Assess your environment

The physical environment in your office, home, car and everywhere else you go affects your physiology. Your environment can make you feel comfortable and welcomed (ventral vagal state), it can make you feel hectic and unsettled (sympathetic state), or it can make you feel resigned and depleted (dorsal vagal state). This week let’s try to become aware of how your environment affects your mental state and make changes to make you feel more at ease.

HOW TO: Next time you find yourself in the space where you spend most of your day, take a moment to look at each object that you have in your field of vision and note if it makes you feel calm, agitated or resigned. Then move the objects that make you feel agitated or resigned out of your field of vision (if possible), and add more objects that make you feel calm (plants, pictures of loved ones, inspiring books, etc.) Notice what other cues you get from your environment (sounds, smells, other people’s energy, temperature, etc.) and if they make you feel calm, agitated or resigned. If possible, eliminate or minimize cues that make you feel agitated or resigned, and amplify cues that make you feel calm. Observe how this rearrangement affects your mental state.