(RED online via H&M Home)
Feng shui isn’t an extra way to make life a little more magical. In fact, if my vision and wish of the future holds true, soon the paradigm of life will be : Mind + Body + Spirit + Environment!
It’s been proven over and again in so many ways that the way your home looks and feels on so many levels impacts your wellbeing, wealth, creativity and, truly, every aspect of life.
Today, let’s look at some of the ways that your home affects your life. And, of course, I’ve included some simple ways to maximize your home to get the goodness flowing today!
I’m excited to share the results of a study sent to me by an awesome member of my immersion Camps and culled over by me and finally by my sister Nicole who has been integral in deducing research. The results of THIS study show that particularly for women- though I would say clearly, for everyone- your home is key to boosting your mood and having more wellness in your life.
Let’s start here with this big statement that shines a light on just how much your home affects your life, gleaned straight from scientific research:
“…the physical characteristics of living and work spaces, including features like crowding, clutter, noise, and artificial light, have been shown to affect mood and health in populations ranging from young children to senior citizens (e.g. Evans, 2006; Molony, McDonald, & Palmisano-Mills, 2007).”
Given that between 90-99% of all illness has been linked directly or indirectly to stress, the implictions are enormous. A sanctuary can change your life in huge ways!
The manner in which someone describes their home can be directly correlated to whether or not they find their home stressful, or rejuvenating and this can affect cortisol levels (which indicate stress levels)
In a study entitled, “No Place Like Home: Home Tours Correlate With Daily Patterns of Mood and Cortisol”, Darby E. Saxbe and Rena Repett of the University of California Los Angeles conducted a study to test if someone’s perception of their home will affect their levels of stress and depression.
The participants recruited in this study were 30 middle class families (60 people), with 2 to 3 children, where both parents worked full-time jobs and had a mortgage. Before the study began subjects were given a camcorder and asked to give a self-guided tour of their home, where they would describe there home and objects in their home in detail.
Subjects also answered questionnaires before and after the study began. Participants each provided 4 self-reports on mood and four saliva samples to test cortisol levels to determine their levels of stress. Variables such as negativity and marital satisfaction were controlled so as to not confound the experiment.
When analyzing the self-guided home tours, Linguistic Inquiry Word Count software was used to analyze how often words were used that were either stressful in nature or restorative. Examples of negative words would be those describing clutter, repair, and words that indicated their home was unfinished.
To test for stress levels, researches used the saliva samples to test for cortisol levels (a hormone produced by the HPA (hypothalamicpituitary-adrenal) axis). With the knowledge that our cortisol levels follow a diurnal pattern (or circadian rhythm), which is high in the first hour of us waking up, declining during the morning hours, and then tapering off till we reach the night, cortisol patterns were tested for the subjects.
It was found and reported HERE, “Women with higher stressful home scores had increased depressed mood over the course of the day, whereas women with higher restorative home scores had decreased depressed mood over the day.”
The results also showed that women who described their home negatively (speaking a lot about clutter and unfinished projects) had lower marital satisfaction and flatter diurnal slopes of cortisol, and chronic stress, which can be linked to depression and adverse health.
Conversely, woman who described their home with more positive words, were less likely to be depressed. There were null results for men, meaning: it’s not clear how men respond with spikes in cortisol like women do!
You can read the whole study HERE.
That said, I have seen lots of men struggling with other ill effects of a home that’s not structurally and orginizationally sound, like depression, lack of self-esteem and a feeling of powerlessness, very resonantly over the last 10 years so… it’s important for everyone to design their homes to mirror their best lives!
Here is my ultimate way to start designing a home that mirrors your best life right now:
And of course, you can take it further. You can sign up HERE for the FREE Life Detox Jump Start and start clearing your home & life of anything that is weighing you down.
From there, there’s a wealth of data on the blog, the DIY Feng Shui Guide, Feng Shui 101, and so many more resources that flow weekly to have you living in your best home right now!
My mission is to help everyone create more room to breathe and be and thrive in life… and if you have questions, I’m here!
xoxo Dana
P.S.: If you want to really immerse yourself in the light of joy so much more, my favorite Feng Shui and cutting-edge energy-shifting tools that I use almost every day are HERE for you in the Joy Immersion: 30 Day Negativity Detox!
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Welcome to Creating Genius!
I spent the last year creating this e-guide to balancing and unblocking life by pulling together the best of a decade of space-changing and life-shifting feng shui! It’s 50 days and 50 ways to use feng shui to shift your space and your routines to move from “stuck” to creatively inspired and alive.
Start Creating Genius right HERE!
Gather up your magic & make gorgeous dreams come true!
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