NON-VISUAL BIOPHILIC PATTERNS FOR WELLNESS LIVING
The Smell of Your Home Never Felt So Good!
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How would you could connect to nature in your home if you were blindfolded? Can you taste it? Would you find a way to touch it? How could you hear it if the windows were closed? What does nature smell like from inside your home? Answer these questions and you have discovered the second pattern of biophilic design:
Non-Visual Connection to Nature.
Imagine being blindfolded in your home. Is your home as stimulating to other four senses as it is to your sense of sight? How many textures are in your home that help sooth you? What do you touch when you want to be stimulated? What does your home taste like? I am not suggesting that you lick your home. Your sense of taste is directly related to your sense of smell. Do you have aromatherapy in your home that satiates when you breathe it in? Speaking of aroma, do you keep scents in your home that stimulate positive memories? Olfactory is directly linked to our memories which are stored in a part of our brain that does not clock time. This allows us to experience a memory in the moment. Because of this phenomenon, it is important that we have aromas in our home that are tied to positive, not negative, memories. What does your home sound like? The last point of a non-visual connection to nature is audio. Keep those positive vibes around. Why are these elements so important?
A strong non-visual connection to nature can reduce systolic blood pressure and stress hormones. That means less snapping at loved ones, friends, or co-workers. It also reduces the stress on our bodies that nurture illness and disease. Who couldn't use improvement of cognitive performance. Add this to your brain puzzles for enhanced performance. Considering we spend 90% of our time indoors, non-visual connection with nature vastly improves our mental health and sense of tranquility. To summarize, your space should feel fresh and well balanced. When working together in concert, your built environment should evoke the feeling of being outdoors.
Audio: The goal with using our sense of hearing as an opportunity to connect with nature is to decrease our sympathetic response. This causes the "fight-or-flight" feeling that so many of us feel as our stress levels rise trying to meet deadlines and overburdened schedules. Sounds of nature are especially effective in increasing the parasympathetic response in people who experience high stress. The parasympathetic system is responsible for lowering our respiratory and heart rate as well as allowing us to digest properly. On a stress scale of 1-5, level 3 is our most productive yet, harder to achieve in our fast paced lifestyle. Accessing the parasympathetic system helps to keep us at this level without creeping up to a level 4, or worse, a level 5 which is the equivalent of being terrified. Even if you can't go for a walk outside to take in the sounds of nature, technology is surprisingly effective. Connected home devices allow us to stream sounds of burbling brooks, wind through trees, and birds chirping. Overlay some binaural beats and you have a wellness cocktail for your ears.
Olfactory: The nose knows. Aromatherapy has rightfully found its place in our culture. Certain scents can energize, calm, heal, or boost our immune system. We have a physiological and emotional response to aromas. Primitively, smells help us determine whether something is dangerous or healthy for us. Let's focus on healthy. Each aroma has its own "super power". For example, the properties of lavender, when inhaled, work on brain chemistry naturally by mimicking prescription drugs such as Valium and Diazepam to lower anxiety levels. Another nose to brain sedative is Jasmine. Scientists have found that Jasmine can deliver effects as powerful as sleeping pills and sedatives. Connecting with natures healing properties through different touch points is one of the reasons that Lynn offers her clients products through Young Living for therapeutic essential oils to use in home diffusers and aromatic organic household cleaners. The Thieves Oil products are antibacterial and especially festive to smell. Which brings us to the emotional response to aromas. "Unlike other senses, olfactory neuroanatomy is intertwined, via extensive reciprocal axonal connections, with primary emotion areas including the amygdala, hippocampus, and orbitofrontal cortex...". This means certain scents or odors will evoke memories. This is important to understand so that we don't accidently add an aroma, no matter how lovely, that is tied to a memory that causes sadness or depression or anger. Good or bad, scents are subjective to the individual.
Gustatory: That's tasty! It is not being suggested that your home should become the next setting for a Hansel and Gretel story. No windows will be made of sugar glass. However, our sense of smell and taste have an intimate relationship. Technically, tastants (the chemical structure of food) allow us to detect the sweet, bitter, salty and/or savory parts of food through our taste buds. It is the food odorants that allow us to discover the flavor of food through our sense of smell. It is the combination of tastants and odorants that make food taste ohhhhhh so good...or bad. Choose your building materials and aromatherapy carefully because you could taste your ceder wall! This is yet another reason why the idea of eating that sugar cookie scented candle crosses our mind. It also gives us the opportunity to taste pine without actually putting it in our mouth. So many layers of patterns to add to our homes to calm, stimulate and tie to special memories.
Haptic: Can you touch "happiness"? Some would say yes, then stroke the soft silky hair of their cat. Allergic to animals? Faux fur blankets and furniture is always an option. Pinching back tender leaves of your houseplant can "induce relaxation through a change in cerebral flow rates (Terrapin Bright Green)". Sinking your hands into aromatic soil in the garden can create a sense of environmental stewardship, reduce fatigue and even keep joints flexible. Who knew that our sense of touch could have such positive visceral effects improving our health? The materials and finishes we use in our built environment are substantially tied to our sense of comfort and wellbeing. Sometimes we need a cool quartz countertop to lean on, run our hands across textured wallpaper, or sit on plush carpet and listen to the tinkling of a crystal chandelier as it dances in a light breeze. An even more specific use of haptic therapy is using vibrations in hydrotherapy. Kohler has an entire line of bathtubs that use our sense of touch to heal our bodies and give us an impression of wellbeing.
TALK TO LYNN ABOUT RE-IMAGINING YOUR BATHROOM HERE
All of these non-visual forms of stimulus have a specific and profound effect on our health and development. Humans are complex and multifaceted both emotionally and physiologically. Both play a critical role in our quality of life. Interior Architects and Designers are becoming more educated in how to thoughtfully incorporate biophilia into homes to benefit homeowners. Sometimes touch points can be subtle at others, very obvious. This creates a natural balance and harmony. Speaking to balance, the touchpoints for non-visual patterns should be a comfortable blend of natural and simulated experiences.
We can all start feeling better and presenting the best version of ourselves by creating balance between our homes and mother nature. Find that favorite place in your home where you can take a deep breath and inhale the sweetness of life. Close your eyes and listen to the breeze as it moves through the Tamarisk trees bringing with it the scent of desert creosote. Run your fingers across the sumptuous fabrics of your sofa and throw blankets. Now you can quietly dream of the meal you will make from the fresh herbs growing in your kitchen garden. It will be a meal of joy, love and health to share with those who are closest to you. The aroma of a healthy life never felt so good.
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