Conscious interior design to help find awareness at home
Today, attention is often a fleeting state: Stress, distractions and a digitally connected world shape our everyday lives. Being more mindful is a way to counter this dynamic, and now mindfulness has entered interior design and architecture. The mindful home is one of the biggest interior trends for 2022. Find out how you can easily recreate it in your own home with our tips.
![Mindful Home by Daniel Chen on Unsplash. Mindful Home by Daniel Chen on Unsplash.](https://media.koelnmesse.io/imm2021/redaktionell/imm/img/online_magazin/mindful-living/mindfulness_moebeldesign_interior_daniel_chen_auf_unsplash_m24_full_m36_1025.jpg)
One of the major interior trends for 2022: A mindful home is synonymous with natural materials and the space to breathe (photo: Daniel Chen on Unsplash).
From mindfulness to the mindful home
In our always-on lives with deadlines and personal goals, we find it increasingly difficult to focus on the here and now. If we want to lead a mindful life, it is worth pressing pause in our high-speed world and taking a look at ourselves and our surroundings.
The home is the ideal refuge, a place to cast off the stress of daily life. The right furniture can help you recreate the 2022 interior design trend in your own home. And there’s no secret recipe to it: For some, it could be meditative minimalism. Others might opt for natural materials and sustainability, uncluttered spaces, a digital detox or slow design. But the following tips for designing a mindful home are a great place to start creating a personal haven of well-being.
What is a mindful home?
The key to a harmonious, conscious interior design is to focus on yourself. Your furniture and interior decor don’t have to impress anyone. Instead, they should encourage you to look inwards and pay attention to your own mood and mental health. There are different routes you can take to this destination.
Creating quiet zones
Mindfulness has its roots in Buddhist movements, and meditation is one of its most important elements. Having your own meditation room with a minimalist interior design is the ideal place to start your journey inwards. Don’t have a spare room? The corner of one room can be transformed into a personal retreat by visually separating it from the rest of the space with rugs or room dividers. These self-care corners allow us to disconnect from external distractions and look inwards. But it can also be as simple as a sofa that exudes ease and comfort, a small library, a bathroom that doubles as a wellness oasis or even just an unrolled yoga mat. And the right room acoustics can help to put distractions aside and focus on the present.
Find focus with the right light
There is hardly anything else that influences our mood as much as light does. Dimmable lamps can create a relaxing atmosphere – or a brighter mood. At the same time, light influences our biorhythm. Large numbers of manufacturers are already promoting human-centric lighting – illumination that follows the natural course of the day and is in tune with our hormone levels. This illuminated mirror by W. Schneider is a perfect example.
Objects of reflection
Mindfulness also means focusing on the essential. But this can be accompanied by recalling positive memories, for instance by looking at images of loved ones or favourite places. However, other objects that prompt us to pause and remember can provide meaning and emotional support, too. Even harmoniously shaped decorative objects or soft cushions, preferably in subdued natural shades such as the items in this collection by Vextile , can fulfil this purpose and guide our emotions in the right direction.
Interiors ideas to foster mindfulness
A harmonious interior design concept in a largely minimalist style is a good foundation for a mindful life. Open spaces instead of lots of furniture, minimalist shapes instead of extravagant design, and muted colours instead of distracting patterns are its key elements. Natural materials and surfaces create surroundings that are in harmony with the environment. Personal style can still shine through as long as the interior design creates space in the true sense of the word and allows the mind to turn inward.
![Triangolo" chair by Tonon. Triangolo" chair by Tonon.](https://media.koelnmesse.io/imm2021/redaktionell/imm/img/online_magazin/mindful-living/mindfulness_moebeldesign_triangolo_tisch_von_tonon_m24_full_m36_1025.jpg)
The Triangolo minimalist wooden chair by Tonon: ideal as an element of a mindful interior design (photo: Tonon).
Mindfulness in architecture
The origins of mindfulness are closely linked to spiritual and religious practices – and hence also with architecture. Temples, churches and monasteries are places that many seek out to free their minds of worldly influences. This aesthetic is also reappearing in contemporary architecture: Simple floor plans with open spaces and large panoramic windows meet intimate sanctuaries while muted acoustics are paired with a meditative geometry. A mindful architecture puts people’s inner needs first, ahead of considerations such as functionality or the digitalisation of the home.
![Mindfulness in Architecture by R Architecture on Unsplash. Mindfulness in Architecture by R Architecture on Unsplash.](https://media.koelnmesse.io/imm2021/redaktionell/imm/img/online_magazin/mindful-living/mindfulness_moebeldesign_mindful_architecture_r_architecture_auf_unsplash_m24_full_m36_1025.jpg)
Open spaces and large panoramic windows are increasingly appearing in mindful modern architecture (photo: R Architecture on Unsplash).
The mindful home: a never-ending journey
Alongside stress and hectic lives, habits are often an obstacle to living a mindful life. We have to actively swim against the current of everyday life and find moments and places that allow us to pause. A mindful home, a personal oasis for body and soul, must regularly challenge the force of habit. Even minor changes can help: Different doorknobs, a new lamp or moving an armchair can be a prompt to step off the daily treadmill. When we see different things, feel new surfaces or take different paths through our homes, we can rediscover our surroundings and behold them in a new light. A mindful home is never finished – it is a never-ending journey to ourselves.
Looking for new furniture to create a home oasis of calm? Discover the latest interior design ideas from imm cologne on ambista .