Most of us are chronically stressed – constantly over-worked and with very little time to be able to just relax and recover. We come home from tough days in the office and then more often than not need to cook dinner, clean the kitchen and respond to e-mails.
Sometimes it seems like you can go months without getting the chance to just sit down and read a book or get some shuteye and this is nearly enough to drive us mad.
Moreover, it’s not very good for your health. If you are constantly stressed and on-the-go, your immune system will likely be exhausted and weakened leaving you prone to getting ill. Likewise, having a constant stream of adrenaline and cortisol pumping through your system can take its toll on your heart and on your mental health.
We need to be able to just relax sometimes.
In this article, we’re going to look at one of the best ways you can do this: by creating spaces in your home that are designed specifically for relaxing and meditating and that are perfectly conducive to recharging your batteries.
Read on to find out how to create your own relaxing meditation room, or how to hijack other rooms in your home to transform them into spaces you can unwind.
Creating A Designated Meditation Room
What this room should basically consist of is a minimalist design coupled with a comfortable place to sit and something nice to look at.
Japanese Zen gardens are an example of a space designed for meditation, and here the layout and design is intended specifically to be minimalist and to avoid ‘distractions’ and clutter.
Keeping this room as minimal in design as possible will also help you to avoid the space becoming cluttered or untidy. If there’s barely anything in here, then you can rest assured that it will never cluttered and untidy.
Note that although you want a comfortable seat, you don’t want anything too comfortable. Head to a meditation room in a spa and you will often find the seats are made from stone. Why? Because this prevents you from going to sleep – thus enabling you to walk between wakefulness and sleep in the state known as ‘hypnagogia‘.
This will allow your brain to relax and unwind, and it’s actually a tool that many creative thinkers through history have used to come up with ideas and inspiration.
Here are some other meditation room essentials to consider:
- A soft surface to sit on the floor – Some people like to just use a cushioned yoga mat. But we recommend investing in a meditation cushion for more comfort. If you’re looking for a comfortable meditation chair that looks great and give you the support you need (perfect for beginners) check out the NAMAseat!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5UIsAofzWc
- Somewhere to light a candle – This can be great for adding a nice scent or for watching the flame to help your mind focus. You can also use a diffuser for essential oils or similar.
- An absence of technology – Remove anything that will cause stress or emit blue light such as LEDs, computers, phones etc. This is a no-tech zone!
- Relaxing photos/art on the walls – looking at beautiful and relaxing scenes can be great for lowering stress and forgetting the worries of the day. An alternative of course is a view out of your window into the garden.
- Minimalist ornaments – You want to add something like a miniature zen-garden which can be the perfect kind of absent-minded distraction that you use to avoid stress and let your mind wander.
- Activities – Depending on your intended use for the meditation room, you can add an easel for painting or drawing, which many people find is meditative in itself.
Think as well about the room itself. You need to make sure that the space is going to be warm for instance and you should also try to keep sound out as much as possible. Hanging rugs on the walls can be a great way to improve sound insulation for instance.
And of course, color plays a big role. Paint the wall the wrong color and your meditation room can quickly turn into a constant reminder of stress. Try stress reducing colors like olive green, tan, or a soft gray.
Turn These Rooms Into Meditation Spaces
A Reading Corner
Unfortunately, many of us don’t have the luxury to create a dedicated meditation room. Few people have the space for an office, let alone a meditation room. Instead then, you might be forced to turn a portion of an existing room into a meditation nook – or at least into places that you can relax and escape your worries.
Reading a good book is a great way to enjoy some escapism and to forget about the things that are making you stressed. Books are also great because they completely engage our attention and force us to switch off that ‘inner monologue’, thereby helping us to feel calm and at ease.
To create a perfect nook for reading around the home, choose a corner of one of your rooms and place a comfortable arm chair and a lamp there on a coffee table. The lamp will help you to read but it will also create an ‘oasis of light’, meaning that only this one section of the room is lit up and you can’t see ‘out’ into the rest of the room.
Right away this creates the sensation of being in your own little ‘bubble’. Add a footstool to kick back on and a cup of tea on that coffee table and you have somewhere perfect to escape to after a busy day. Arrange some books and other items in the area too that help you to feel at ease.
If you want to go one-step further, why not get a massage chair and enjoy getting a back-rub every morning while you read the paper?
And of course, this will also work perfectly as a meditation nook in your room, as you’ll be able to shut yourself off from the outside world.
The Garden
When they’re done well, gardens present the perfect spot for recharging your batteries and enjoying some peace and quiet. The best strategy here is to try and keep your garden relatively minimalist by reducing the number of plants and other things that you have to maintain.
Again, think about the way a zen garden works. Now get yourself a deck chair or a floor cushion for the garden and have a small garden table. Sit back, close your eyes and soak up those rays! This is a great way to meditate on your property when the sun is out.
For the evenings, look into getting a sheltered area with a comfortable seat, a heater and a light. Especially when it rains, sitting under here can be very therapeutic and another perfect spot to read or think. Adding a pond can help add to the ambiance by creating a soothing background sound of running water.
Or why not create a greenhouse or a ‘pod’ for the end of your garden? These spaces provide the warmth and dryness of being indoors, while getting you away from the noise and chaos often associated with the home. What’s more is that being closer to nature like this is perfect for meditation.
The Bathroom
The bathroom is somewhere you have to spend time at least a few times a day, so why not turn it into your own personal spa? Investing a little more in a waterfall shower or spa tub will mean you can really indulge yourself whenever you go for a wash and feel all the stress and tension leave your muscles.
Throw in a waterproof bluetooth speaker, some nice scents and a modern design and you’ll have somewhere that really revitalizes you every day.
Instead of thinking of your bathroom as a practical necessity and somewhere you go to get ready for work, why not think of it as a place where you can really pamper yourself, relax your muscles and come out feeling rejuvenated?
The Bedroom
Finally, you can also consider turning your bedroom into a meditation room.
Many of us make the mistake of doing too much in our bedrooms. You may be guilty of this if you have a TV in the room, if you often have long lie-ins and eat breakfast in here etc. This can contribute to insomnia, as it means that your brain no longer sees the bedroom as necessarily being a place to switch off an unwind.
Instead, try to keep your bedroom purely as a place for sleeping and avoid doing anything else in here except for the obvious – and meditation.
If you keep your room cozy, tidy and set-aside for relaxation, then you should find it much easier to get into a calm and meditative state when you’re in the room. Likewise, your sleep and meditation will both benefit from many of the same décor decisions – such as taking out all technology that might emit any kind of light or getting black-out curtains to shut out the outside world.
Of course, there’s no reason that you have to choose just one of these rooms! You can also create multiple meditation spaces around your home to make it easier to stay calmer all day long.