Is Your Home Secretly Making You Feel Worse?

We spend a lot of time talking about what we put into our bodies.

What we eat. How much water we drink.

Whether we exercise. How well we sleep.

But here’s a question for this Saturday:

When did you last think about the space you’re actually living in?

The environmental part of the Wellness Wheel can get overlooked because it doesn’t sound particularly exciting. But our surroundings are part of our wellbeing too, and autumn is exactly when I start paying more attention to mine.

The windows begin closing. Heating starts creeping back on. Wet coats appear. We spend longer indoors.

And after the summer we’ve just had, the seasonal change is becoming pretty obvious.

The Met Office describes autumn as a transition towards cooler, wetter and windier conditions, with steadily shortening daylight as we move towards winter.

So before we disappear indoors for the next few months, I reckon our homes deserve a little MOT.

Not a cleaning marathon.

Not a £500 wellness makeover.

Ten minutes.

Open a window for a while if conditions allow.

Clear the chair that’s somehow become a wardrobe.

Put something away that’s been irritating you every time you walk past it.

Move one thing that makes the room feel cramped.

Then look at where you normally sit.

Does that spot actually feel good?

Could you move closer to natural daylight? Is there somewhere more comfortable to read?

Could the television occasionally stay off while you put music on instead?

Small changes, but that’s the point.

Your Home Doesn’t Need to Look Like Instagram

Wellbeing has developed a slightly unfortunate aesthetic.

Apparently we’re all supposed to live among perfectly folded blankets, enormous houseplants and suspiciously beige furniture.

No thanks.

A home that supports your wellbeing doesn’t need to impress anybody.

It needs to work for you.

And for naturists, I think there’s another dimension to this.

As opportunities to live naturally outdoors become less frequent through autumn and winter, home becomes increasingly important.

Naturism doesn’t hibernate just because September becomes October.

If being naked at home is normal for you, make the space comfortable enough to actually enjoy it.

Warm enough. Private enough. Somewhere you can stretch, read, cook, talk, listen to music or simply sit without feeling you’re surrounded by jobs waiting to be done.

That’s not indulgence.

It’s recognising that environment forms part of whole-person living.

There is also something surprisingly useful about paying attention to what’s immediately around us. NHS wellbeing guidance includes noticing the present moment — our thoughts, feelings, bodies and the world around us — among its five suggested steps towards better mental wellbeing.

You don’t need to call what I’m suggesting mindfulness.

Just notice your home again.

We’ve all got things we’ve stopped seeing.

The pile of post.

The corner that catches beautiful afternoon light.

The window we never open.

The chair nobody actually likes sitting in.

The plant hanging on for dear life.

You may discover something else too: one person’s environmental wellbeing can become another person’s social wellbeing.

Rather than spending Saturday rearranging furniture alone, invite somebody round for coffee. Good relationships and social connection are also recognised as important to wellbeing, helping create belonging and opportunities to share experiences and support one another.

No elaborate entertaining required.

They can even help you move the chair.

That’s my wellness challenge for this weekend.

Choose one room.

Give it ten minutes.

Don’t ask whether it looks better.

Ask whether it feels better to live in.

Because as the Welsh autumn closes in and we spend more of our lives indoors, perhaps the most underrated wellbeing tool we have isn’t something we need to buy at all.

We may already be standing in it.

What’s one small thing you could change in your home today that would make it feel better to live naturally in tomorrow?