Our everyday surroundings have a robust impact on our moods and emotions. But the impact goes beyond our immediate reaction—for example, one study found that living in a cluttered home can actually stimulate the assembly of cortisol, the strain hormone. Let’s observe what psychological state experts and researchers say about how your mind reflects your surroundings—and how you’ll be able to change your environment to lift your mood.
The Link Between Physical Environment and Emotional Well-Being
How your environment influences you isn’t just a matter of whether you discover it visually pleasing. In fact, once we spend lots of our time somewhere, we now do not really notice what’s around us. The piles of paperwork on your work-from-home desk or the laundry spilling out of your closet seem to disappear after you stop listening to them for some days, or some weeks. That’s because of a phenomenon called habituation—sometimes called “attentional blindness.”
But simply because you’re not consciously specializing in your surroundings doesn’t mean they’re not taking a toll on your mental state. But their other senses are continually taking in various stimuli, just like the temperature, scents, and noises within the room.
Whether you’re living in an exceeding city or the country, reception along with your family or with roommates, in a very new apartment house or an old farmhouse, your immediate environment influences you and your state of mind. And it goes the opposite way as well: Your mood is going to be reflected in your space. for instance, people that are depressed often don’t have the energy to wash, organize, or open the windows to let in light and air. This creates a sort of positive feedback because the environment becomes another factor contributing to a poor psychological state.
Since the earliest times, humans have needed to be sensitive to their surroundings to survive, which suggests that we have an innate awareness of the environment and hunt down environments with certain qualities.
First of all, humans have a powerful need for safety and security, and appearance for those attributes in their environment. Retailers and also the hospitality industry know this all right and check out to supply an environment that makes a positive customer experience and offers three important attributes: comfort, safety, and entertainment. These attributes are equally important in healthcare also.
What about stress?
This is often because our brain and our nervous, endocrine, and immune systems are constantly interacting. Thus, the strain of a loud, confusing room might end in a patient not only feeling worried, sad, or helpless, but experiencing higher pressure, heart rate, and muscle tension.