Well-Being in Design
Straight lines
Creating sleek modern interiors with straight lines, boxy furniture, and jagged edges can be a statement look and has dipped in and out of trends for years, however, it has been found that too many straight lines and edges within your space can create an elevated sense of anxiety. Studies have found that our brains interpret these patterns as a danger, which then leads to our minds going into a survival mode, without you realising this is happening. This triggers a series of emotional and chemical reactions, including the release of adrenaline and cortisol, which are chemicals that can diminish our health with long-term exposure.
The simplest fix for this is to introduce curves and softer edges into your space, which was been scientifically proven to have a soothing effect on the mind. This can be done through the smallest of changes, like adding a circular vase to the centre of the dining table or a rounded mirror in your bedroom, or even throwing a blanket over the arm of a sofa to round out the edges ever so slightly. All these small changes can help your mind to relax when inside your home. It’s no wonder that curved furniture has been trending over the past couple of years.
Plants
It has been known for quite some time now that the addition of plants into any space is proven to help with mental well-being. Adding some form of greenery into your space helps to boost your mood by improving the air quality and can also help to reduce blood pressure. They have also been shown to reduce loneliness and sadness as they provide a sense of purpose for an individual to care for a living thing.
But if you haven’t got a great track record with keeping plants alive, then fake plants have the exact same effect. As studies have shown that added greenery has a positive effect on people’s mental health. You can also get similar psychological benefits by placing artwork in your space that features nature and greenery. And if you have a favorite art piece, looking at that can give you the same feeling as falling in love, which of course comes with floods of feel-good hormones and neurotransmitters called dopamine.
Mirrors
You’ve probably always been aware that adding mirrors into your space can help brighten up rooms and make the space look bigger. However, it is possible to overdo this and have negative effects on your mental health. With mirrors reflecting everything in the room it naturally adds to the overall complexity of the space. If you already have a cluttered room, your mirrors will amplify that sense of clutter even more, which can cause stress, anxiety, and depression. Due to it having a rising effect on your cortisol levels. Chronic clutter also has effects on your immune system and how your body copes with fighting away bugs.
Another issue an overload of mirrors can cause is anxiety when looking at yourself too much. If your constantly see yourself in every room you walk into, in some people it can cause quite a bit of anxiety. This applies to people who suffer from a disorder called body dysmorphic disorder. Which is essentially an unhealthy preoccupation with parts of your appearance that cause you to focus on them more when you’re looking in the mirror. Research also found that people without this disorder, in particular women who were happy with their looks, said that they felt an elevated sense of anxiety when in front of the mirror for a prolonged period of time. If this is something that you have experienced maybe try and replace a couple of mirrors in your home with some artwork instead and also try your best to keep your home clutter-free, as this is crucial for your mental health.
Design by @amberinteriors
Materials
Although it may be tempting to buy those brand new off the shelf items, they can actually have a negative effect on your well-being. This is found with plastics, laminate, and synthetic materials otherwise known as ‘cold’ materials. These materials can dampen your mood if not paired up with more natural materials like woods and clays. Having these natural materials in your house adds that extra layer of tactile input and the feel-good materials that can help to soothe your moods as we all subconsciously have an inclination to seek out connections with nature. Clay vases, a wooden dining table even just adding a couple of twigs you found into a vase, can really soften your space and help to create that relation to the outdoors.
Colour
As mentioned in a previous blog colours are found to have drastically different types of effects on our moods and general well-being. At a basic level colours such as green, blue ad purple are considered cool colours, which have been found to have more soothing effects and present an element of tranquillity and calmness. This is most likely down to these being the colours that are typically seen outside and in nature. Blues have been shown to slow down a persons metabolism, heart rate and blood pressure, which has an overall positive impact on your health. However, with all of us being different blue can actually have a downbeat drowsy effect on people, which can cause sadness rather than soothing. In that case it may be better to try a warmer colour.
Reds, yellows ,and oranges are considered to be warm colours. These are stimulating colours that create a sense of urgency, which can help to reduce depression, howe,ver this can also trigger feelings of anger and aggression, so its important to get a right balance of colour for your space. If you do find that you are more drawn to warmer colours then try to play around with different shades and softer colours like a putty or mustard yellow. These can be a good choice to help gain the benefits of the colour therapy. Its important to think about your personal needs and how you want to feel in your space, other options to consider are the saturation and brightness of the colour, whilst less saturated colours are more relaxing to look at darker more vibrant colours are more energizing, so again its about getting whats right for you.