13 Ways to Hack Your Personal Space for Better Mental Health

Does waking up to soft sunlight streaming in through big sliding glass doors and the sounds of birds chirping and waves crashing nearby sound relaxing? Yes, your environmental surroundings (think sound, smells, light, and the physical objects in your space) can have an effect on mood.

Some experts theorize the specific “what” of what calms us has to do with our evolutionary past.

“Think about the sensory experience we would have had eons ago. A visually cluttered grassland or savannah would make it hard to see danger approaching and would make you feel very tense,” explains Sally Augustin, PhD, a practicing environmental and design psychologist and the principal at Design With Science.

Visually cluttered spaces still tend to garner the same response in modern humans, she says. One study published in 2009 in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that women who described their homes as cluttered or unfinished were more likely to have an increased level of depressed mood during the day and fewer changes in their cortisol levels at night — a factor associated with stress and adverse health outcomes.

It’s not just what you see that makes a difference. “All sensory experiences combine in your head and mix like ingredients, blending into a common entity that contributes to your emotional response to a space,” Dr. Augustin says.

Your brain processes all possible inputs — sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste — in concert. The result can make you feel more relaxed, more energized, or even more anxious, research has shown, according to a review published in April 2023 in the journal Trends in Cognitive Science.

This is due to personal experience and preference (like the smell of jasmine your grandmother grew on her front porch that brings back nostalgia and positive memories), as well as ingrained biological responses designed to keep humans safe in an unpredictable world.

The 2023 review points out that the smell of a romantic partner’s shirt can reduce self-reported stress and cortisol levels, likely due to the positive associations related to the smell.

Even infants who haven’t developed the cognitive control necessary to make conscious sensory-based emotional regulations also experience reductions in fear response during stressful situations when exposed to skin-to-skin contact or their own mothers’ scent. This indicates there’s a learned response as well as an ingrained biological response to different forms of sensory input and experience.

So, yes, it’s possible to “hack” your personal surroundings to curate the mood or experience you want to have.

When an environment is maximized to support mental health, Augustin says the results can include improved cognitive performance, the ability to get along better with other people, and the ability to think more clearly.

Here’s how to get started.

1. Open Up Your Blinds to Start Your Day Right

To start your day off energized, one of the best things you can do is to let natural light stream in. “Open your drapes, sit facing the window, and get as much natural light as possible,” says Augustin.

Exposure to natural light first thing in the morning helps keep your body clock aligned with the body’s circadian rhythm, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, can make you feel more alert in the morning and improve your sleep at night.

2. Play With Mirror Placement in Darker Spaces

While you may not be able to add windows to your home to increase natural light, there’s another hack that can help: hang more mirrors.

“A quick fix for spaces lacking natural light is to place mirrors on walls across from windows,” says Amber Dunford, a design psychologist and style director at Overstock.com. “The mirror will reflect the view and bring in the outdoor lighting, making your space appear brighter and larger.”

3. Make a Morning Wake-up Playlist

“Listening to music you enjoy boosts dopamine levels,” says Alison Hughey, a Spartenburg, South Carolina–based music therapist certified by the Certification Board for Music Therapists (the only certifying board for music therapy). Research backs this up.

Start your day on the right foot by listening to a playlist filled with happy, upbeat songs.

“Aim for songs that make you smile, get you dancing, and have a BPM between 100 and 130,” says Hughey.

The beats per minute (BPM) is a reflection of the tempo of the songs you’re listening to. One study published in 2016 in Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience found that as BPM increased from 90 to 150, listeners experienced more positive emotions like “happiness” and “surprise” with decreases in “sadness.”

While these positive emotions largely increased all the way to 150 BPM, rates of “tension” also increased at higher BPMs, leading to a more stressful or unpleasant experience. This is why a good moderate-to-fast BPM is ideal to help you kick off your day right.

Just be aware that music is highly personal, so curate your list carefully and pick the music you truly love, rather than listening to a generic “happy” or “morning” playlist off of an app.

4. Clear the Clutter

That stack of mail you haven’t had time to go through, or the mishmash of kids’ schoolwork, toys, and laundry that keep piling up may be more distracting than you think. “Clutter can make us very tense and distracted and trigger survival instincts that harken back to the earliest days of humankind, similar to the instinct to scan a treeline or forest for potential predators,” says Dunford. A study published in 2018 in Infant Behavior and Development found that toddlers who were provided with fewer toys to play with actually played with their toys for longer periods of time and exhibited greater creativity than those who had more toys. This suggests a less-cluttered environment encourages focus and creativity.

Clearing spaces of clutter is particularly important in those spaces where you want to relax or concentrate (like your bedroom or home office).

Of course, clutter can be tough to keep up with; coming up with and sticking with an organizational strategy to keep it at bay can help. “I recommend limiting the amount of clutter at eye level by using desktop organizers, cabinets that can live under a desk, and adjacent wall storage,” Dunford says. File items away into their organizational stations as soon as they come in, and practice sorting and discarding the build-up regularly.

5. Diffuse Lavender in the Bedroom

Certain smells do impact us on a deep, psychological level, triggering specific responses. “Scent is most closely linked to memory, as smells are processed in the same part of our brain as stored memories,” says Dunford (which research has shown to be the case). This means that you can use scents you’re most drawn to to create a “scent-scaped space” that helps you relax or feel happier.

Specific scents have been studied for their ability to activate physical responses, and lavender is perfect for winding down at night, particularly if you struggle sleeping, per a randomized trial, or you’re dealing with illnesses or disorders that can impact sleep quality, like depression, cancer, or cardiac arrest, according to a review. “The science shows lavender is relaxing. Put a sachet of lavender under your pillow for you to smell as you dose off,” says Augustin.

6. Create Layered Lighting

Simple lighting changes can definitely set the mood in a room. If you’re trying to create a calming environment, Amy Bloomer, a professional organizer and owner of the design company, Let Your Space Bloom, says to use multiple, smaller sources of light, rather than a single, bright overhead light. (Bloomer earned a masters degree in organizational psychology from Columbia University in New York City.)

She suggests using candles, table and floor lamps, or even sconces or chandeliers to help create more layered lighting. This type of indirect lighting has been shown to decrease negative moods, according to a previous review.

7. Replace Your Light Bulbs With Warmer Tones

While you’re making over your lighting, switch out cool-toned light bulbs for warmer ones, particularly in areas where you want to relax or create a more social environment. “We have more intimate conversations and self-disclose more under warmer light sources. We feel more relaxed and physically appear healthier in this style of lighting,” says Dunford, who suggests looking for bulbs around 2700 kelvin to take advantage of these effects. (The aforementioned research review backs this up.)

8. Use Lemon Scents to Perk You Up

Where lavender can help you calm down, lemon can help you perk up. Augustin says that lemons are specifically linked to improved cognitive performance, per research, making them an ideal scent to diffuse in your home office.

In a study published in 2020 in Building and Environment, researchers assessed the mood and learning performance of college students exposed to three scents linked to improved cognitive performance — lemon, peppermint, and rosemary. Researchers found that lemon was the most preferred of the scents and also resulted in higher scores during a memory-related task. The research also suggests that the improved performance is related, in part, to the scent preference of the individual. So if you’re not a fan of lemons, it might be worth trying peppermint or rosemary, as well.

9. Use Soft, Natural Colors

While color preference is highly individual, the moods elicited by specific colors appear to be tied to evolutionary roots and nature. “Think about a meadow on a lovely spring day — breezes, birds, sunshine — colors found in that environment, which aren’t very saturated, give us a positive emotional charge,” Augustin says.

According to a study published in 2018 in Psychological Research, an individual’s emotional response to color is affected by its saturation, hue, and brightness, but less saturated colors are associated with a lower arousal of emotions (a calmer state) than brighter or more saturated colors.

So if you’re trying to create a mood through lighting that calms and lifts the spirit, soft greens, blues, yellows, and whites are likely to do the trick.

10. Paint Your Home Office Green for Creativity

The most common question Augustin receives when strangers learn what she does for a living is: “What color should I paint my home office?” Believe it or not, there’s a “correct” answer. It’s green.

Research has shown that looking at various greens boosts visual creativity, Augustin says. “And that can be handy while working.” She says shades of sage may be best.

If you’re not a fan of green, though, simply do what you can to amp up the natural greens in your office — plants, windows that expose you to trees and grass, and even images of landscapes can help.

11. Use Bolder Colors to Amp Up the Energy

In spaces where you want an energizing effect — perhaps a home gym, kitchen, or kids’ playroom — contrasting, saturated colors are the way to go. “Color with more saturation and warmth will create a more energizing space. The higher contrast in colors, the more energizing it feels,” says Dunford.

Just be careful about using a lot of red, as she adds: “People generally perform worse on cognitive tests when around the color red [per research]. It’s also a stimulating color that increases heart rates, signals rapid breathing, and activates the pituitary gland [your stress response].” Other data backs up these latter points.

12. Play Instrumental Music in Your Office

It may be tempting to listen to your top tracks while working, but favorites from Taylor Swift, Def Leppard, Jay Z, or other catchy lyric-laden hits are unlikely to help you meet upcoming deadlines. “For work hours, look for music you enjoy that doesn’t include words. The steady pulse helps give a sense of safety and focus without the need for your brain to keep track of words. Instrumental versions of songs can boost your mood and productivity,” Hughey says. (Research backs this up.)

13. Bring Nature Inside With Plants, Water, and Wood Grains

Much of environmental psychology emphasizes the positive benefits of being surrounded by nature. “Potted plants, water features, and wood grains are great for mood and cognitive performance. They help you refresh mentally,” says Augustin. Yes, data backs this up.

Research has also found this type of biophilic design (finding ways to bring natural elements into indoor environments) to be associated with decreases in blood pressure, improved short-term memory, and improvements in positive emotions.

Again, this has roots in evolutionary biology — early humans would have felt safest in open spaces with readily-available water sources. “We are very comforted by nature sounds, bubbling brooks, rustling leaves, songbirds, and natural lighting,” she adds. So anything you can do to create that eons-old safe, springtime meadow “image” in the context of your home is likely to lead to a calmer spirit and happier effect.