I work from home for more than 5 years now, and have been doing so across different countries, houses and settings. One of the privileges of working remotely is being able to choose where I sit, how I organise my day and what surrounds me while I’m working. At least, that’s the theory.
In reality, when you move countries, settle into another house and can not stop working, your workspace often becomes whatever corner can fit your laptop, a chair and a fast internet connection.
Having recently moved to Portugal, I’ve been thinking more about the spaces I spend my days in. The furniture, the light, the materials, the view from the window. And after mentoring women across the world I also started giving more thoughts on why do we invest so much energy in improving our productivity, concentration and mental wellbeing, while overlooking the physical environment in which we’re expecting ourselves to achieve all of this?
We buy subscriptions for different apps, try different productivity methods, practise mindfulness and occasionally convince ourselves that another morning routine might finally make us more efficient human beings. Meanwhile, we may be spending eight hours a day under uncomfortable lighting, surrounded by artificial materials, sitting in a chair we don’t particularly like, facing a wall. And somehow, we expect our brains to perform at it’s best.
And this brought me to a field of research called neuroaesthetics.
Neuroaesthetics: your brain has opinions about your surroundings
Neuroaesthetics studies how your brain responds to aesthetic experiences, from art and music to architecture and interior spaces. It mixes neuroscience, cognitive psychology and environmental psychology to understand how what we see, hear and experience physically relates to our emotions, attention and behaviour.
Neuroaesthetics challenges the assumption that a functionality is enough to be a good workspace. A functional desk, a chair that can technically serve its purpose. A room that contains functional elements that you need to do your job.
But does that really makes it a good, productive, pleasant place to spend half of our day and achieve your best results? I always knew that there should be something more.
Restaurants have been using environmental psychology on us for decades
Before considering what we can change at home, it’s worth looking at how businesses already use environments to influence our behaviour.
Think about the last time you visited a fast-food restaurant. Bright lights. Hard chairs. Often quite a lot of noise.
Now compare that experience with a small restaurant where the lighting is warm, the seats are comfortable, the music is pleasant.
This difference might not accidental. In 1999, hospitality researcher Stephani Robson published Turning the Tables: The Psychology of Design for High-Volume Restaurants, looking deeper on how environmental psychology could be applied to encourage faster consumption while maintaining customer satisfaction. Among the design options she discussed were brighter lighting, faster music, busy-looking dining spaces and furniture that was attractive but not comfortable enough to encourage long staying.
Of course, not every uncomfortable chair is a business strategy. Some restaurants simply have funny taste or limited budgets. But the idea is important: our physical environment can influence our behaviour without us consciously understanding it.
Businesses spend money studying these behaviours because our environments influence our experiences and decisions.
Which brings me back to my home office. If restaurants consider what makes people stay or leave, and shops examine how lighting influences shopping behaviour, shouldn’t I be considering what makes me want to spend time at my own desk?
After all, nobody is looking over my shoulder, I can leave anytime I want.
Why I’m reconsidering artificial furniture and the appeal of wood
A wooden desk and a desk made from laminated particleboard can look very similar in pictures. They can have exactly the same dimensions, accommodate the same computer and perform precisely the same function.
But when you touch them, they will feel quite different. Wood has texture, grain and natural variation. Depending on its finish, it can feel warmer and less perfect than some synthetic surfaces. It often brings visual associations with nature, craftsmanship and familiarity.
Zhang, Lian and Wu (2017) compared physiological responses in wooden and non-wooden indoor environments. In an experiment involving 20 adults, participants experienced less tension and fatigue while working in wooden surroundings.
Don’t get me wrong, materials matter, but so do individual preferences, ergonomics, affordability and the memories we associate with objects. So natural materials will not do miracles if the design is uncomfortable, details matter.
A plant on your desk isn’t just an Instagram decoration
I have always liked natural surroundings, but studying psychology has given me another reason to pay attention to greenery. In 2014, Nieuwenhuis and colleagues conducted three field experiments comparing minimalist office environments with workplaces decorated by plants. The researchers examined concentration, workplace satisfaction, perceived air quality and productivity. Across their experiments, offices decorated with plants produced better outcomes than the more stripped-back environments.
For years, minimalist workplace design has often treated decoration as unnecessary clutter. When these experiments suggest that adding plants can significantly improve the experience of working, rather than taking your attention away.
That doesn’t mean a cactus will fix burnout or that every plant improves everyone’s ability to concentrate. The studies involved commercial offices, and we should be cautious about assuming identical effects in private homes. Still, the findings give us a good reason to reconsider if removing everything personal and natural from working spaces, as distractions is a good idea.
You don’t need an indoor jungle. A small plant next to your monitor, a small herb near the window or a fresh seasonal flowers in a nice vase can change the way a workspace looks and feels.
We are part of nature, even when our calendars suggest otherwise
One of the theories often discussed in environmental psychology is biophilia, associated with biologist E. O. Wilson. The biophilia suggests that humans have a natural tendency to connect with other forms of life.
Bratman and colleagues (2015), compared participants who walked for 90 minutes in a natural environment with those who walked in an urban setting. Participants in the nature group subsequently reported less rumination – the repetitive thinking about negative experiences or personal concerns, and showed reduced activity in a brain region associated with this process.
I felt this myself many times. Spending days moving between emails, online meetings and the household duties our physical world can easily shrink to the size of the house. And although remote working removes the stress of commuting, it can also remove those small, unintended moments of the outside world: walking to the office, passing trees, getting daylight, feeling the weather.
A houseplant cannot reproduce the psychological experience of walking through a park. A wooden desk cannot replace time outdoors. But natural materials, plants, views of greenery and actual walks outside may help us maintain different forms of contact with nature throughout the working day.
It feels absurd that we need scientific studies to remind ourselves that humans are a part of nature. I agree, but that’s how it is nowadays.
How I’m treating my workspace without turning it into an expensive renovation project
My interest in neuroaesthetics has made me see small details around my own working environment. And I think that’s where the most sustainable changes live.
Before buying anything, I’d look at where the desk is positioned. Natural daylight is important for our circadian rhythms, which help regulate sleep and wakefulness. It also lets our eyes rest on something other than the screen.
If possible, place your desk near a window, preferably where daylight reaches you without creating uncomfortable reflections on the screen.
For darker days or evening work, a reasonably priced adjustable desk lamp may be more useful than turning on the ceiling light. And brighter isn’t always better. Appropriate lighting depends on what you’re doing, the time of day and your visual comfort.
Bring something natural into your field of vision. A plant, a view of a tree, a natural wooden shelf or even a photograph of a landscape can make the working environment more pleasant.
Pay attention to what you touch. This is something I’ve discovered recently. The texture of a desk, the fabric of a chair, the feel of a ceramic mug or the material beneath your wrists are all part of the sensory experience that your brain has to process without you even knowing.
If replacing a cold desk isn’t an option, a second-hand wooden tabletop, natural-fibre desk mat or simply removing an unpleasant plastic covering might be worth considering.
I wouldn’t recommend buying expensive natural materials based on exaggerated neurological claims. But I do think we should be more selective about objects we touch all day, every day.
Make the space personal enough to enjoy being there. A few photographs, books, a piece of art or an object collected during your travels can give a workspace personal meaning. The aim is to avoid creating a space so clinically functional that it feels as though you’ve rented a desk from a company that doesn’t particularly like its employees.
Don’t replace ergonomics with aesthetics. A beautiful chair that causes back pain after an hour isn’t a smart neuroaesthetic choice. Adjustable seating, appropriate screen height, enough space for your legs and regular movement remain important.
Take some of your breaks outside. This costs nothing, assuming you have reasonable access to an outdoor space. Instead of scrolling through social media between meetings, go out, look into the distance or take a short walk.
What if we measured the quality of our working day differently?
The more I study psychology, the more interested I become in the ways we define a successful day. We are constantly seek to optimise our time: finish more tasks; reduce all distractions; increase concentration; produce better results. Can it be that we have become so focused on measuring what we produce that we’ve forgotten to consider the experience of producing it.
We spend a big part of our adult lives working. For many of us, working from home has made the boundary between our professional and personal environment almost disappear. That’s why I’ve become more interested in making it somewhere I enjoy spending time.
We are allowed to care about the quality of the hours we’re living, not only about what we accomplish during them.
Before buying another productivity planner, look around the room in which you’ll be using it. And maybe just move your desk closer to the window.
References
Areni, C. S., & Kim, D. (1994). The influence of in-store lighting on consumers’ examination of merchandise in a wine store. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 11(2), 117–125. https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-8116(94)90023-X
Bratman, G. N., Hamilton, J. P., Hahn, K. S., Daily, G. C., & Gross, J. J. (2015). Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex activation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(28), 8567–8572. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1510459112
Cavaliere, G., Calvano, S., Molina, P., & Negro, F. (2026). Psychophysiological responses to indoor wood use: A systematic literature review of indicators, methods, and research trends. Building and Environment, 290, 114188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2025.114188
Coburn, A., et al. (2020). Psychological and neural responses to architectural interiors. Cortex, 126, 217–241. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.01.009
International Labour Organization. (2020). Working from home. https://www.ilo.org/resource/other/working-home
Nieuwenhuis, M., Knight, C., Postmes, T., & Haslam, S. A. (2014). The relative benefits of green versus lean office space: Three field experiments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 20(3), 199–214. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000024
Robson, S. K. A. (1999). Turning the tables: The psychology of design for high-volume restaurants. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 40(3), 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1177/001088049904000320
Zhang, X., Lian, Z., & Wu, Y. (2017). Human physiological responses to wooden indoor environment. Physiology & Behavior, 174, 27–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2017.02.043
