Long before I knew the word “hygge,” I was drawn to the concepts it represents. Growing up with Norwegian roots, I’d always loved the simplistic style paired with cozy, comforting elements. Clean lines. Natural materials. Spaces that felt both intentional and welcoming. In Minnesota, you can’t throw a stone without hitting a Scandinavian shop filled with wool blankets, wooden bowls, and that unmistakable aesthetic of warmth and simplicity.
But it wasn’t until I started diving deeper into what hygge actually means that I realized it’s so much more than a decorating style. Hygge is a way of life. It’s about creating your home to be an extension of the comfort and happiness you want to feel inside. And here’s what really caught my attention: when you start applying hygge principles to your space, you’re not just making things prettier. You’re actually creating an environment that supports your nervous system, protects your circadian rhythm, and reduces the toxic load in your home.
Hygge isn’t minimalism, though they share some DNA. Where minimalism focuses purely on function and reducing excess, hygge adds another layer: it asks you to create a welcoming environment that focuses on meaningful elements. It’s about slowing down. Being present. Choosing things that genuinely make you feel good.
And in our overstimulated, always-on world, that matters more than we often realize.
What Hygge Really Means (And Why It Matters for Your Health)
Hygge is a Danish term that essentially translates to togetherness, comfort, and well-being. It’s that feeling you get when you’re both content and cozy in a space. When you walk into a room and your shoulders drop. When you settle into a chair with a book and realize you’ve been sitting there for an hour without checking your phone.
There are so many elements of hygge that are deeply tactile and sensory. Scents. Visual softness. Gentle music. Textiles that invite you to touch them. These aren’t just aesthetic choices. They’re tools that help us focus on the present moment. They ground us in our senses, which is one of the most effective ways to calm an overactive nervous system.
I truly think this is why hygge gets so much praise. It helps us be present in the moment and in the space we’re in. It reminds us to enjoy our surroundings without worrying about the future or the past. And when we use our senses intentionally, we create an environment that our bodies interpret as safe.
From a healthy home perspective, hygge aligns beautifully with what we know about reducing toxins and supporting wellness. Many of the elements that create a hygge space are natural materials: wood, wool, ceramics, glass, linen, cotton. These are exactly the materials I recommend when people are trying to reduce chemicals and plastics in their homes.
Hygge is also about keeping what is meaningful to you and removing anything that doesn’t feel inviting. We all know exactly what this means. We keep things in our homes that have either no purpose or no meaning. These items clutter our space, hold onto toxic dust, and create an environment that doesn’t make us feel good.
Believe it or not, a home that is truly healthy has just as much to do with how you feel when you enter it as it does with humidity levels and VOC counts. A space that contains very few toxins, has good air quality, and makes you feel genuinely good inside is the exact combination we’re looking for.
The Health-Focused Hygge Concepts That Transform Your Home
Ambient and Natural Lighting: The Foundation of Circadian Health
Bright overhead lights are the antithesis of hygge, and there’s a biological reason why they feel so jarring. Most people think of lighting as a design choice, but our bodies treat light as information. Light influences cortisol, melatonin, digestion, mood, metabolism, and even inflammation levels.
Modern homes are saturated with bright, cool, blue-rich artificial lighting that disrupts these delicate biological systems. Research consistently shows that blue light, especially in the 400 to 500 nanometer range, is highly stimulating to the brain. It signals your body to stay alert, suppresses melatonin production, delays sleep onset, and interferes with REM cycles. Even low levels of nighttime light, as dim as 5 to 10 lux, have been shown to shift circadian timing and interfere with hormonal regulation.
This is where hygge lighting becomes not just cozy, but genuinely therapeutic.
During the day, hygge homes rely on natural light from open windows. Natural daylight helps regulate your circadian rhythm, supports mood, and provides the kind of full-spectrum light your body needs. This was actually a major selling point when we chose our current home. I am a lover of natural light and cannot get enough of it during the daytime.
When it gets dark outside, which in Minnesota happens alarmingly early in winter, hygge lighting shifts to warm, soft, low-intensity sources. This approach mimics the light of fire, something humans evolved with for thousands of years. When your home is lit this way, your body receives cues that it is safe, supported, and ready to unwind.
Warm tones, around 1800 to 2200 Kelvin, naturally reduce biological stressors. They allow your melatonin levels to rise normally, help regulate your sleep-wake cycle, and create an environment where your nervous system can shift toward rest instead of staying in a subtle state of alertness. This is why hygge lighting works not just emotionally, but physiologically.
From a building biology perspective, this is exactly the kind of environment that supports long-term wellness. When you remove harsh overhead lighting and shift toward layered, warm-toned illumination, you reduce flicker, glare, and biological stress. The result is a home that feels more grounded and more aligned with your body’s need for rhythm and recovery. Block Blue Light is my favorite spot to find EMF and flicker free warm toned lighting for my home.
Practical tips for hygge lighting:
Use lamps with fabric or natural material shades to diffuse light gently. Placing lamps at mid or low height eliminates the harsh effect of overhead fixtures.
Replace cool white bulbs with bulbs in the 1800 to 2200 K range. Look for labels like “extra warm white,” “amber,” “vintage,” or “Edison style.” These emit less blue light and provide that hygge glow naturally.
Introduce dimmers throughout your home if possible, though be aware that traditional dimmers can produce electromagnetic fields. If you’re concerned about EMFs, choose the warmest bulbs you can find and simply turn off overhead lights entirely in the evening.
Create a hygge corner in your home. A small space with the softest lighting, comfortable seating, and natural textures becomes a refuge where you can begin or end your day in a restorative environment. Even children respond positively to these gentle, low-light spaces and often become calmer during evening hours.
Stay away from LED lights that emit blue wavelengths, light from electronics, and bright overhead lighting. These contribute to dirty electricity and electromagnetic fields in your space. Incandescent bulbs, while less energy efficient, are the healthiest option and naturally give off that warm glow.
If you need small lights for nighttime use, choose red or amber bulbs. These have minimal impact on circadian health and won’t interfere with melatonin production.
How Hygge Lighting Regulates Your Nervous System
A key benefit of hygge lighting that often goes unspoken is the way it influences your nervous system. Harsh, bright, blue-rich lighting stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for alertness and the stress response. While we need that stimulation during the daytime, continuing it into the evening keeps your body in a state of low-grade tension.
Warm, soft hygge lighting encourages the parasympathetic nervous system to take over. This is the system responsible for rest, digestion, healing, and restoration. When your home is softly lit, your breathing naturally slows, your heart rate decreases, and your brain shifts into a calmer, more grounded state. This is why hygge lighting feels emotionally soothing and comforting.
For families dealing with stress, overwhelm, or sensory challenges, lighting is one of the most accessible ways to reshape the feel of your home environment. A dim lamp or candle-like bulb can have a profound impact on how safe and settled a space feels.
Hygge lighting also creates opportunities for restorative rituals. Reading in a gently lit corner, using warm light during evening routines, sipping tea under a soft glow. These habits help retrain your body to associate evening hours with calm and decompression. Over time, this supports a stronger circadian rhythm and better sleep patterns.
Neutral but Warm Color Palette: Less Toxic, More Calming
Keep walls painted a neutral color, but make sure it’s in a warm tone. Neutral colors often have fewer pigments and dyes within the paint, which means it’s actually a less toxic option than painting your room a bright or bold color. Zero VOC paint in a neutral color is the best option for a healthy space
A warm palette also incorporates a lot of natural wood elements. Choosing wood tones over materials like plastic or medium density fiberboard keeps VOC toxins like formaldehyde out of your space. Natural wood is not only a more beautiful option, but it is such a great way to ensure plastics and vinyls stay out of your spaces. Plastic toxins are a big contributor to endocrine disruption and can negatively affect the indoor environment of our homes.
Less is Better: Meaningful Items, Fewer Toxins
While hygge isn’t exactly minimalism, it does embrace the idea that you should focus on a few key items that bring you joy and comfort. I love this concept because the more I’ve learned about healthy homes, the more I’ve realized that the more stuff you have, the more toxins you generally have.
Very few things we bring into our homes are completely toxin free. By keeping it to only the things we truly love and use, you can eliminate unnecessary chemical exposures. There’s another reason I love having fewer items in our spaces: there are fewer places for dust to collect. And dust is one of the most significant carriers of household toxins. It traps flame retardants, pesticides, phthalates, and heavy metals, then redistributes them into the air you breathe.
When you embrace the hygge principle of keeping only what’s meaningful, you’re not just creating visual calm. You’re actively reducing your family’s toxic exposure.
Fresh Air: The Simplest Way to Reduce Indoor Toxins
Because hygge has so much to do with how your home feels, letting fresh air in on a regular basis is essential. Not only does it make your home feel fresh and alive, but it’s also one of the most effective ways to reduce toxins through natural ventilation.
Toxins need a chance to escape your space regularly. In the same breath, your home needs fresh air to dilute what’s left inside. Bringing in fresh air throughout the day, even for just a few minutes, makes a measurable difference in your indoor air quality. Open windows when the weather allows. Create cross breezes. Let your home breathe.
Natural Textiles: Soft, Inviting, and Toxin Free
Natural textiles that meet third party standards like GOTS, Oeko-Tex, or certified organic are ideal for a hygge home. Other fabrics and materials can bring in pesticides, flame retardants, and PFOAs. One hundred percent natural cotton, natural wool, or a blend of linen is a great option for upholstery, pillows, throws, rugs, and window treatments.
Many natural textiles have that warm, inviting tone that defines hygge anyway. They complement natural wood elements beautifully and create a cohesive, calming aesthetic that doesn’t add toxins to your space.
Practical Ideas for Creating Hygge in Your Own Home
Natural Textiles: Using natural textiles like organic cotton, organic linen or organic wool are optimal for creating a truly low toxin home and one that is truly cozy and welcoming. Many natural textiles are a warm tone that is very inviting. It’s a great addition to natural wood elements of the home too, which can complement each other without adding toxins to your space. Think about upholstery, pillows, throws, rugs and window treatments that can all be low toxin, natural options.
Essential Oils: I love Plant Therapy for my oils and I diffuse them just about every day to create a calm and peaceful home. Their TerraFuse Diffuser is absolutely perfect, or if you like that soft glow, this is the diffuser I use in my own home. You can read all about essential oils in this post.
Salt Lamp: A while back I did a blog post all about the benefits of salt lamps in your home. They’re great for indoor air quality and reducing blue-tinted light. Plus, the soft light that has a red hue is PERFECT for a “hygg-ed up” space. This is the salt lamp that I have in my own home and absolutely love.
Get Rid of Excess Stuff: Keep only the things that truly have meaning in your space. It might be worth it use Marie Kondo’s method to do this. If something just isn’t bringing you joy, let it go. Keep things that make you feel good inside and things that create the natural and cozy feel that hygge is meant to evoke. You can download my declutter checklist to help you get started.
Houseplants: Adding house plants to your space is not only a great way to add natural elements that make your space happy and homey, but it’s always a way to improve your indoor air just a little bit. Plants can be a great way to consume more natural herbs too. This post can help you determine which plant is best for each room of your home.
Game or Puzzle Area: As a puzzle nerd, I am all for creating a space in your house devoted to a puzzle. But I’m also a mom of a one year old, so I get that this just might not be feasible. If you can create a space that is inviting to play games or do puzzles, you create a space that is welcoming for more than just a little bit. It’s intended to be a space where you spend a lot of time. Etsy is a great resource for Puzzle Boards that you can add to the top of any table.
Bookshelves with Books: As a mom of three bookworms, and a lover of books myself, THIS has been an amazing addition to our home spaces. Keep a bookshelf with books of all kinds on it. We recently added this book about National Parks and everyone keeps going back to it. Reference books, adult books, how-to books. Make it an eclectic mix meant for someone to get lost in. Keep a blanket nearby to get cozy too.
Why Hygge Belongs in a Healthy Home
Healthy home design always comes down to supporting your biology, reducing environmental stressors, and creating spaces that nurture instead of overwhelm. Hygge fits naturally into this philosophy. It allows you to reduce blue light exposure at night, protect your circadian rhythm, minimize toxic materials, and create an environment that supports mental and emotional well-being.
When combined with other healthy home habits like reducing chemical exposures, improving air quality, and managing moisture, hygge becomes a powerful part of a truly holistic approach to home wellness. The way your home feels matters just as much as how it functions. And hygge gives you a framework for creating both.
You don’t need to overhaul your entire home overnight. Start with one room. Change your lighting. Add a wool throw. Open your windows more often. Remove the things that don’t bring you joy. These small, intentional shifts create a home that supports your family’s health while also becoming a place where you genuinely want to be.
If you’d like help creating a home that supports your wellness from the ground up, my Healthy Home Blueprint course walks you through exactly how to evaluate your space, prioritize changes, and make decisions with clarity and confidence. You’ll learn how to reduce toxins, improve air quality, and create an environment that helps your body rest, regulate, and restore.
