Sure, you can live in just a house, but why stop there and not make the best of it. There is no shortage of wonderfulness in the world; get some for yourself, and here is how:

LIVING IN A DOCHIA HOME

Through Selftropy™ (the positive emotional bonding between a person and their surroundings), a Dochia-designed home nourishes the very essence of what makes us happy, fulfilled and ready to live an impeccable life.

A Dochia home contains areas that contribute to the mental health of the inhabitants. These areas are called selftropic, and they allow for an affective flow between the space and the homeowner. When that flow reaches a critical point, the bond reaches the selftropy stage.

Built around perception, selftropy is shaped by a design method that differs from traditional approaches. While using the same tools of design (proportions, spatiality, materials, colours, textures), it converts daily habits of living and the inherent sensibilities we built up as individuals into spatial constructs that resonate on an affective level.

Sensorial preferences, movements and actions that are performed, and the collection of experiences and personal objects amassed throughout life can actively participate in shaping our environment. Selftropy is a state that is achieved as these new factors are used in how the spaces are defined. The resulting interiors, even though some, at first sight, may not necessarily look different, display a layering of visual and sensory information that acts as a mood trigger.

While still in R&D, the method has been in development and progressive use for over ten years. However, the idea of health-inducing homes goes much further back in time.

HOME HEALTH, THEN AND NOW

Few topics are more extensively researched and documented than the connection between lifestyle and health. Within that, the role of our homes as vessels of harmony pre-dates ancient times.

Pre-historic home architecture

holds traces of straightforward attempts to connect to nature. The sort of ancient symbiosis between humans and their caves was built, even then, on some kind of communication between the individual and the greater powers. Be it for simple, practical reasons or with the purpose of worship, home health, was since its beginnings, an exchange.

In medieval times,

high regard was given to houses that incorporated sanitation as home health started to be associated with a list of “features.” The massive growth of cities allowed buildings to over-densify ahead of the onset of urban systems that dealt with sewage. As a result, city dwellers paid a high price for or dreamed of – squalor-free homes. When city streets were soaked in putrid household waste, it was easy to see the importance of a clean house.

Nowadays,

we grapple with different issues but not less stringent or necessary for a healthy home lifestyle. The lucky ones that live in a first-world country have mostly overpassed the need for minimum proper air quality, electricity, water and light. Yet a different danger, much more damaging – add to that, invisible -, affects the quality of life for many in the wealthiest countries in the world.

WHAT IS QUALITY OF LIFE

The measure of the quality of life relies on three absolute dimensions: 1). life satisfaction, which is the general appreciation of all aspects of your life, 2). affect, which is essentially your mood and something called 3). eudaemonics, which is the sense of having a purpose.

Think of what you truly want and how much of it you have out of it all. What you need and what needs are met versus those that are not. As each of us ponders, these absolute Joie de vivre measurements offer a certain kind of understanding that if we pay attention, they clearly indicate where we fail. With some deliberateness, they allow us to readjust our lives before it’s too late.

WHO’s Mental Health Atlas, published yearly, shows worrisome correlations between high-income countries – statistically defined based on the amount of available income per capita – and high suicide rates.

Interesting fact 🤔 👉 According to the same atlas, however, there is no direct and visible correlation between national policies on Mental health and suicide rates. Maybe even where they exist, they are not yet doing all they can.

According to Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO: “Good mental health enables people to realize their potential, cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively, and contribute to their communities.”

One of the three core objectives of WHO (World Health Organization) is “…to foster activities in the field of mental health, especially those affecting the harmony of human relations.” This is not a dry and superfluous corporate mandate. It is an old XXth century need that gained considerable momentum in the past few years due to worldwide efforts to improve the quality of human life.

The WHO report continues to say that:

“Unfortunately, health professionals and health planners are often too preoccupied with the immediate problems of those who have a disease to be able to pay attention to needs of those who are “well.” They also find it difficult to ensure that the rapidly changing social and environmental conditions in countries worldwide support rather than threaten mental health. This situation is only partly based on the lack of clear concepts or of adequate evidence for effectiveness for health-promoting interventions.”

(Excerpt from Promoting Mental Health, A Report of the World Health Organization, Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse in collaboration with the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation and The University of Melbourne, published by WHO, Geneva, 2004 release)

One of the most prominent advocacy movements the WHO supports is footing the notion that the promotion of mental health should be widely adopted. Almost twenty years later, we finally see the spotlight turning onto it.

THE AFFECTIVE REVOLUTION

Quickly inundated by the constant flux of mental stimulation, our sense of self strays daily from the harmonious path of good health. Minute distractions and stressing factors pile high into an unchecked burden of life that overwhelms even the strongest ones. The act of constantly reigning yourself in, perpetually realigning yourself, became central to general mental health and well-being.

The principles of a selftropic interior design outline fundamental patterns and key spatial and sensorial markers that generate a nourishing environment that can be both relaxing and stimulating and as changing, adjustable and evolving as you are.

A new kind of minimalism emerges as the only valid way of living within that context. Different than classical minimalism, where nothingness is elevated to art, the nouveau version is more humane and personal, allowing one to surround themselves with the strictly healthy amount of “stimulus,” “people,” and “objects” that build a bespoke level of emotional comfort.

As a basic principle, that has not changed in millennia. However, we are now at a pivotal historical moment when the definitions of the home will again adjust and align themselves with the acute need for mental health healing in our species.