It’s all in your head: how to design a mentally healthy home.

Restful, restorative sleep. Mindfulness. Mandatory rest days. Relaxation techniques. Breathing fresh, clean air. 

Everybody knows that such “self-care” or mental health practices are helpful, but reality check - who actually bothers doing all that stuff? 

Elite athletes, that’s who.

They are some of the most driven, high-performing, results-oriented, and effective professionals in the workforce.

What’s more, many if not most pro athletes have been prioritizing their mental health and physical well-being since Day One. They may be millionaires now, with easy access to the resources of a major-league team, but effective self-care is still a personal priority, and has been since the very beginning.

We know from our own attempts at self-care, or boosting productivity, or designing a healthier, more appealing environment for ourselves, that this challenge can be difficult.

Many people put their physical health, financial health, and even their dental health before their own mental health!

Which is crazy, if you stop and think about it. Your brain is the operating system for literally EVERYTHING else you do. Why wouldn’t you spend the time and money to keep it running smoothly? 

And we’re not talking about years of therapy here. We’ve done the research and scoured the world looking for intelligent, creative, proven solutions that can make a difference right away. 

Take a look around: we’ve curated a selection of tools and products that take the guesswork out of getting yourself into a healthier frame of mind.

Sleep your way to better performance.

We’ve all heard that yoga, meditation, and cognitive behavioral therapy can help combat sleep problems. If only somebody could combine all the benefits of those practices into one elegant device, for those of us who don’t have the time and patience of an elite athlete at our disposal.

Another useful hack that frequent flyers, nappers, and fitful sleepers know about is the biological necessity of blackout-darkness for top quality sleep.

Help your brain breathe better.

Everyone knows that a long walk in the woods to “forest bathe” can soothe our stressed-out minds.

But dense urban living, harsh weather, and lack of access can make it hard to reach that pine forest or sandy beach. 

Here’s how you can bring the outdoors inside: a raft of studies on aromatherapy have demonstrated the benefits of certain natural scents to elevate mood, improve sleep, and lower stress. 

In the same way, we launder our clothes and linens, we sweep and mop, we drink spring water, but do we consider the air that we breathe into our lungs all day long? You can treat your lungs to a nutrition upgrade, in the comfort of your own home. 

Carpe Diem! If not now, then when?

That old saying, “if you do what you‘ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got,” became an old saying because it’s true. 

And far too many people only start thinking about effective self-care and mental health after something’s gone wrong.

If you haven’t even taken one hour in the last 12 months to seriously consider how to improve your mental health, we have to ask: what are you waiting for?

It’s not an all-or-nothing deal. You don’t have to turn your schedule upside down, or adopt twelve new habits by next week. Simple, effective tools exist, and we found some for you. 

For today, just make a choice to move the needle 10% in the right direction.