, but use care—would a pseudo-stream made out of an accent tile on your bathroom floor make you think of a lovely camping trip or send you into an instant panic that a pipe has broken?

We can get a little pre-occupied looking at ourselves in mirrors, and that can be good, but is mostly bad.  It’s hard for us to take lots of long looks at ourself in a mirror, so if you’re setting up a place where you want people to have wonderful free flowing conversations, such as a living room or a dining room, mirrors where people will see themselves as they talk may not be best.  We do tend to behave ourselves better when we can see ourselves in a mirror, an effect that can be used judiciously.  Some of the original research on mirrors and good behaviour indicated that people sorted their recyclable trash more carefully when they could see each other, so a mirror over your at home recycling centre that your kids can see themselves in can be good for the Earth.  Have a mudroom where people need to hang up coats, put boots away properly, etc., add mirrors.  We can also make more healthy eating choices when we see ourselves in a mirror.   Mirrors will make a space seem larger and will “throw” natural light around a space so there seems to be more of it.  Also, mirrors can add lots of glare to a space if they’re not positioned with care.

Quick as a bunny—move a green leafy plant into view, open the curtains to let natural light into the space, and turn on the cooler coloured light bulbs to boost concentration.  And study—actually learning the material will boost your confidence, and that’ll definitely improve your marks.

To feel and act more powerful, paint the walls in your kitchen green.  Looking at warmer colours boosts our appetite, and viewing cooler colours seems to have the reverse effect, so with the cooler wall colours you’re less likely to gain wait as your confidence builds.

To get your zen on, add a water feature (small is fine) with gently moving water and something hanging (say a mobile or Tibetan scarf attached to a head height tree branch) that will move slightly in peaceful breezes.

A few neuroscience-based things you can do right now to try to boost your mood:

• Make sure your blinds are open and as much natural light as possible is flowing into your home. Rearrange furniture and furnishings (such as mirrors) so you can spend time in your favourite rooms without glare.
• While you’re over by the window dealing with the blinds, open the windows if the temperature and outdoor air pollution levels allow. If you can hear birds, gently rustling leaves and other sorts of nature as you open that window turn off your TV, music, etc.—let the nature sounds fill your home.
• Make sure you can always see a green leafy plant indoors—but only one or two.More will up the visual clutter in your home and as discussed here, visual clutter is terrible for your wellbeing/mental state.  To effectively manage clutter you may need to pick up/clean up a little bit—the weather has kept us indoors for a while and wrappers, dirty coffee/tea cups, etc., seem to multiply in the dark of the long Winter nights.
• Light a candle and turn off the lights—the warm golden light of the candle will do wonders for your psyche.
• Put away that couch blanket with the geometric pattern and pull out the one with the curve-y pattern—maybe it’s paisley or maybe it just features lots of swirls or maybe it looks like something else entirely. We’re more relaxed around curving lines—in patterns on upholstery, rugs, wallpapers, in the 3-D forms of furniture, in architecture, you name it.

Even design isn’t powerful enough to guarantee would piece of solve all of the world’s most challenging problems, but it can help!

Plants and nature views draw us in and hold our interest.  We can spend oodles and oodles of time just staring at them—and while we’re doing all that staring our mind is resting up after concentrating/focusing on whatever we’ve been up to.  Looking at plants and nature views is mentally refreshing—which means they help us return to our best, and ensure that we are better at problem solving, creative thinking, getting along with other people, etc., than we are when our stocks of mental energy are run down.

Ness: Yes! While I haven’t designed my home from scratch, I have “retrofitted” biophilic design into it and I also live as naturally as possible. For instance, I have a lovely big old pine office desk, a plant on my table beside me (a healthy rich green leafed Peace Lilly), lots of natural light streaming in through the windows in every room, and for the acoustics I hardly have any reflective surfaces (i.e. not much plastic or metal, most of the surfaces in my home are soft material, wood and even curved ceramics). I also have a view out onto cherry trees in the garden outside and my view at my desk is a photo I took in Uganda of a rich red soil pathway, leading off into verdant tree and bush covered hills with a beautiful clear blue sky.

Sally: Also yes!  For multiple years I’ve been living biophilicly and doing so has definitely made my life much, much better.  My home is a lot like Ness’s material-, view-, etc.-wise—except my plants are fakes—I’m terrible at keeping plants alive—but artificial plants are great, they improve our lives in all the ways that real ones do, although they don’t add a fresh natural smell to our home (but my windows open to clean air and I own the right home scents (discussed in this article), so all is well.

Natural light is important, particularly if it’s managed to be glare free and doesn’t overheat the space (unless you do hot yoga) via curtains or blinds.  Make sure natural materials also abound in the yoga room and that there are plenty of green leafy plants and images of nature (through windows or in art/photographs, moving or still).  See our articles on Biophilic Design. A good sound system for the soundtrack you’ve found works best for your yoga sessions or recordings of nature on comfortable Spring, fine-weather days and colours that are not very saturated but relatively light, such as a sage green with lots of white mixed into it, are also both a big plus.

Warm colours on walls and surfaces and warm lighting (candles or a firepit, if safe), can make your front porch a snuggle zone.  To boost the romance (hopefully your shed is not visible by neighbours or from the street), try some red paint on walls.  Wonder what scents to add, etc.?  See our article on designing to boost romance here. and see our February 2022 The Love Issue which is dedicated to this!

Surface colours that are not very saturated but relatively light on walls (such as sage greens or dusty blues with lots of white mixed into them), are great for making a space seem larger and so is more natural light, so keep the window shades open whenever you can.  To support focus create a dappled lighting effect, with stronger and weaker light levels in different parts of the room.  If you’ll be trying to concentrate, use cooler light, but for creative thinking or socializing, use warmer light. Images of nature (through windows or in art/photographs, moving or still) can also help with concentration, and so will green leafy plants. Have a look at our tips on home offices Here or Here.

To relax before going on a date, hang out in your living room.  It will get you into a “socializing with others” type mood.  Even better, spend some time in your garden or otherwise outside, on a balcony or wherever  – there’s no better stress buster than being in fresh air, and a view of nature if you’ve got one makes things even better.  If you share your space with roommates, try to lock yourself in the bathroom for a few minutes, we calm faster when there’s no chance anyone is watching us.

Nothing destroys a good mood faster than glare, so make sure any spaces where you’ll spend much time have some sort of umbrella or awning or something similar so that even people not wearing sunglasses won’t get “glared on.”

Second, make sure all chairs are really comfortable (no cheating and picking out something that looks good or makes you look good, go for real comfort), so people can hang out for a period of time in actual, true comfort.

On the top of your table, make sure there’s some sort of “centrepiece” that’ll be interesting for people to look at.  This centrepiece doesn’t have to be at all grand, just something that people can gracefully shift their eyes to every so often if they need an “eye contact break.”  Flowers from your garden or a potted plant or a small sculpture or really anything that people can seem to find something interesting in, something whose appearance seems to justify them stopping making eye contact with others from time to time, will work.  Bottles of ketchup and mustard will not do the trick here.

Also, try to arrange the seats so that everyone has a view out over anything cool/desirable, such as the countryside;  this avoids some sets being “better” than others.  If this sort of seating arrangement is impossible, sit yourself down in a “bad view” seat.

Finally, make sure all seats are about the same height above the ground, no arranging dinners on the floor on pillows, on regular height chairs, and bar height stools.  Looking up and down at people, literally, while socialising has negative and predictable effects on discussion, as reviewed here. 

People feel most powerful in spaces featuring cool colours—add them to your home to give yourself a confidence boost. Have a read of some of our articles on how cool colours can help you, here and here for instance, also search “cool” in the search bar top right.

Don’t worry about where your front door is placed as long as it is on the side of your house that faces the street – if people can’t see it when they arrive, that’s confusing and off-putting.

Make sure that when people enter the door their first impression is what you’d like and that it gets them thinking about the things you value about yourself and you share your home with.  You can also use the colour of the entry way to help people adjust to the temperature inside your home as spaces featuring warm colours seem a little warmer than they actually are and those with relatively more cool colours seem, well, cooler in temperature.

So, if you live in Arizona or some other really hot part of the world and paint your entryway walls a light blue, people will instantly feel just a little bit better when they arrive than if the same walls are painted a warmer colour.

There are all sorts of ways to delineate different zones, you should choose the one that works best in your situation.  Variations in ceiling height are great to creating a “here” and a “there” but they are really expensive to change if you want to re-zone.  The same goes for differences in flooring.  I like to create zones with carpets and furniture arrangements, they’re easy to reconfigure as are lighting-based zones (ones that are created with areas of brighter and darker lighting). We have some other articles on how and why zones help us navigate and enjoy our environment, have a look here and here to get your going.

If you’re selling your home:

• Make sure the walls are painted colours that are welcoming and align with the sorts of activities likely in different areas of the home (a colour that eases mental effort in the home office, for example), as discussed in these articles.
• De-clutter! Nothing stresses us out faster than lots of visual signals bombarding us – how to use neuroscience to manage your visual world is discussed in this article.
• Role up the carpets if you have hardwood floors, open the drapes to let in natural light, rearrange the furniture, and dust off those plants (even the right artificial ones) to use biophilic design to make people comfortable in your home, as discussed in this article.
• Consider what your home smells like – some scents are much more conducive to positive mental states and good moods generally, as discussed here.
• Quietly play a nature soundtrack, it puts everyone in a better mood to consider your home, as discussed in this article.

Oh, yes! Loads of tips!

Make sure you check out this article here, Healthy Eating – Aided by Design.

You’ll find everything there, from lighting, colours to paint your kitchen and living spaces, visual clues, and more. Including, if you also struggle with just making sure you eat enough as well as a bit less. Colours and lighting can really help. Let us know how you get on. Good luck!

Also there are a whole bundle of articles in our dedicated section to “Eating”.

Some more tips here on how to create a social Christmas table too 🙂

1. Make sure your space is naturally lit.
2. Use warm light bulbs and don’t let the space become very bright, light-wise.
3. Paint the walls a light sage green.
4. Add a few plants – only enough so you can see one or two a couple of feet tall or so from each of the seats/places where you will work in the shed. While you’re add it, add some art/photographs of natural spaces.
5. When you buy furniture, make sure it’s wood and the grain in that wood is visible.
6. Keep visual clutter in check, as discussed in this article.
7. Play a nature soundtrack, as discussed in this article.
8. Find a place to keep your sneakers—or wear them—so you can keep active—going for a walk is a great way to boost creativity and work off calories.

Add a few things (say a couple of pictures you can lay on the desktop) that remind you what you prize about your work and how you do it.

One of the photos might be of an award plaque you received from your employer.  Another might be of your kids if you’re driven to set a good professional example for them.

You know how your job can make you feel good—add visual reminders to your work area that you can relocate each time you change seats.

Put what you don’t use out of sight.  In a box under your bed or in a neighbor’s garage—wherever you can find a place to tuck it in.

If you can see it, and there’s too much of it, it’s making you tense—remember your goal is an interior with about as much going on visually as in residential interiors designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (as discussed in this article or search Frank Lloyd Wright in the Search box).

If you don’t feel the need to retrieve anything from under your bed, that friend’s garage, etc., for 6 months have a yard sale or make donations to charity.  If something has sentimental value, hold onto it a little longer.

Consider rotating a few sentimental pieces out for display every month (packing whatever they replace away in their stead).

If you don’t feel the need to rotate something sentimental into view in a year it’s time for another dale or donation.  Some people find it easier to sell/donate something sentimental in their lives if they photo it first, that photo can “store” all the pleasant memories that the thing itself did.

Add a water feature/fountain with gently moving water outside your window.  Seeing and hearing it will boost your mood, cut your stress levels, and make you feel mentally refreshed.

For more tips on using water have a read of this, or maybe even this. you can also search for water feature in our top right search box.

Do send in your own design challenge questions to us too!

Paint the inside of something small that you live in a dusty, slightly grayish light blue.  That sort of not very saturated but relatively light shade is relaxing and the light color will help the inside of your caravan seem slightly larger.  Also, we associate the color blue with rest, and that’s great for wherever you’ll sleep.

Glad you liked the tips (for those visiting a fresh who may have missed them, you can read some of them here).

I’d suggest creating zones in your home for different sorts of fun.  Adults can linger in one space, say the kitchen, and chat while older and younger kids each have their own separate spaces, one near the dining table and the other near the family room sofa.  I’d try to keep the TV off, as that tends to dominate any gathering when it’s turned on, and such a large group will never be able to agree on what to watch.  Makes sure there’s a space that’s as isolated as you can make it for younger (and older) visitors who may need a nap.

Generally, the bringing home of found stuff from nature, branches, leaves that kind of thing is really positive for us (see our articles on Biophilic Design and search for it in the search box top right). The visual references to nature and memories are good for us, and then visual ‘clutter’ is good (but depends on the quantity!).

Tip: I would group all of the seasonal stuff into an organised display to cut visual complexity and not scatter too much around otherwise it will end up causing stress. Send us photos!

I would suggest that you coordinate lights coming on in your bedroom with the ringing of your alarm clock.  If just after the alarm sounds, the light on your bedside table starts to glow with very dim warm light and the intensity of that light grows over several minutes, you will find it easier to get out of bed.

Also, you can switch out lightbulbs so more are warm colours!

Your sons will distract each other—we’re always caught up in watching and listening to others nearby, even if they’re not our annoying younger/older/twin brother—so make sure they’re sitting outside each other’s field of view; back-to-back can work well as long as they’re far enough apart so that they can’t reach out and annoy each other as they study.

Try to create a space, or at least a work surface, for each that they can use again and again and where they can leave out their pens, books, etc., between study sessions.  Having a dedicated space for study, one that they “own” and can return to again and again, will boost your young students’ mood and performance.

The last place you should study if you have any other option is your bedroom, unless you can position where you’ll work so that you can’t see it from your bed as you’re trying to fall asleep.  Being reminded about all the work you need to do as you are trying to relax and fall asleep will keep you awake more effectively than cups of caffeinated coffee.

Spending lots of time in the kitchen working can lead to lots of snacks so working at the kitchen table is generally not ideal.  If you have a sort of living/sitting room where you can sit in natural light (without glare) with a view (ideally) of nature, I’d suggest you work there.

Even though laptops are called “laptops” you can generally type best on them if they’re on some sort of horizontal, table-top like surface, so try to set one up.

We’re still not sure why seeing the colour green boosts our creativity—the reason seems to  be lost in our species’ long ago prehistory.

Another good colour for a study is any one that is not very saturated but relatively bright, like a light, slightly smokey (or greyish) blue or purple-ish shade;  that sort of colour will put your mind in just the right mood to do its job well.

Colours that are saturated and not too bright, such as Sapphire blue, will not only energize you, which is not good for cognitive performance, they’ll also make your study seem smaller/cosier.

Shopping compulsively may be a sign that speaking to a counsellor is a good idea.  However, you can help yourself a bit but making it less likely that you’ll loose your self control if you make the light brighter wherever you are.

If you go outside the light will be brighter and if you see any nature at all while you’re outdoors you’ll  mentally refresh and that will boost your mood and mental performance all by itself, making it less likely that you’ll make stupid purchases.

If you sit on a harder seat, you’ll be more likely to take a dim view of options presented to you and seeing yourself in a mirror makes it more probable that you’ll act in ways that society values, and society generally supports considered spending, not rash outlays.

If you’re uncomfortable physically your mood will deteriorate, but you may be motivated to move on quickly without perusing what’s on sale.  For example, if you only allow yourself to look at Amazon and eBay when you’re standing up in your back hall, you are likely to find looking at offerings on these sites a way that you do not want to spend time.

Look around your workspace with an impartial eye.

What would you think about the person who created it?  Re-design accordingly.

Add in messages that clearly send signals that are important in your workplace.

That may mean adding diplomas or certificates that indicate you’ve got certain sorts of expertise or pictures with celebrities, to indicate you’ve got connections, or something else may be best, depending on your field.

Before you buy anything, ask yourself why you might think that bringing whatever you are considering into your home is a good idea.

Be honest with yourself as you answer this question.  After all, you are talking to yourself and no one else ever even needs to know that this conversation took place!

If whatever you are considering buying doesn’t support your life goals or send an important positive message about who you are as a person, leave it at the store.

Still on the fence?  Head somewhere where the light is bright to consider your options—our self control is better in more brightly lit spaces—best of all, go outdoors to think about what you should do.   

To avoid temptation keep the lights bright and put the biscuits out of sight in a blue or green tin. If you can set that box in front of a mirror, even better!

Read more tips about how to control how much you eat, take a look at our July 2021 issue here.

Energizing – cool and bright – lighting! But don’t make the “waking up” process too abrupt.

Read more “sleeping” tips in our articles dedicated just to helping you get a better more restful night’s sleep (and also how to jump out of bed in the morning!). Have a read here.

Clutter makes us tense because it requires us to process too much information in the world around us – we go into overload! Stress degrades our ability to think well (our ability to solve problems, think creatively, and get along with others falls, for example)

Are you a clutter bunny? Have a read and be inspired by our tips! (Also, don’t forget you can go to our very clever search facility at the top right of the site and type in a keyword of what you’re looking for!).

For a start, and if you’re in a rush:

• We’re energized by seeing saturated, concentrated colors such as sapphire blue and malachite green, so bringing these colors into your environment now, however you can—even if that means digging into your closet and pulling out that ugly pumpkin orange blanket your aunt gave you 10 years ago and draping it over the back of your sofa where you can see it as you work.
• You’ll also get an energy boost from seeing more geometric patterns and fewer curving, flowing lines, so bonus points for pulling out that orange blanket if it features a Mondrian-like block design.
• Get out the peppermint, and smell it (eating it also works since your mouth and nose are connected inside your head). The scent of peppermint has consistently been shown to give us an energy boost.
• Step out on a walk, inside or outdoors, even on your treadmill. Walking really does get our creative juices flowing—all those artists you read about in high school who went on walks to figure out how to move their novel or opera or whatever forward, were onto something.

You can take a few steps pronto to help you get down to doing lots of good work.

• Open your drapes and let natural light flow into the room where you’re working.
• Buy a green leafy plant (real or a “good fake”) a foot or two tall and put it in your view as you work. Don’t create a jungle, that leads to high visual complexity (see next point).
• Manage visual complexity by throwing away trash in view and boxing up the rest of your visual clutter or putting it in cabinets or drawers you can’t see into. Leaving out a few souvenirs ( 1 or 2, show some restraint!) and keeping a few pieces of art on the walls is fine, the goal is a space with about as much going on in it visually as in a residential interior designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  Put the boxes behind where you will sit as you work or in another room.  Even if you need to look at the boxes as you work, cut your visual clutter by using them.
• Go online and find a nature soundtrack, one that features the sorts of sounds you’d hear in a meadow on a lovely spring day, play it softly, it will help you stay mentally refreshed.
• You’ll also stay mentally refreshed, a relatively less stressed, if you look at the sorts of nature, out of your window or in art/photographs, discussed in this article.
• Find some sort of lemon scent—a cleaning product, a perfume or cologne or something else—and lightly mist your work area with it—smelling lemon gives cognitive performance a boost. If all else fails, pop a lemon hard candy or sweet into your mouth.
• Read our article on home office design when you get a chance for more ideas.

The most important thing that your new home needs to do is make you feel good about yourself, your life goals and accomplishments, your values, etc.

If a house doesn’t sing out to you as you walk through it, “This is the place that I should be living,” no amount of painting and wallpapering, etc., will make you feel happy there.

Don’t get the idea that your home has to be a place for you to show off and live to the limit of your budget, that sort of situation likely results in an insurmountable obstacle to happiness.

The sorts of ways that a home should align with what’s important to you can include, for example, how environmentally responsible it is to live there (if you pride yourself on living green), how spaces flow together and support mingling with family and friends (if mingling is very important to you as a person), if you’ll be able to really, truly do good work in the home office space available (if your work is important to you) . . . you get the idea!

People can have different design objectives for their bathrooms and sometimes those design goals vary by time of day.

You need to decide if you want being in your bathroom to be a relaxing experience (for example, a space for calming baths at the end of a long day) or an energizing one (for instance, you want to “rev up” before heading off to work in the morning).

Either and both of these goals can be achieved in the same space, as discussed in the different articles in our “Bathing” section.  

In the best, and most cognitively beneficial private spaces we can’t see or be seen by other people and also can’t hear or be heard by other people.

Unfortunately, for most of us, these sorts of ideally private areas are not available.  Consider both indoor and outdoor spaces when you’re trying to identify places where people can have privacy.

Outdoor spaces can work particularly well, as long as the weather is good, because in many outdoor spaces, people can feel especially relaxed, as they hear nature sounds, see green leafy plants, etc.

Inside, even open plan spaces can provide some visual shielding if screens, tall plants, large pieces of furniture, high backed chairs, etc., are deployed across a space to block sight lines.  Sometimes just reorienting a set of furniture slightly can provide at least some visual privacy to those in other parts of the same, open space.  You may also want to set up some “space-use-rules.”

An example of such a rule:  when Betsy sits in the chair by the window that’s oriented to the view outside, she’s not to be disturbed unless the house is on fire, and the fire is now burning very close to her chair.

Try calming warm colours and patterns as we discuss in this article.

Add some sound absorbers to your daugther’s room, such as wall hangings or rugs, if they’re not already in place.

Also, buy ear plugs and pack away the delicate china…

If you both work and entertain in your dining room, add screens so your work isn’t visible to you and your guests—even table top ones that keep you from seeing your work as you dine will brighten the mood.

Seeing work makes us thing “work,” and that’s not a good idea when your friends come to visit.

Nonverbal signals always prevail, no amount of explaining will lead to “unseeing” your laptop, papers, etc.

To make your sitting room more inviting open the drapes during the day and at night make sure the artificial lights are relatively warm (read the bulbs’ packages to make sure about this).

Also, carefully curate the “stuff” in your sitting room so it doesn’t have too much going on visually, as we talk about in this article.

Third, make sure everyone can sit in the same sort of way—when some of our heads are much higher and others are lower, because some of us are sitting on a sofa and others on cushions on the floor for example, our conversations get distorted.  The “higher heads” start to take on the role of the adults present and the lower ones become the kids, regarding the roles played and opinions formed of statements made, etc.

The three quick things you can do to make your space a nice area to work from are:  Open the drapes to let in the natural light, have 1 or 2 green leafy plants in view, and curate your space so it tells your story in a way that makes you proud, with moderate visual complexity.

In the scenario you describe it usually works best to orient your desk so it’s perpendicular to the window.  That should help keep glare in check and also make it easy for you to see out of that window and mentally refresh whenever you choose.

If you’re going to change your work desk, after you make sure that options are right for you ergonomically, in other words that they’re the correct height, etc., the single most important thing you can do is to choose your desk’s material.  The best sort of surface for your desk is one with visible wood grain, ideally, one with an oak or similar look.  Looking at wood grain as you work will elevate your wellbeing as well as your brain’s effectiveness.

Coordinate with rest of the exterior, but blue can work very well, particularly if you home is for sale or will be soon. Research shows that we associate the colour blue with being trustworthy and competent, for example, which are always good messages to send to visitors.

Calming, calming, calming colours.  These are shades such as the very lightest greyish blues, for example.  Blues are colours we associate with sleeping, so they’re particularly good options in bedrooms.

A light sage green! This colour has all sorts of advantages in a home office:
– Looking at different shades of green boosts our creative performance, and who doesn’t need a little creative thinking at work!  It’s handy whether you’re coming up with a new advertising slogan or figuring out how to pay less in taxes or anything in between.
– This sort of colour is generally relaxing and will put you in just the right mental state for working to your full potential in your home office.
– A lighter colour on the walls will make your home office seem a little bigger than it actually is, so unless your home office, somehow, is oversized, you’ll want to use a lighter wall colour.

Beat the winter blahs and comfort eating by reducing the stress in your life.  De-clutter using the tips in the visual complexity article in this issue. Look for other environmental stresses in the world around you.  Fix the dripping faucet, clean out the garbage disposal with the musty smell, order your DVDs so you can find what you want, when you want it.  Being stressed distracts us from living the life we’ve planned, which leads to all sorts of sins, such as overeating.  Think about your world and deal with all of the tension inducing elements that you can.

Adding a new habit to your life works best when there are no place-related obstacles.  Make it easy to walk outside by planning walks in advance and finding a way to neatly keep coats, sweaters, hats, umbrellas, and boots near the door you’ll enter and leave from.  If you live in a snowy space, clear the snow from steps and paths early, so it won’t be an obstacle to your walk later.  A winter walk offers its own special pleasures, often in terms of sounds heard and air freshness, for example.  Embrace these differences and your walks will be a pleasure you’ll continue year-round.

The single most important thing you can do to support your new business is to create a space in your home that’s a dedicated office/work area.  This should be a space with access to natural light, via a window or a skylight.  It’s great if that natural light comes complete with a view of nature.  Whether it does or doesn’t add a couple of green leafy plants or images of “friendly” looking nature (in other words a nature setting you could step into a la Mary Poppins and feel comfortable and relaxed) in view as you work.  Make sure your work area has moderate visual complexity (science ease for get rid of the clutter!), like the interior of a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (think: a carefully curated colour palette, assortment of patterns/shapes and some order to all of those colours and shapes). If you’re going to be buying furniture or painting, try to use options with visible wood grain and paint other, non-food surfaces green–research consistently links seeing the colour green to enhanced creative thinking–and who doesn’t need that from time to time?  Since we collect sensory information with more than our eyes:  add a nature soundscape (the sounds of a meadow on a lovely spring day, burbling brook, gently rustling leaves, quiet bird calls, etc. are best) and scentscape using lemon or cinnamon-vanilla (this smell has been linked to enhanced creative performance also, but it can make some people hungry).  And don’t forget the ergonomics!