Ensuring your apartment remains a haven and not a source of stress is essential for a happier, healthier you. Human beings require the structure of a reliable, welcoming space in order to be their best selves. While your home is meant to be a gathering place where you can eat, laugh, and love, it should first and foremost be a safe space where you can unwind and recharge after a long day.
Feeling content isn’t so easy when there’s chaos both in your space and outside of it. Reflecting on your home and its impact on your well-being through a holistic lens is one of the best ways you can start planning what your space needs to look like to meet your needs.
Using a holistic approach is more than just buying the right products, eating well-balanced foods, and taking time to meditate—it’s an entire lifestyle that revolves around essential, everyday self-care.
Recognizing how your quality of living and close relationships are connected to your home life is just the first step. Once you’ve accomplished this, learn how to improve your life with these approaches to a more balanced, holistic lifestyle at home.
Remove clutter
It’s impossible to deny that our environment affects our mood, whether it’s the people we spend our time with or our physical surroundings. Surrounding ourselves with unkind people can make anyone miserable in the same way that a messy or cluttered home might.
We all have different standards we hold ourselves to when it comes to cleaning. Even if you don’t think of yourself as a particularly tidy person, clutter that’s piled up past your comfort zone can cause stress. The feeling of relief you get when you finally pick up around the house or organize your kitchen is proof that maintaining a clean house can alleviate mental health concerns like anxiety and depression.
Freeing yourself of clutter can restore your peace of mind and allows you to take back your home. The extra living space you gain by removing the junk you no longer need is just a bonus.
Let in the light
The sun is responsible for supporting a variety of life forms—our plants use it for food, our pets love sleeping in it, and our bodies depend on it for everyday function. Humans are diurnal creatures that have relied on the sun for thousands of years to tell us when to rise and when to go to sleep. It only makes sense that we should have a way to connect with it even from inside our own homes.
Once you’ve decluttered, the next step to making your home a holistic haven involves brightening up your place. Natural lighting can transform any enclosed space into something that’s open, airy, and sure to boost your productivity and mood.
Simple acts like re-organizing your furniture and a deep clean, particularly for your windows, can help optimize your ability to let the sunshine in.
If you happen to own your apartment or home, consider adding a skylight and working with a local contractor to switch carpet to hardwood floors, too. If you’re not able to remodel your space to add windows or a skylight, consider upgrading your light fixtures, especially in areas like the kitchen. Good kitchen lighting and a well-lit space can inspire you to spend more time on holistic culinary choices! A mix of natural light and ambient lighting are sure to create an inviting space day in and day out.
Switch to natural products
Half of the clutter removal process means going through old cabinets and drawers to carefully dispose of expired household products. Once that’s been done and you’re in the market to replace them, consider swapping out harmful name brands for natural solutions instead.
Bringing more natural products into your home is excellent for turning your house into a holistic haven. Many common household cleaners we see today contain toxins that are harmful to humans, pets, and the planet. Freshening up your place with eco-friendly alternatives instead can save you from the chemical smell these other products leave behind. If you have old beauty products that need replacing, cruelty and guilt-free options for your skincare routine can also leave you feeling like you’re doing your part to support ethical companies.
Use aromatherapy
You don’t have to be familiar with or believe in aromatherapy to benefit from it. Most of us are guilty of catching a whiff of something familiar like a favorite relative’s perfume and experiencing a pleasant olfactory memory in response. Coming into contact with our favorite scents is a great sensory treat that can help us relax or mentally escape to a better time.
We all have our favorite scents, and our enjoyment of these fragrances can encourage positive, soothing emotions that are sure to bring you peace. Lighting your favorite candle or diffusing your favorite oil are both popular aromatherapy methods you can try. Get the most out of your at-home aromatherapy by exploring the holistic benefits of certain compounds like lavender or bergamot oil as well.
Bring beauty into your home
Surrounding yourself with the things that make you happy is one of the best things someone pursuing a holistic home can do for themselves. It feels good to be able to look around and see photos of our friends and family, beautiful artwork and furniture, or accent walls in our favorite colors. Bringing life into your home in manageable ways like a new plant or two or introducing revitalizing crystals into your home offer can be enough to uplift your spirits.
Especially if you live with others, you need a space of your own. Maybe your sanctuary is your bedroom, office, basement, or patio. All that matters is decorating and designing your space to make it feel like it’s yours. The pleasant sight of your safe space can improve your ability for mindfulness. Now that you no longer have to deal with the distraction of clutter, you can focus on staying present, enjoying your space, and basking in your daily accomplishments.