As more people shift towards working from home, learning how to create a relaxing workspace in your home is becoming more important. Making this space more relaxing isn’t just about feeling calm—it can also improve productivity, well-being, and overall job happiness. Adding a few simple design elements lets you turn any home office into a peaceful, relaxing place where you can focus, be creative, and get your best work done.
The Overview
Relaxation Goes Beyond Painting The Walls
Let’s face it—if you’re going to spend a lot of hours in your home office, you may as well spend some time making it feel good.
The first thing most people will think of is wall paint. And it’s true that the colour of the walls will impact your energy, along with any decorations, shelving, and whatnot. But aside from how your home office looks, it’s also important to think about things that make the space more comfortable and useful, like:
- comfortable home office chair and desk
- noise reduction
- natural light
- home office lighting
- fresh air and ventilation
- and an organized work area (shelving, filing cabinets, etc.) with minimal clutter
By thinking about these things, making some decisions, and then forgetting about them, you can create a peaceful and relaxing home office and then forget about it, freeing up energy to focus on your actual work.
Identifying Your Own Needs In A Relaxing Home Office
Nobody else is like you. You have your own tastes and needs. To make the most relaxing workspace, you need to know what you like and focus on making an environment that fits your needs. To make it relaxing, it should fit your own style, what you find comfortable, etc.
Personalizing your home office is a great way to make it a place where you feel creative and inspired. You might want to add some green plants to your office. You might love vibrant colours for the wall. For example, colours of yellow or orange can make you feel calm while also giving you energy. Or you might hate yellow paint. We’re all different.
Some people might love minimalism, with next to nothing in their office to feel like they can start fresh. Other people might find minimalism feels cold and lifeless and love to put a lot of bric-à-brac (useless but fun stuff) around on every surface to make it feel lived in.
That said, there are a lot of common good practices that most relaxing home office spaces will follow.
Privacy and Comfort
Choosing the Right Room In The Home
For a relaxed home office, it’s important to choose a room that is both private and comfortable. This space should be away from places in your home that get a lot of use, like the living room and kitchen. If you can, use a spare bedroom or a specialized office space. These places are usually quieter and better for getting work done. Second, you want to pick a room that has natural light filtering in with a window. That light will help you concentrate, and the window will help with fresh air. CO2 build-up that comes from breathing has been linked to headaches, not being able to focus, etc.
Room Dividers
When you don’t get the luxury of a separate room, you can still create boundaries between your home office space and everything else by using room dividers. Ikea has some good options for room dividers, including using a sturdy/wide bookshelf as a good option.
Reducing Audio Noise In The Room
Reducing Noise
It can be hard to relax and focus in your home office if you hear a lot of noise going on outside the room. You can soundproof your room as one option. You don’t even need to go the expensive route, such as building a custom office. Sound is most easily transferred through the air. So reducing any air gaps can help to cut down on sounds.
Depending on how bad the sound is, even hanging some heavy vinyl across the door of the home office can help a bit. (Just make sure you’re still getting enough ventilation.)
If that won’t work, you just need to not hear roommates, family members, kids, etc. I’ve found that over-the-ear (closed-back) headphones can work well (or noise-cancelling headphones.)
Reducing Reverb/Echo
If you don’t want to soundproof but find that the noise in your room doesn’t sound good because it echoes, you can get sound absorption products. This doesn’t prevent sound from outside from getting into your room (soundproofing) but helps to make the sound of your room better.
You can get acoustic panelling like these attractive wood ones.
You can also get hangable absorption panels with custom art on them, so you don’t even know your room is treated to sound better.
Even a plain old rug is decent at taking some of the reverb out of the room while contributing to the overall aesthetic.
Doing sound treatment like this might be a good idea if you are planning on Youtubing, recording podcasts, or doing a lot of meetings, and the clarity of your voice matters, and you want to cut down on the reverb of the room.
Proper Ergonomics
Ergonomic Chair
It doesn’t matter how relaxing the rest of your home office is if the chair you sit in for at least eight hours a day is incredibly uncomfortable. If you have a limited budget, spending the most money on your chair and desk will pay the highest dividends on room comfort.
If you want to relax more in your home office, make sure the ergonomic chair you get has a headrest. It won’t look as good as a chair without one, but it will help you relax more by letting your neck rest when you lean back.
I bought the Herman Miller Embody chair over ten years ago, and while I love it, I miss the headrest. These days, there are now 3rd party producers making a headrest for it, and I’m close to pulling the trigger just because of how much a good headrest helps with relaxing.
An Ergonomic Desk
I love my sit-stand desk, not because I stand anymore, but just because it allows me to pick the perfect height for my desk. No longer is the desk too high, raising my shoulders. Neither is the desk too low, making me hunch over. It’s perfectly adjusted to me and my chair height.
Aside from height, there are other considerations to make your desk more ergnomic and relaxing. Some higher-end desks can have leather inlays to make it more comfortable for you to rest your arms on, and makes the office feel more masculine.
Foot Rest
After doing a couple of hours of hard work, it helps to lean back in your chair and put your feet up. That will help blood flow flow more easily in the body and recover a bit. There are many different options for footrests.
There are some that just raise the feet a bit, some that are comfortable and made out of foam, and there are even slings for your legs—sort of like a hammock.
Your Aesthetics And Relaxation
Matching Your Home Office To Your Identity
Making your home office feel like an extension of you will help you feel relaxed and motivated to spend time there. There are a lot of ways you can improve the look of your home office.
- Colour schemes. You can paint the home office darker to make you feel more at ease. Pick a colour that you like that is not aggravating. Blue is a favourite when it comes to calming colours.
- Minimalist or maximalist? Do you like having every superfluous item removed? Or do you like your space overflowing with office accessories, oddities, keepsakes, and other interesting things to look at?
- Plants. Adding real plants will help to clean the air and make it feel more natural.
- Hang art and family photos. Put up anything that feels like an extension of you. What do you like looking at? What do you value? What do you want to remind yourself of how much it means to you? Put it up on the wall as something to glance at.
- Non-irritating lighting. Some lighting is great for reducing energy consumption, like LEDs, but are not pleasing to look at. This is because they have a high flicker rate and an unnatural light spectrum. Buy old-school rough supply incandescents for natural light that is produced through heat—like the sun and fire. Salt lamps have incandescent lights and have a pleasing and cozy vibe.
- Natural sunlight. If possible, choose a room that has natural sunlight in it and not some nook in the basement. Even if you don’t like too much sun as you work, sunlight acts as a disinfectant and can help to make your space feel fresh. You can open up the blinds and let the sun “clean up” your work area occasionally.
- Comfortable furniture. If you have the space, you can also add different seating beyond your office chair to make the room more relaxing. One idea might be an office day-bed. Comfortable chairs to sit in for different styles of work, such as during phone calls or reading an important document.
- A rug. A rug can make the room feel softer and more home-like. It also adds a visual touch to the office.
Choosing The Right Paint Colour For The Walls
According to a 2022 paper, these are some common meanings and feelings for colours:
- Red
- Festive, excited, passionate, dangerous, loving, auspicious, gaudy, enthusiastic, awe-inspiring
- Dark red
- Noble, solemn, selfless
- Pink
- Gentle, soft, earthy, reserved
- Lavender
- Elegant, romantic, dreamy, sexy
- Purple
- Solemn, deep, mysterious, noble, arrogant, glamorous
- Blue
- Serenity, lost, peaceful, wisdom, hope, reason, transcendence, refreshing, eternal
- Green
- Hope, nature, balance, environmental protection, youth, growth, freshness
- Light yellow
- Quiet, serene, light-hearted
- Yellow
- Hope, joy, light, confidence, dignity, danger
- Orange
- Vitality, warmth, joy, kindness, joy, liveliness, leisure
- White
- Sublime, clean, parting, truth, indifference
- Black
- Simple, mysterious, composed, insidious, cold, evil, dead, noble
But do these descriptions mean anything for the wall when painting colours? There 2018 study that covered looking at pain colours in university residences and their psychological effects.
By far, the most favoured color was blue, especially by men.
The study authors wrote this:
In this perspective the preference for blues and cyans could emerge as a consequence for the preference of clear sky and clean water, or for the association of blue with serenity and calm, qualities that probably are sought by students for their residential space.
Perhaps the most calming paint colour would be blue (or green) and in a lighter shade. But ultimately, you need to pick what is right for your personality. If you hate the colour blue but pick it because it’s more “calming,” probably won’t work out too well.
Your Body Comfort
Temperature
I live in an older house, and the heating/ventilation system doesn’t get to the room that I use as my home office very well. In the summer, it’s too hot. In the winter, it’s too cold. I noticed in the summer, it’s easier to deal with by just wearing less clothing or by pulling the blinds a bit.
But in the winter, being a bit cold can impact how quickly I type or how well I think. Getting a plug-in oil-filled radiator has been huge for getting the perfect temperature in the home office, day in and day out. Unlike air-blowing ones, these ones don’t dry out the air. I highly recommend one.
Circulation & Fresh Air
One of the best ways to improve the relaxation potential of your home office is to make sure it’s not stuffy.
I once bought an Airthings View Plus air monitor, and it helped me understand air circulation better. As you breathe, you breathe our CO2 as a waste product from your metabolism. That CO2 will slowly build up inside a room without proper ventilation.
We need some CO2 to live, and it naturally exists outside at around 400 ppm. But after a few hours inside an energy-efficient modern home, one person can easily raise the levels to 1500-2000 ppm.
High CO2 levels can cause irritation, agitation, loss of focus, headaches, etc.
The simplest way to improve air circulation is to open the window and set your desk near a window. Fresh air with more oxygen comes in, and the CO2 goes out.
I’ve noticed with the air monitor that anytime a room felt “stuffy,” it was just high in CO2 and lacked circulation.
The only problem with circulation by opening the windows is that there will be a waste of energy. During hot months, you will be making your room hotter. During cold months, heat will escape. You may want to investigate proper ventilation for your home and modern technologies like HRV (heat recovery ventilation) and ERV (energy recovery ventilation) ventilation systems for your home office.
8 Ways To Make Your Home Office More Relaxing
- Paint the walls. Paint the walls in a bold colour that you like.
- Get an ergonomic chair with a headrest. You’ll be spending as much time in this chair as you do in your bed—perhaps even more time. Don’t cheap out.
- Get an ergonomic desk. An ergonomic desk that perfectly matches your individual frame will help you feel your best, and one that matches your style (check out our article on masculine desks).
- Set up proper lighting. Use incandescent lighting, which has pleasing infrared rays and low flicker.
- Put at least one plant in the room. If you aren’t good with plants, get a heartier plant like the Mother-In-Laws tongue (Dracaena trifasciata). It’s pretty easy to take care of plants. Just make sure they get the right amount of light and use good quality water (not tap water, which has chlorine, aluminum, and likely sodium fluoride).
- Put your desk near a window. This will get you natural light, and you can open the windows for fresh air.
- Hang up your favourite art and photos. A bunch of personal items on the wall will help the space feel lived in.
- Improve the sound of the space. Use soundproofing or sound absorption tactics to cut down on reverb, such as rugs, sound acoustic panels, etc.