When you are happy, your whole body knows it. Your heart races. Your face flushes. Your breath will be faster. The butterfly in my stomach flaps.
And then there’s your brain. When you are happy, its neural nuke and cranny are flooded with “happiness hormones” like dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin. By eliciting feelings of joy, achievement, joy, satisfaction and self-esteem, they strengthen healthy habits that will help you survive and thrive.
Sunshine, exercise, music, memories and pets are just a few of the many things that can stimulate happiness at the neurochemical level, research suggests. But happiness does not flow from your activities only. It is also an important by-product of your surroundings.
“When you’re looking at things in your environment, your retina is actively sending messages to the brain that directly affects your feelings,” explains Anita Yokota, licensed family and marriage therapist, interior designer and author of Home Therapy. “So it’s really important to be intentional about what we bring into our home.”
In fact, a 2019 survey by the Happiness Institute found that 73% of people who are happy with their homes are generally happy.
Home Happiness’s connections are so strong that it went viral on social media in 2023. The hashtag #DopamineCor had seen more than 173 million views as of late January.
“Instead of a trigger, something that raises blood pressure and stress hormone cortisol – dopamine decoration is to find what I call glimmer.
While neither the home nor the happiness is versatile, some universal design principles can help create a space that will make everyone smile.
Show me your true colour
Chelsea Foy, Lovely Endally and founder and editor of Lifestyle Blog, author of Happy Home, can instantly change the way Coler feels the room and people. Her personal favorite, yellow, brings her uplifting and uplifting. “There’s a small bank of cabinets in the laundry room, and I painted Master Dee Yellow. Every time I walked past it, I smile,” she says.
Warm shades tend to soothe irritating and cool shades, but there are no “bad” colours. It’s a matter of personal preference, Foy points out. Consider creating accent walls with paint or wallpaper. Pepper room with bold pillows, lamps and accessories. Or reciting an ornate focus from a rug, artwork or furniture.
“It could be a fantastic pink sofa you found at a thrift store, or a painting that rules the wall,” says Foy. “Beige may be beautiful, but we need something that will make our space lively.”
Don’t turn into a square
The shape can also be impactful, says industrial designer Ingrid Fetell Lee, Joyful: The Suprising Power of the amazing power of ordinary things. “When you look at an angled object, the amygdala, a part of the brain that is associated with fear and anxiety, lights up. Looking at the round shape shows that the brain remains silent.” “If you notice how to move in a sharp angled space, you tend to be a little more careful. You don’t want to hit a coffee table, right?
Divine symmetry works
In 2016, University of Chicago scientists conducted an experiment in which students showed students photographs of an ordered or disordered environment before doing mathematics tests. Researchers say students who saw the messy room cited asymmetry as a feature of disorderly space.
“There’s something unstable about the asymmetric environment that affects our behavior,” says Lee, who says that decorating in pairs can bring more symmetry to the space.
Clutter confuses joy
A common cause of asymmetry is messy. “Clutter increases the stress hormone cortisol. …When you look at the clutter, it actually raises your blood pressure,” he says, recommends using baskets, bins and trays to organize surfaces such as cutters, drawers, pantry, counters and desktops. “I’m a big advocate for using vertical spaces, so I love hooks too. …I put the 3m hook on the countertop of a beautiful porcelain waterfall in the kitchen, and if that’s where my kids’ backpacks land and I have to see the backpack on the floor there, it’s going to make me crazy.”
Interior Designer Rebecca West is CEO of Happy Happy Homes and is about changing Happy Starts at Home: Change Your Space, Your Life, so it’s important to get rid of emotional confusion just as much as physical mess. She recalls, for example, a client who recently divorced. For example, she removed the bookshelves that reminded her of her marriage. “As soon as she put it on the curb it was like a hundred pounds lifted off her shoulder,” West says.
Accepting the surprise element
Interior designer Betsy Wentz, author of Design Happy: Colorful Homes for the Modern Family, gives you a small spark of joy every time you see them by creating small moments of whimsical surprises. For example, instead of art, Wentz likes to assemble and hang colorful scarves and cool bed sheets. And for fun accessories, she applies colored lacquer to mirrors, lighting fixtures and small items.
“You can lacquer anything,” Wentz says. Wentz recalls his grandfather’s watch, who once transformed for his client. “It belonged to her husband’s great grandfather. We made it lacquer and put a cloth panel behind the place where the pendulum sways. It’s a really fun and unexpected piece now. It looks like an antique, but it’s a bright citron yellow.”
Wallpapers can achieve similar effects. It can be placed on ceilings, drawers, alcoves, or even closets. For example, Lee cites a client who placed butterfly wallpaper in the front door closet where the child stores his coat and shoes. “Now, every time they leave the house, her kids say, ‘The butterfly!”, says Lee. “I forgot about them, then I opened my closet and got a big burst of sunlight.”
Create a community
Intimate relationships and social connections are the biggest determinants of happiness, according to a Harvard University study of adult development, one of the longest-running studies in the world of adulthood. Set up your design space in a way that maximizes social attachment to cultivate them in your home.
“Instead of representing furniture in one way to a living room television, consider having more circulation furniture flow,” suggests Yokota. “For me, swivel chairs give a big dopamine hit. These days, there are these open concepts that connect the kitchen to the family room. I love using swivel chairs in these spaces.
Wax nostalgic
Scientists have found that nostalgic experiences activate areas of the brain that are associated with memory, as well as areas that are associated with pleasure. That’s why Foy likes to display himself with personal memorabilia instead of the pointless bric-a-brac. For example, sentimental souvenirs from a precious trip, or framed artwork from her child. “I like to look at my space and see what brings good memories,” she says. “Filling your home with a physical representation of well-lived life… brings warmth to the space and allows you to see yourself in it.”