说到室内设计，你是更注重舒适感还是外观？不论是家具装饰的摆放位置、装修材料的色彩和纹理，还是灯光的选配，都会影响居住者的心情。

Our environments can affect the way we feel. This is not a new concept – after all, the traditional practice of feng shui has been with us for thousands of years. More recently, scientific research concluded that the design of healthcare environments could support patients in their recovery. Increasingly, however, it is our homes that are being seen as places we can improve our wellness.

A new approach to interior design suggests that many of us now care less about how our homes look and more about how they make us feel. How we feel can be influenced by a number of different things, including the furniture and objects within our homes and how these are arranged. For example, 'to create cosiness and the ability to connect with others, we want our furniture facing each other', says Lindsay T Graham, a personality and social psychologist. Smaller objects, too, have a lot of power, according to Monica Khemsurov, one of the founders of online design magazine Sight Unseen. Whether it's something an old friend made for us or a souvenir purchased while travelling, objects allow us to relive moments or feel closer to people we love at a glance. It makes sense, therefore, that taking a more intentional approach to where we place objects in our home, can affect our mood.

Other elements that help create a personal space that makes you feel good include the type of lighting, the use of colour and texture, as well as bringing nature into the home. Plants and 'natural materials, particularly unpainted wood, are really great for keeping our stress levels in check', says environmental psychologist Sally Augustin. And controlling stress levels can also be helped by making sure our work space and any clutter are hidden from sight when we want to feel calm, for example, during our night-time routine before going to bed.

However we choose to adjust our living spaces to improve wellness, the final tip from the experts is to not treat our homes as a museum. Instead, we should see them as idiosyncratic and constantly changing – just like us.