It’s good to have a bedroom to come back to after a busy and long day. You have space wherein you can be by yourself as you declutter your thoughts and take some rest. While this is what should happen when someone’s in their bedroom, not everyone is able to experience such. A major reason might be that the room doesn’t have enough mindfulness in it.
What does it mean to be mindful anyway? To be mindful is to allow yourself to focus on you, instead of getting preoccupied with unnecessary matters. There are elements that make your bedroom into a mindful space, such as color, mirrors, scents, lighting, furniture, and the like. With the right placing or combination of these elements, your bedroom will let you easily focus on yourself as you retreat from your day’s work.
Set Good Scents In Your Room
Increase mindfulness by improving the smell of your room. You can make it feel like a sufficiently separate space from the outside through fragrances. Incorporate some scents into your room using a fragrance atomizer. These devices use perfume oils to make any space smell more pleasant, which can make the atmosphere inside better.
Use Blinds For Busy Window Views
When you look out the bedroom windows, what do you see? If your room faces the street or a busy thoroughfare, you might find it hard to relax with all the light or movement from outside. This shows the importance of blinds or curtains that you can easily pull to block the view outside. Make sure the blinds you buy can cover the entire window, or else some light might still peek through.
Paint With Harmonious Colors
Colors play a part in keeping your bedroom less distracting. Do not just random colors with each other because this could make it jarring for your eyes to see. Picture how you might find it more relaxing to see greens with blues instead of bright colors with complicated patterns. Your mind might take too long to relax if what you see around your bedroom are colors and elements that distract you.
Keep Your Floor Decluttered
Your floor has to be kept tidy and free of any small objects lying around. Do not let random items stay on the bedroom floor, be it cords, takeout, plastic bags, toys, or used clothes. Practice discipline in throwing trash as soon as you’re done eating or stowing away devices and wires after using them. Make it easier by installing a garbage bin in one corner of the room, as well as shelves and cabinets to store your small things in.
Choose Comfortable Beds And Chairs
The areas in which you’ll sit or sleep also determine your self-awareness in the room. When you’re trying to meditate, read, write, or some other similar activity that requires focus, sitting on a bed or chair with inferior material might impede you from completing the task. Make sure to pick mattresses, chairs, or bedsheets that feel comfortable. This way, you’ll be able to dive deep into that book you’re reading, that piece you’re writing, or that zen state of mind you’re attempting to embrace.
Establish Boundaries With Other Inhabitants
There’s a heightened challenge to keeping a mindful space if you’re a parent or a pet owner. Having kids means having to attend to their needs, which isn’t bad in itself so long as you still have time for self-care. As a solution, seek a babysitter, house help, or simply another family member to attend to the kid when you can’t at the moment.
For pets, especially energetic cats or dogs, you can have them trained to listen to a command or stay at a corner of the house only. It’s usually easier to train pets while they’re still young, as they can carry this habit once they mature. Once they learn how to follow you, they won’t bark, meow, jump on the bed, run around the room, or exhibit disruptive behavior when you’re around.
Fix Noisy Appliances Or Furniture
Noise should be eliminated from the space to keep peace and focus. While lowering the volume of your devices can be easily done, there are objects that might produce sharp sounds when moved unintentionally or recklessly.
Common culprits would be appliances or furniture that have incurred damage over time or those who simply have factory defects. If your fan blows loudly than normal or if your doors and windows squeak at the slightest movement, get them fixed immediately.
Tweak Your Work Notifications
If you’re a busy professional, chances are you keep a device that pings with notifications. Ignoring these might not be effective if you intend on achieving mindfulness. Tweak your phone or laptop in a way that work notifications get turned off after your working hours. Only let the device sound off in case of emergency from friends or family. You can also turn off the light-up feature of your device screen so that it won’t flash with every notification.
Be Aware Of Internal Distractions
An often unseen factor, internal distractions can be as disruptive as the others mentioned above. These can be worrisome thoughts you might have, be it about work, relationships, school, or the like. To suggest that you simply not think about these would be reckless advice. If it troubles you that much, seek a professional therapist or psychiatrist who can help uncover the root of your troubling thoughts.
A Mindful Space For Your Self
As you may have realized, turning your bedoom into a mindful space involves changing things big and small in your surroundings. These include the work notifications on your device, the sounds produced by furniture, or the materials your beddings are made of. These could also be the boundaries between you and others at home, the clutter on your floor, the light from outside, or your very own thoughts. Become aware of how these bedroom elements affect you. The more you make time for yourself, the less you’ll feel blue.
Resources– Apartment Therapy, Best Self Media, Brit