5 Design Elements That Promote Health and Wellbeing

A home is a place of refuge. It is a place of rest and rejuvenation and a space for gathering with family and friends. Thoughtfully designed outdoor spaces can enhance your ability to lead a healthy lifestyle and improve your health and wellbeing.

Spending time in nature provides significant health benefits. In fact, recent studies find that living close to nature and spending time outdoors boosts the functioning of the body’s immune system and offers protection against a wide range of diseases.

Your home’s outdoor space can be designed to provide a vital connection to the natural world and allow you to interact with nature in many ways.

Here are five elements to include in the design of your outdoor space to turn your everyday life into a wellness retreat.

Space for Relaxation

The calming effects of nature can easily be integrated into the design of your outdoor space. Try an aromatic aromatherapy garden or soothing water feature elements to create a relaxing landscape to improve health and wellbeing.

Space for Mindfulness

There is a strong correlation between stress and disease. Meditation, yoga and other contemplative practices help lower stress hormones that compromise your immune system. In addition, these practices provide many benefits to the respiratory and lymphatic systems. Consider incorporating reflexology paths, labyrinths, Zen gardens and yoga and meditation spaces into your design for optimum benefit.

Space for Gardening

Micronutrients and antioxidants found in plant foods help fight inflammation, the genesis of disease. A diet full of fresh, healthy whole plant foods is a critical component of health and wellbeing. Design your outdoor space to include herb gardens, raised garden beds,  a greenhouse or fruit trees. After all, there is nothing more rewarding than enjoying fresh produce grown at home.

Space for Physical Activity

We all recognize the importance of exercise for well-being. To promote a healthy lifestyle, there are many ways to design outdoor spaces for exercise at home- from lap pools and swim spas, to outdoor gyms, exercise spaces and sports courts.

Space for Hydrotherapy

Human beings have a natural affinity for water, which is vital to our health and wellbeing. Hydrotherapy features such as spas, hot tubs, cold plunge pools and saunas promote a sense of health and wellbeing and provide a vast array of physical benefits from soothing aches and pains to relieving the symptoms of many medical conditions.

Jennifer DiCuollo is an Associate Principal and Professional Landscape Architect with DHM Design. View their profile or call 970-963-6520 for more information.  

Content for this article provided by DHM Design.