Have you ever been feeling anxious without an apparent reason? I had been experiencing this, every one other day. I would feel quite oppressed and gloomy, worried about something that I did not recognize. It certainly did not feel good at all. So I did what we usually do; try to relate this type of feelings with some direct cause in our daily life. A problem at work, a relationship issue, some particular stress, but while trying to analyze I could not manage to connect the dots. There was no evident origin for this.

In fact, the design of space has a huge impact on our behavior and emotions. To deepen in this area there is a field of science called “neuroarchitecture” that studies the relationship between brain processes and architectural environments and their impact on the emotional and physical health of people. It explores how one’s environment can be a trigger for hormones that either promote happiness and calm or add stress and anxiety.

From all of this research I took some action and reorganized several things in space. And guess what? I actually have been feeling better and more balanced. Therefore, I though this was a topic with interesting value, as stress and anxiety fill our surroundings and without recognizing it, our lives. Instead, our environment, and especially our house, should be a place to liberate and unwind, with spaces of calmness, comfort and clarity.

This is why I prepared a list of little things that you can do to your environment design and that in turn can make a major difference; and I hope it can help you too in some way.