Acoustic guitar music plays low in the background. The ceiling fan spins, the coffee is hot, the paper and pen just right…on a good day, this is how I set the mood when I write. My office walls are painted a certain color, the window blinds are always open during the day, there are shelves filled with books, a glider rocker. I’ve done everything in my power to make this room a happy place.

To energize, calm, inspire, comfort—whatever the emotion we want to feel, there likely is a way to nudge ourselves in that direction by manipulating our surroundings. Whether it’s the music we listen to or the motivational quotes we tack up on our refrigerator, we create the atmosphere in which our moods grow. As Sam Gosling, author of Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You, wrote, “Much of the stuff we gather about us and the environments we create are there not to send messages about our identities but specifically to manage our emotions and thoughts.” 

Here are three simple environmental factors that can boost—or lower—your mood:

I don’t aspire to Marie Kondo levels of organization, but it does make me feel lighter and happier when I look around at tidy surroundings. I like knowing that if I open the hall closet door, nothing will fall on my head. I’m in an ongoing battle with paper in my office, and books everywhere else, but I make an effort to keep my kitchen cleaned up and I make the bed most days because it makes me happy to see it like that.

I’m also prone to taking on a cleaning or organizing project when I’m frustrated or blocked in my creative pursuits. Some would say I’m avoiding my work, but I choose to think of it as a way to distract the inner critic long enough to sneak some ideas by her. Making progress in one area (a cleaned out hall closet) often leads to progress in another (a completed blog post). 

(Just don’t look in my office right now—eesh!)

The presence or lack of light, especially natural light, makes a huge difference to me. If we have a run of a few days with no sunshine, I feel my mood lowering just like the clouds. Light is essential to the human body, helping to regulate hormones that affect mood and sleep. You’ll almost always find “step outside” on lists of ways to feel happier, and getting some natural light is one of the reasons that’s so effective.  

Essential Oils are Having a Moment. Everywhere you turn, they’re touted as the cure for some malady. So far, my main use for them has been scent. I diffuse oils in the bedroom, kitchen, and my car. I like when things smell good! It’s a bonus when those scents have beneficial effects on my mood, which some research suggests that they do.

According to Christopher Alexander in The Timeless Way of Building: “There is a myth, sometimes widespread, that a person need only do inner work…that a man is entirely responsible for his own problems; and that to cure himself, he need only change himself…The fact it, a person is so formed by his surroundings, that his state of harmony depends entirely on his harmony with his surroundings.” To be truly happy, we still need to do the inner work, but we can support that work with simple pleasures that make our surroundings more to our taste. So if you find yourself battling sadness, fear, anxiety, stress or other negatively-charged emotions (and who doesn’t?), take a look at your surroundings. Maybe there’s something you can change that will help you feel better.

It’s funny how things start. In yoga class, the teacher offered us a dab of a stress-relieving essential oil during our final resting pose. I don’t know if it alleviated my stress (which was pretty low after practicing yoga for an hour), but it smelled lovely. In the back of my mind, I decided I wanted to buy a bottle of that scent to have on hand, simply because it smelled good.

Then, after thus stimulating my reticular activating system, I began to see information about essential oils and aromatherapy everywhere. Friends began to use and sell different brands of oils. I remembered that one friend of mine used essential oils on her horse to help calm her after another friend asked me about trying them on a pony at our barn who is especially high strung. I wondered if using essential oils in a diffuser would make our house smell better (we rarely open the windows because of the humidity so I think it smells stale in here) and maybe even boost our moods and immune systems. Maybe I could find some essential oils to improve my ability to think and concentrate when I’m writing!

So with my mom’s help, for my birthday I bought a diffuser, a set of oils for the aromatherapy beginner, and a book on basic aromatherapy. Since then, I’ve been experimenting with the oils and the diffuser and have found several combinations I like: eucalyptus and lemon for the kitchen, peppermint for my office, lavender in our bedroom at night. I only have one diffuser, so I move it around the house with me as needed. I plan to use the oils in making cleaning solutions for the house, and also find a way to use them in my car—either a diffuser meant for the car, or simply a cotton ball with a bit of oil on it. I have a lot to learn about what each oil is good for (and I still haven’t bought that first bottle that started all this) but I’m enjoying the simple pleasure of finding out. Essential oils are my newest happy little thing!