Boost Your Mood With These 5 DIY Projects At Home

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the imperfectly empowered podcast. I am your host, Anna Fuller. Did you know that there are things that can actually be done to your home in your home to boost your mood? When we talk about mental health, emotional health, we often think eating more vegetables, exercising, more positive, thinking the list goes on and on, but there are actually science based strategies of DIY projects, things that you can easily do to your home in home to boost your mood, to reduce stress. Decrease anxiety improve your mental, emotional health, which will ultimately help support all pillars of health. Today. I’m going to share five easy DOI projects at home to boost your mood and ultimately make your home a happier place. These are really, really easy things to do. One of the easiest things that you can do, this is project number one, and this is hardly even a project. It is an essential oil diffuser, an essential oil diffuser aroma therapy is an incredibly potent form of therapy. There’s multiple different essential oils. I am by no means an expert on essential oils. However, there have been a fair number of research studies to support the therapeutic benefits of aroma therapy on relaxation and mood and ultimately boosting mood calming, um, anxiety. Some have actually been shown to, uh, help reduce depression by again, elevating mood. So here’s the pro. I am going to give you nine particular essential oils that have been shown with some research to actually boost your mood. And de-stress so if you’re wondering, okay, what should I be diffusing in my home again, not an expert. There are some out there who are. Very passionate and very knowledgeable about the subject, but this is an easy, easy thing that you can do within your home. That actually has some research behind it. Essential oil, number one, possibly one of the most common oils is lavender. Lavender is truly one of the most popular, essential oils due to its antic properties. That simply means that it has a calming effect and ultimately boosting one’s mood. There was one particular study that found aromatherapy using these studies are all linked in the blog post or the show notes, by the way, at hammers and hugs, hammers letter N hugs.com. If you would like to see these to be very clear, I did not dive into each of these studies that I’m about to reference because this is not a life and death, um, intervention, meaning there’s not quite the same. I don’t have the same threshold for study. Quality when we’re talking about essential oils, I’m not suggesting that these will save your life. I am suggesting that there could be some mental health benefits to these. So to be clear, there is a study that showed that aromatherapy using a 3% lavender oil spray on clothing was shown to reduce workplace stress. Here’s a really interesting side note about studies using aromatherapy in the workplace. I have said for years and years, years, That there’s two elements. I’m gonna talk about two projects within a home that I’m suggesting that I have said should be done in the workplace. Especially hospitals, emergency departments, more than any possibly one is aroma therapy. Aromatherapy. If you’ve walked into an ER, I have heard so many people tell me that it is a trigger, the smell of. Hospital is a terrible negative trigger for many, many people. And I, I know the smell. I know the smell very, very well. What would it be like if we actually had diffusers in hospitals? I think it would improve the workplace environment, not just for the employees, but also for patients. And it would be so cheap. Like this is a really cheap intervention. Anyway, let me get off my high horse, but. I can absolutely see the, the point is I can totally see how this would help reduce workplace stress. Here’s a diffuser recipe for you. Two drops, lavender, two drops, Rosemary three drops lemon in any essential oil diffuser. Let it run for an hour. Turn it off for an hour. Put it on intermittently. Most diffusers. Have these built into them. Cama meal. The Cama meal plant is a common tea. Most people recognize that tea to Aidan sleep Cama meal, essential oil, um, also has shown to help with relaxation and insomnia. Uh, many people drink Cama meal before bed. If you’re looking for an all natural approach to insomnia, that might be a good idea. There was a study that showed after eight weeks of use. Approximately 58% of participants reported, reduced anxiety. Another study found that Camile increased morning cortisol levels, improving mood and decreasing stress. That one’s very interesting. I, um, did not take the time to dive into that. I, um, Would be curious to know when they consumed that tea. I apologize. I should have looked at that, but, um, that’s actually a very interesting correlation. So if you are especially struggling with stress at your job, maybe consider, um, Camma meal tea at night, uh, since it helps increase morning cortisol levels. Try diffusing or applying a few drops of a Camile essential oil again before bed, and then possibly even in the morning, if it’s shown to increase morning cortisol levels. Okay. This is hilarious. This third one I’m I’m just now realizing in real time. I’m not sure how to pronounce this and I’m not gonna pause this recording to look it up. All right. I’m bringing y’all along real life. Lang Lang, is that how you pronounce it? It’s Y L a N G. Yang yang Lang Lang. I’m gonna assume the why is silent, real life people real life. I did not take the time to look this up. Let’s say yang yang. That sounds right. Essential oil is often used as a top note in perfumes. Which is really, really interesting. Um, again, aromatherapy is potent. One sense of smell is really, really powerful. Think of when you smell something that’s really nostalgic, it can quickly bring back positive or negative triggers. So putting it in perfumes, a very fascinating marketing strategy. Um, it has been found in research to boost mood. Reduced depression, alleviate anxiety and lower BR blood pressure. And just as a side note, by the way know I was doing research on these essential oils. Um, the perfume that is most common that has this essential oil is Chanel number five, which is a very, very popular, um, perfume. I actually, I can’t picture it or smell it. I’m curious now to go smell it. I mean, if you’re gonna wear perfume, you might as well wear a mood boosting one. So here’s a diffuser recipe idea. Two drops of Lang Lang three drops, orange, another essential oil rose. I love the smell. This is not shocking to me that there’s research behind this one, of course, distilled from the flower rose essential oil. Not only smell. Delightful to me. It’s also got that. Just happy, like all natural coy, warm, fuzzy feelings type of a smell, but it also aids in stress reduction. Interestingly, a study found that rose oil decreased the physiological responses to stress such as. Decreased breathing and heart rate. If you missed my podcast, episode and blog post on dealing with anxiety, the physiological concerns of chronic anxiety, why anxiety in its natural state is actually quite healthy for the human experience. I know that sounds very countercultural. Listen to that episode, it will change the way you think about anxiety. It will also give you some tools to help combat the physiological response to anxiety. This could be one that you add to that. That’s a fascinating study, rose essential oil, another study, um, study a hundred women. During labor and delivery and found that using rose oil did decrease their reported anxiety during deliver delivery during deliver orange. This one does not shock me either. This is one of my favorite scents. I love the smell of orange. It is so invigorating, another essential oil with anxiolytic properties. It is a citrus based oil. Of course, I don’t need to tell you that, but an interesting study that was conducted, uh, I think this one was like 10 years ago, divided test subjects into two groups. The control group inhaled a placebo. For those of you not familiar with research terminology, the control group is basically the one who gets like, I think in this case, actually it was tea tree oil. So a placebo one that you know, is not necessarily showing. Not particularly what you, where you’re wanting to study. Then there’s the test groups. You have your control group and the test group. So the control group in inhaled, this placebo tea treat oil, and then the test group inhaled orange essential oil prior to a predictably stress-inducing experience. Interestingly enough, those who inhaled the orange essential oil reported. Um, that they did not experience an increase in anxiety during this predictably stressful situation for them. Unlike those who ha inhaled the placebo. In theory, in theory, um, inhaling orange helps boost your mood and lower stress responses. This scent has also been shown to heighten awareness and boost. That’s not shocking to me. I love the smell of a fresh cut. Orange is one of my favorite smells. So a diffuser recipe idea, three drops, orange two drop cinnamon bark, two drops clove. This is one of my favorite combinations by the way. This is basically what I, um, boil on the stove. Whoops, boil on the stove every Christmas morning. Um, this is a very nostalgic scent for us in our home. Highly recommend that particular recipe. Jasmine Jasmine oil is an essential oil derived from the white flowers of the Jasmine plant. And a study found that as compared to a placebo, Jasmine oil improved, increased, um, breathing rate and blood pressure, it was suggested then that this mood boosting effect could actually be used to help relieve depression. So notice there’s, um, Semantics, but it is a slightly different response. Some of these help decrease heart rate and breathing rate, meaning they almost enable you to relax that anxiolytic take a deep breath. Some of these are more mood boosting, meaning they will actually heighten your awareness, which could actually increase your heart rate and your breathing rate. So I just wanted. Kind of show those nuances. There they are, they are different. Ultimately they all help boost your mood in the sense that they either prevent that sense of anxiety or they actually help lift you up. Sandalwood sandalwood oil comes from the wood of an east Indian sandalwood tree. I found this fascinating, um, it’s apparently one of the most valuable trees in the world, which I also thought. Interesting sandalwood essential oil has been shown to have some lytic properties. Again, that would be for helping to reduce anxiety. A study found that sandalwood oil was effective at reducing anxiety among participants. Um, during my research of this particular study, it did suggest that the study was a little small. Suggest anything conclusive or to generalize it. Um, but again, Hey, there’s always room for more research sandalwood oil, a diffuser recipe idea is two drops of sandalwood and four drops. Cypress Sage cl Sage is a flowering herb found in the Mediterranean, uh, that has also been found to reduce cortisol. Again, if you’ve not listened to my. Episode on anxiety. I talk about the physiological effects of anxiety, why chronic anxiety is ultimately concerning from a disease standpoint, cortisol levels are a huge player in that conversation. And, um, decreasing chronic cortisol’s very, very important. This particular central oil was suggested that it does actually decrease cortisol levels and produce an antidepressant. Effect for menopausal women when inhaled inhaled again, that was cl Sage. This particular diffuser recipe is two drops. Cl Sage four drops, Juniper lemon. Again, not shocking, not shocking that this one is on the list. Just like oranges. Very, very. Mood lifting type of smell. I didn’t need a study to tell me that, but not shockingly a study did find that lemon essential oil had an effect on dopamine activities in mice. This was particularly studied. In mice. Um, another study found that lemon oil significantly enhanced attention level concentration, cognitive performance, and the mood of students during the learning process. I also feel like orange would do this too. Both of these instantly to me provide this, um, nostalgic sense of just invigorating and clean. I think spring summer. It’s not shocking to me that the research is suggesting that there is some generalizable principles, some general principles we can take out of this to apply to many people. Diffuse a recipe, three drops, eucalyptus, two drops lemon, two drops, lime two drops, orange. Lots of citrus in that one. So that is DIY project idea. Number one, meaning you can do it yourself. You can easily add these things to your home in your home, on your own. They’re easy. They’re budget friendly. That was idea. Number one. Here’s is idea. Number two, DIY project at home to boost your mood repaint. Your walls in a lighter, brighter shade color. Psychology is really, really fascinating. If you have never done any research on color psychology, it is a huge element to marketing. I understood it more. Once I got into this space and had to understand how color psychology could actually help affect. What you’re trying to communicate. It’s a really fascinating, but consequently, it’s not shocking. Then if this is powerful in advertising and marketing, that this could also then be applied to our homes and the colors on our walls. Generally speaking, generally speaking, my pro tip is to repaint your walls in a lighter, brighter shade of white light gray. Green blue or yellow, one of these shades, certainly if, if Navy blue, a dark Navy blue makes your heart sing. Girls stick with Navy blue, but generally speaking, these colors may actually invoke a, a more open sense of home. It will make a room look bigger, which can also have just an effect on your mood that, um, the space feels lighter and brighter. Here are my, my personal favorites in each of these color, uh, areas I’m gonna share my personal favorite paints. Very specif. White. My favorite whites are alabaster by Sherwin Williams, actually behind me. This is alabaster in case you’re interested by Sherwin Williams and simply white by Benjamin Moore. These are both a slightly off white. I do not like bright, bright, white. Agreeable gray in terms of the gray family by Sherwin Williams. There’s as y’all know, there’s a million grays out there. If you’re interested in, in more gray options, I did an entire series on dividing, the most popular farmhouse style paint colors into warm and cool tones. Um, COVID actually happened and my series got delayed, but you can still see. All of the breakdown. I just, I ended up, um, dropping off in terms of actually giving room examples, real life examples of these colors, but you can still find the full list of colors. I will resume this at some point, especially when we buy our forever property, but you can, uh, look up that on the blog farmhouse style paint guide, and you will see tons of cool gray and warm gray that you can use for that. This is actually true of, of any of. Green sea salt by Sherwin Williams, we painted, um, the bedroom of our last house, sea salt. It’s quickly become one of my very favorite greens retreat by Sherwin Williams is a, a darker version of sea salt. Um, but very, very calming. It’s a very calming green sea salt is a lighter, brighter shade of. Blue silver strand by Sherwin Williams and Dutch tile blue by Sherwin Williams, Dutch tile blue is a little bit darker. Silver strand is what we painted both of our basements. The last two basement renovations we painted in silver strand. It is one of my favorite colors. It has this crazy ability, depending on the lighting to look green, blue. Or gray. I kid you not, it is all three, but generally speaking, it tends to pull more blue in my opinion, but it is one of my favorite silver strands of very versatile color. By the way, silver strand became really popular. Joanna Gaines helped make this a very popular color. Um, this was a frequently used color in her very first season of, or in. First show, uh, fixer upper is how silver strand kind of came to be. And it is, it’s a great color. Yellow polar bear by Sherwin Williams and Hawthorne by Benjamin Moore. Hawthorne is I included pictures of these on the show notes in the blog post Hawthorne is what we painted the main living space in our second fixer upper. It is a much warmer. Yellow. Very, very French country, yellow polar bear is a cooler toned down version of yellow. It is actually in the same color spectrum as alabaster white. Interestingly enough, just warmed up a little bit, but polar bear is a great cooler creamier. Yellow Hawthorne is much, much warmer. A truer truer, yellow. If you are going to repaint your walls, I do highly recommend that you consider something in these color families. Again, color psychology is real. It actually has an effect on your mood and behavior. Um, again, you can actually look on the, on the show notes, if you want, if you’re more interested in color psychology, there’s a. Image that I included that actually breaks down what psychology has shown, um, based on colors, how it affects your mood. You can check that out. Let chat tip number three. What you can do in your home. DIY projects, DIY ideas to help boost mood within your home. Number three is relax with weighted blankets. Also not shocking to me. Research has reported that participants generally felt more relaxed and improved sleep when they used a weighted blanket. Now I do want to be very clear based on the research that I have seen, the improved sleep part was subjective. They didn’t actually show a, a truly like deeper REM sleep, but participants felt as compared to the placebo that they slept better. So perception is everything. Perception is very, very crucial. So in reality, There is something to be said, especially for children and teens about a weighted blanket. So the pro tip here as a rule, a weighted blanket should be five to 10% of your body weight, five to 10% of your body weight. You can buy different blankets, um, with different weights, depending on if you’re buying for a child, teenager, an adult, um, you can. Weighted blankets, many places, Wayfair, Amazon, five to 10% of your body weight. Also as a side note, I had somebody tell me one time I would sweat, like crazy if I slept with a weighted blanket. Okay. My follow up question was what temperature do you typically keep your bedroom at? Because most people keep their bedrooms way too warm. If you have not listened to my podcast episode on improving sleep, you wanna definitely check that out. 13 ways to sleep better. This is research has clearly shown that we sleep better when the room is slightly cooler, like 68 degrees. I’m going to suggest that if you keep your room cooler, plus use a weighted blanket, you may sleep better per the research. Listen, sleep is the body’s holistic reset button. It is essential. Restorative sleep is essential to your overall health. It is worth giving this a shot. make your room cooler, try a weighted blanket, and it will have an effect on every, every pillar of your health weighted blanket. DIY project at home. Number four to boost your mood increase sunlight exposure. You have heard this before. Vitamin D. Sunlight helps to release a chemical in the brain called serotonin stimulates energy can elevate mood and outlook. But what a lot of people don’t think about is you can improve your sunlight exposure within your home. Now to be clear, understand, obviously that it’s not quite the same when it’s coming through glass, et cetera. I get that point. However, the reality. Having a sunnier brighter home does have an effect on your outlook and your mood within your home. Allowing more sunlight in will help improve generally speaking mood. So how do we do this? This is the pro tip consider replacing curtains with shears or convert, full length curtains to balances. Balances for those of you not familiar are the, the pieces of fabric that run across the very top of window, as opposed to coming down the sides, draping down the sides like, like curtains. Do I actually did an entire blog post on how doing this transformed our living room. I couldn’t believe it. I could not believe the difference, even though I’ve been saying this. Um, we had in our third fixer upper in the living. I did a post with Wayfair. They sponsored this post and I got a bunch of things to help give my living room an update. One of the things that I wanted to do was make it lighter and brighter in the home. So I took my own advice and I replaced our full length curtains with shears. I happen to absolutely love these shears, by the way, they’re like semi shear. I think they were called French linen. The blog post is linked and you can see exactly which curtains I used. I highly highly recommend them. It really did transform the space. It still gave some dimension and texture because of the curtains while letting in a lot more light. I do not recommend this in bedrooms, by the way, again, going back to better sleep. Your bedrooms should be. Dark. They should not be a place of energy. They should be for sleeping. So I do not recommend this in a bedroom, but in the areas of your home, where you’re trying to be more productive and you are living kitchen, living room, family room, office, your office space, you should have more light. This is a way to do that. Increase light sunlight exposure, again, replace the curtains with she. Or consider a balance. So there’s just a piece across the top. Number five, number five of five easy DIY projects at home to boost your mood D clutter and organize. You have heard this before. I am certainly not the first. To have shared this, but research has clearly shown that decluttering and organizing your space can reduce stress and improve mood. Let me be clear. Decluttering involves removing unnecessary items. Completely. I get made fun of in this house all of the time, because I hate clutter. Clutter makes me. Irritable. It just does irritable, agitated. That’s why living in a rental house right now is very hard. It is hard for me. it is hard for me because there’s no rhyme or reason to the decor. The furniture is all over the place. There’s clutter because we’re just trying to stuff things wherever we can in this space, until we buy our house, this is hard for me. So we are working very hard to declutter as best we. Take a trash bag. Here’s my pro tip take a trash bag and anything that does not routinely get used with or played with on a regular basis, put it in this trash bag and schedule a porch pickup with salvation army. I am not sure how. Diffusely across the country. This service is offered, but I included the link to be able to do this with salvation army in the show notes. Be sure to check it out. They just come to your porch and pick it up now with COVID two. I don’t know how, you know, all these kinds of things have been significantly delayed and a lot more challenging, but I have done this many times. They come right to you guys. There’s no excuse. There’s no reason not to do this. Or you can also just drop it off at. Whole number of locations, trash bags organizing is step two though, of this particular idea, declutter and organized. They are not the same thing. You have to get rid of stuff for some people. I know this is really hard for me. I have to be careful not to get rid of everything to each their own, but you’ve got to get rid of stuff. First. Declutter means get rid. You can do it, you can do it, but then you have to organize what remains. You have to organize what remains and arrange it in such a way as to optimize visual peel or practical utility. Maybe it’s not meant to look pretty, but listen, if it’s not effective in its use, then it’s also going to make you feel like that you’re just living in, in, in clutter, an inefficient space women, especially. I will point you to an episode that I did back at the very beginning. It is it, ah, this might be my number one visited blog post. I don’t even know actually it’s how to design an efficient kitchen with work zones. Efficiency is so important. You want to be able to actually feel like the things that are all are all around you, that you’re surrounded by are actually being used and helping you in a more efficient way live your daily life. And the kitchen is where we spend so much of our time. So if you want to learn how to design your kitchen around work zones in an efficient manner, be sure to listen to that. A couple bro tips from an aesthetic standpoint, arrange items in groups of three. Consider creative storage solutions. Like the little slide out boxes for under sofas under beds, consider vertical storage. A lot of people do not maximize vertical storage in our last fixer upper. I mounted. Shelves on the walls. And I created vertical shoe shelf storage, especially for my boots that are tall and didn’t fit in my custom closet design. Don’t forget vertical storage. If you feel like you’ve got crowded floor space, think how can I move it? Vertically mounting baskets on the wall is another wonderful, wonderful way to help organize and declutter the. Move it to the wall, Mount baskets vertically on the wall. I do this for our drop zone. The kids each have their own basket for school papers, et cetera. Um, There’s so many custom cabinet options. There’s custom shelving custom shelving options. I shared how we used custom shelving in our third fixer upper to create an open concept closet. We had very little space in this bedroom, and so I opened, we knocked out the walls. I took two standard side by side closets and turned them into one massive open concept, custom closet that was framed by antique. Wood burn beams. It was a really cool, it was a really cool project. Uh, and I included that in the show notes too, so that you can check it out. The bottom line is there are things that you can do in your home DIY projects at home that you can do easily budget friendly ideas. To boost your mood. I hope you find one of these helpful. If you have any other ideas, please leave in the comments. I would love to hear other concepts where maybe your favorite paint colors or share your favorite essential oil recipes, what you find helpful, because it probably would benefit somebody else.