7 Simple Tricks To Make Your Malaysian Home Better To Live In, According To Science

“There’s no place like home.” That quote could not be any more true as home’s the place we live in. It’s the place where we eat, sleep, bathe, and seek refuge from the outside world, the one place where we would retreat to at the end of the day.

With the new year ringing in, what better way to kickstart it by taking a few astonishingly simple steps to improve the one place we call home? Small changes with the power to make you feel almost like a new person!

Well, check these 7 out:

1. Opening up your window curtains/blinds

Aside from getting tip-top lighting selfies, drawing your window curtains open is better than staying in with artificial fluorescent lighting.

Studies have shown that our cortisol (stress hormone) level drops when we are exposed to artificial lighting – which causes our body to feel tired and drained. Cortisol give us energy to help our body deal with stress throughout the day may misinterpret artificial lighting and confuse the body to keep energy levels up instead of prepare for rest. Hence, quality of sleep declines and you are left feeling depleted.

However, having those curtains/blinds open will allow our body to regulate cortisol properly – because the body will know when the Sun is up, which means it’ll react properly when it’s time for us to get out of bed!

With those curtains and blinds constantly down, your body isn’t sure what time of the day it is, and if this persists, it’ll lead to ‘late stage adrenaline fatigue’ – causing you to constantly feel tired no matter how much sleep you get! It shouldn’t come as a surprise that this tiredness translates into lack of enthusiasm to go through your daily life.

In addition to that, Sun exposure stimulates the release of ‘feel-good’ substances in our body, such as serotonin, dopamine, and beta endorphins, while surpressing hormones like melatonin, which make us feel sluggish and tired.

2. Place a cactus or orchid in your bedroom

Placing plants around your home will help with air quality during the day since they carry out photosynthesis.

However, special plants like orchids, cactus, succulents and epiphytic bromeliads are the opposite. These plants absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) while giving out oxygen (O2) at night instead. So placing them by your bedside will improve oxygen supply that’ll help the body get a good night’s rest.

Also, plants don’t just make a good home decor, but they also help in removing toxic vapors indoors.

3. Paint your walls the right colours

While we often stick to a more neutral tone such as white, light yellow or cream, studies have shown that it’s rather essential to choose the right colours for your room and other parts of the home as colours have a psychological effect on us.

It has been long believed that green is the best colour for the bedroom because of its calming psychological effects on the human brain, while other colours like red is best for the dining room because it encourages appetite. However, it was later proved that it still ultimately boils down to personal preference.

For example, if you’re not a morning person, painting your room red could give you that boost of energy you need to get out of bed.

So make sure you know how each colour affects humans psychologically before painting them!

4. Increase the temperature of your air conditioner

Since Malaysia is a warm tropical country, most of us tend to put our air-conditioning on blast at the minimum 16°C.

However, a study from Cornell has shown that having the temperature at about 25°C is optimal for the human body. In the study, participants who are studying or working under 20°C or over 30°C showed a lower productivity rate. The study also revealed 44% of people made more mistakes being in 20°C as opposed to the group that were in the optimal room temperature of 25°C.

It was explained that this happens because when our body’s temperature drops, we would become distracted as our body is using substantial amounts of energy to keep us warm.

Besides being productive, the warm temperature makes us much happier too!

“People were asked to rate the efficacy of heating pads or ice packs and then answer questions about their employer or a hypothetical company. Those who got their hands warm expressed higher job satisfaction and greater willingness to buy from and work at the made-up companies.”

 

5. Change to proper white/yellow bulbs

Yellow or white lighting? Japanese Health Researcher, Junji Takano mentions that you’ll first have to determine the room and its function. For rooms where you usually carry out tasks, use white lighting, whereas for ambiance, use yellow.

“You may think that lighting is just to provide illumination to an area, but proper color temperature of the lights used in your room can indeed change your lifestyle and health.”

– Junji Takano

For example, use yellow lights in your bedroom to give ‘warmth’ to the room which encourages sleeping, while putting a lamp with white light on your study/bedside table to provide ample lighting for you to carry out your tasks properly.  This is because yellow lighting do not ‘spread out’ as well as white does, hence making it harder to carry out tasks like reading.

For the kitchen, a mixture of both white and yellow lights are encouraged as the white lighting intensifies your taste buds, whereas the latter improves your digestion and memory.

6. Spray your house with floral scent air freshener

Floral scents have been proven to be able to improve a person’s emotional state and in turn, bring about physical well-being.

In a study, researchers got 59 students to write about 3 life events. The students were separated into different rooms – floral, classic fragrance, baby powder, and non-scented air. It was revealed that students in the floral scented room wrote 3 times as many happy-related words as compared to the others.

Besides happiness, floral scents also promote social interaction. People are more likely to talk to strangers in a floral scented room. Now you know what to do for the next house party you host!

7. Beef up on home protection

Security is both an aspect and emotion. Sure, we can make sure to lock our doors or equip the premise with CCTVs but that alone does not take away the dread that would loom over us whenever we leave our homes.

To keep our insecurities at bay, it’s essential to also purchase home insurance.

Wait! Before you run off the other way at the sight of the word ‘insurance’, here’s how it can scientifically improve your home living for the better.

Worrying about our home comes as a form of ‘control’. A researcher has said that, “we worry because we see the world as an unsafe place and want to fight the sense of unrest.” And judging by the crime rate in Malaysia, he may be right!

That said, we ultimately cannot ‘control’ when a robber wants to break in our house, or when a fire would break out. So, insurance is able to give us that remedy when a mishap happens. It provides us with an emotional peace, knowing that we’re prepared for the future and any outcome that may arise.

Sounds interesting doesn’t it? You can get an immediate quotation for Allianz Home Shield here and see if it fits your bill. And if you wanna learn more about other types of home protection solutions Allianz has, check them out here.

And there you go! 7 simple yet amazing tips for your home that’ll also improve you mentally, emotionally and physically. That’s definitely a good way to kickstart your 2017!