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I’ll wager that in every home you’ve ever been in, each area was designed according to the function it needed to fulfill: a kitchen (or kitchenette) for cooking, a bathroom for bathing, a living room for, well, living. While I’m not suggesting you do away with that interior design model (what would that even look like?!), there is another way to think about designing every area in your home — that’ll directly have an impact on your mental health and well-being. It’s called emotional zoning, and it’s a micro-trend that’s quickly gaining traction on DesignTok right now. Here’s why you’ll want to consider “emotional zoning” your home this year.

What Is Emotional Zoning and How Does It Help with Nervous System Regulation?

Emotional zoning is a way to completely reimagine your home’s function. “Instead of traditional room labels like ‘living room’ or ‘bedroom,’ it maps spaces to emotional states: calm, energized, inspired, grounded, playful, restored,” says Shane V. Charles, interior architect and principal at Mild Sauce Studio. He adds that “emotional zoning ​​isn’t aesthetic-driven; it’s identity-driven. You’re not designing for Pinterest. You’re designing for your nervous system, your healing, and your habits.” In this way, your home “becomes a co-regulator — not another source of noise you have to fight against.”

“Emotional zoning is basically giving every corner of your home a job,” adds Deepak Shukla, founder and CEO of Pearl Lemon Properties, a property sourcing and management service in the U.K. “Buyers walk into a space and instantly feel calmer when the layout tells their nervous system what’s meant to happen where.” 

In many cases, emotional zoning will indeed be about zones, not necessarily entire rooms. “They’re like mood nooks designed to elicit the feeling you want in that part of your home,” says Sarah Seung-McFarland, a licensed psychologist specializing in design and fashion psychology, and founder of Trulery. “You might create a calming space to relax, an engaging area to socialize, or a corner to focus or study.” The expert also explains that this practice is related to trauma-informed design, which recognizes the deep impact that spaces have on our nervous systems and caters to different people’s emotional needs.

Like Charles, Seung-McFarland stresses that emotional zoning has nothing to do with aesthetics — specifically because aesthetically-designed homes often don’t actually work for the people living in them. “That disconnect comes from not designing for emotional needs developed within the context of our personal history, current habits, and future goals, all of which shape how we feel in our space,” Seung-McFarland says. “When your home starts working with you rather than against you, you feel more grounded, capable, and understood in the space you live in.”

How Emotional Zoning Can Affect a Home’s Function

I can imagine what you’re thinking: Sure, having rest nooks and joy spots around your home sounds nice in theory, but, like, you still gotta do chores. “Zoning your whole home doesn’t mean you suddenly can’t do laundry anywhere,” says Charles. “Emotional zoning sits on top of reality. Your kitchen still cooks; your bathroom still bathes; your laundry still laundries. The difference is that each area anchors a feeling rather than becoming a catch-all for stress.”

Seung-McFarland concurs: It’s not either/or. Take the laundry. “If you have a designated laundry room, you can make it more supportive by choosing a warm, bright color that keeps you sufficiently stimulated for simple, repetitive tasks,” the expert says. “And if your laundry area is part of an open space, you can still create a defined emotional zone by using small cues like a rug, folding screen, or pendant light, something that visually and emotionally sets it apart without overwhelming the surrounding areas.”

How to Implement Emotional Zoning in Your Home

You could emotional-zone your whole home — or you could do it in one or two tiny nooks. “Emotional zoning isn’t an all-or-nothing renovation — it’s a lens,” says Charles. “Some people need one well-defined zone to reset daily. Others benefit from layering emotional clarity throughout their entire home.”

Let’s say you’re not in a position to rethink the way your entire home works right now. If you still want to implement emotional zoning, “pick the emotional gaps in your life — the states you wish you had more access to,” says Charles. Create a “grounding zone” if you’re always frazzled, a “stimulation zone” if you’re a creative looking for more inspiration, a “ritualized unwinding zone” if you can never get to sleep. Make it work for you!

Charles says you should determine the emotion you’re looking to feel (calm, energized, grounded, etc.). Then you need to decide on the sensory cues — that is lighting, textures, scent, sounds, and temperature. Next comes the behavioral cue, or what the zone will be used for specifically, such as meditating, exercising, reading, and so on. Last but obviously not least, you need to define the boundaries of that zone, so that it doesn’t bleed into the rest of the house and vice-versa. These boundaries can be “physical, visual, or ritual: a chair you only use at night, a lamp that only turns on for grounding, a shelf of ‘emotional anchors,’” says Charles.

Separately, make sure you don’t neglect the transitions between zones. “Small cues like a shift in texture or a slight color change can help your brain move from work mode to rest or social mode,” says Seung-McFarland. “Continuity matters whether that’s through a shared color palette, repeating materials, or textures that relate to each other so the space feels connected rather than disjointed.”