We used to count down the minutes until the next much-needed healthy escape to a yoga class or a juice bar, but now the hottest wellness destination around is none other than your own home.
Last night, a panel of wellness design experts, led by Well+Good co-founder and Chief Content Officer Melisse Gelula, dug deep into the topic at the latest Well+Good Talks, in front of a packed house at The Assemblage Nomad in New York City.
“Our home is an extension of our body, and our body is an extension of our home,” says shaman and seeress Deborah Hanekamp, founder of Mama Medicine, who was joined on the panel by Shelly Lynch-Sparks, founder of HYPHEN Interior Designs and Sophia Gushée, author, healthy home expert, and Well+Good Council member.
Whether it’s limiting your tech exposure or creating a cleansing cleansing ritual for your home, there are simple, super-attainable ways to health-ify your space—and this happy-home dream team shared some seriously cool intel on exactly how to do that.
Here are 5 expert-approved ways to turn your home into the hottest wellness destination from our panel last night.
1. Create a cleansing bath ritual for your home
You cleanse your body in lavish baths, so why not cleanse your space too? “I think a ritual bath for the home is just as important [as a bath for you], and it’s something I do about four times a year for my house,” says Hanekamp, who routinely sends her clients off with recipes for baths infused with essential oils, crystals, and other natural elements.
Last night, she offered up a recipe for doing the same for your living space: In a spray bottle, combine water, cleansing and protective cinnamon, roses for love, energy-neutralizing salt, 10 drops of palo santo essential oil, a couple drops of “lemongrass essential oil to neutralize negativity,” and several drops of sweet orange essential oil to bring kindness and clarity into your life. For crystals, add in grounding black tourmaline, topaz for abundance and health, and clear quartz, either in a tea strainer or right into your bottle. Then, spray it around your home.
2. Zero in on a space with a wellness purpose
A huge part of creating a wellness-centric home is making sure you have a space you can go to and unwind and clear your head after a long, busy day.
For Lynch-Sparks, that means designating an area—even if it’s small!—for that exact purpose.
“Whether it’s your yoga mat or a meditation cushion, it’s so important to create a space that’s just for you to retreat from your daily life,” says Lynch-Sparks, who’s also a big fan of the reading nook.
“Somewhere you can turn off everything else and focus inward and find that coziness and inner peace, wherever that may be.”
3. Detoxify your home by opening the windows and using a doormat
For Sophia Gushée, turning your home into a wellness zone means limiting the things that can cause you harm. And that can start simply (and powerfully) with opening your windows. “Indoor air tends to be more polluted than outdoor air,”Gushée explained, to gasps from the shocked audience.
“A lot of things we have in our homes contaminate the air in the dust, so it’s good to ventilate airflow in your home,” Gushée says. “Also know dust can contain dozens of toxic chemicals, so having a large doormat at the front entrance and a no-shoes policy can reduce toxic chemicals in your home significantly.”
4. Limit your technology (and adorn it with crystals!)
Creating boundaries with technology is super important for your well-being, but when you’re binge-watching your favorite Netflix shows (because obviously it’s gonna happen!), your crystals can come in handy.
“Crystals, plants, and other things can modify your electromagnetic fields (EMFs)—energy created from our wireless and wire technologies—to help you become more resilient,” Gushée says.
That’s exactly why some of Hanekamp’s gems always hang with her tech: “I have crystals on all of my technology at home. In one way its blocking the EMFs and cleansing whatever is coming through them that we’re not too sure about,” she says. “I use lepidolite; it’s a beautiful purple mica thats very accessible and sustainable.”
5. Rethink your lighting
When you’re trying to set a sense of serenity in your home, lighting plays a big role. While Himalayan salt lamps are always good additions, a new type of lighting might just take over your Instagram feed soon: selenite lamps.
“Selenite is also a salt, but it’s a much more condensed version. It’s even more of that neutralizing negative energy,” Hanekamp says. “Also, in lamp-form, it’s very aesthetically pleasing and it’s important to focus on when you look at something that balances you, that has an effect on your well-being as well.”
Special thanks to our partners, Rifle Paper Co., Milk Makeup, The Crystal Boutique, GRDN, Twig+Petal, Simply Curated, Saint Olio, House of Intuition, and The Great Lakes Goods, who provided amazing goodies for the gift bags.
Here are the healthiest home upgrades to invest in now, according to a pro. Or, take a look at the most common home decor mistakes—and how to fix them.
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