Ever walked into someone’s home or apartment and felt a calming ambience? Sometimes you can’t quite pinpoint what it is, but there is something about the interior and decor that feels like perfect harmony.

The wellness trend is huge right now, creating an awareness of the importance of having both a healthy and balanced lifestyle.

With more people becoming aware of their well-being, this lifestyle trend has impacted our diets, fitness and work life. It’s also starting to stretch across to our homes and interiors, which people turning their homes into space that feel like sanctuaries.

Do you have a calming presence in your home? If not, it might be just what you’re missing. Below, we’ve picked six ways to bring the wellness trend into your home, encouraging a more relaxed and balanced life.

Choose calming scents

You will be able to smell light-scented diffusers, candles and incense as soon as you walk into a room. The fact that your smell sense will take in this aroma immediately sends relaxing messages to the brain, calming and reducing stress.

For an all-time mood lifting scent, look at placing diffusers around the rooms you enter first. This tends to be the hallway, kitchen, or a front porch. Candles are a calming addition to place in living rooms, dining rooms and bedrooms, lighting them when you need a moment of peace.

Incense sticks can be fairly strong in scent, but the array of aromas can completely put you at ease. Also, there is something so mesmorising about watching the burning stick melt down.

When you look at either of these, it will encourage you to breathe in and breathe out. Look at scents like lavender, peppermint, eucalyptus, and tea tree which are brilliant for calming the mind.

Introduce open space

A cluttered room with closed doors can give the feeling of being boxed in. However, rooms which are open plan with lots of free-flowing space and light work wonders for the mind. I love Bifold doors Bristol to really give that open plan feel! 

If you have a living room and dining room separated by internal bi-fold doors, open them up to encourage the full use of space. You can find some quality designs and styles here. By keeping your open plan spaces tidy and neat will also help your mind feel decluttered and stress-free.

Create a personal zen garden

They say that people feel happier around nature, so why not bring the outdoors indoors? Not everyone can step outside into their very own calming garden paradise (if you can create this outside, do try this though!), as you can still benefit from bringing a slice of zen inside.

Find a spot in your home which can host a little zen garden. Perhaps it can be an area in your kitchen or conservatory, filled with mini plants and flowering pots. If there are any small statues, crystals or decorative stones that empower you, feel free to add these in too.

Make your bathroom spa-like

Taking a bath and washing away the stresses of the day should be a refreshing experience. However, if your bathroom is messy and unclean, you’ll most likely not enjoy spending any time there.

Look at mimicking the experience of a spa, bringing those tranquil and serene feelings to your bathroom. Perhaps the odd plant and candle is needed on display, or maybe it’s a much larger scale task, like updating your bath or shower.

Either way, you want it to be filled with fluffy towels, muted colours and indulgent bath products. This way, you’ll enjoy heading into the bathroom to practise some self-care tasks, like letting a hair mask work its magic while soaking in the bath reading the next chapter of your book.

Set up a fitness space

Not everyone is into working out, and gyms are certainly not for everyone. But it doesn’t mean you can’t encourage some fitness-based activities to take place in your home.

If you have a spare bedroom or an at-home office (or even just a corner of your bedroom if space is tight) look at creating an area for your workouts. It could be a yoga mat close to a laptop where you watch and practise yoga. Maybe it could be an exercise mat area for working on stomach crunches or leg exercises. Or maybe you’re more of an aerobics at-home DVD lady, where you can pop a fast-paced 20-minute video on, and you can work out to it from your home.

The endorphins released from working out instantly put you into a happier state of mind, therefore incorporating exercise into your daily routine is truly worth it.

Remember that overall, wellness and self-care are essential to your life, and shouldn’t be seen as an indulgence. Work on making your home a place that reflects a place of calm, peace and tranquillity, and you’ll notice the positive effects to your wellbeing.