Try Yoga Studio Design at Home

Bring the principles of healing spaces into your own rooms, and try out yoga studio design at home. Relaxation and tranquility are not exclusive to your favorite luxury spa, yoga retreat or masseuse. With the aid of specific visuals, scents and textures, you can transform your home—whether a single room or in its entirety—into a place that promotes and preserves your physical, mental and spiritual well-being.

To start, take an intentional approach toward design. Many of the same principles that interior designers and wellness professionals follow when creating open-to-the-public yoga studios and healing collectives can be applied at home. Follow the tips below to create areas of rest, ease and spiritual nourishment in your house.

Jesse DeSanti, creative director and owner of Jette Creative Design group, brings tranquility to this EPIC Yoga Studio space in San Clemente by utilizing all-natural lighting, textures and accessories. / Photo by Amy Bartlam

Clean and Bright

Don’t inundate yourself with sensations. Create a simple space where you can process without lots of external stimuli.

“Simplicity is key,” says Jesse DeSanti, creative director and owner of Jette Creative Design Group. “Stripping away all of the chaotic elements—excess furniture and loud colors—and utilizing a light, airy color palette, really helped to energize [EPIC Yoga Studio in San Clemente] and create a space that has liveliness and interest without chaos.”

Embrace a minimalist aesthetic. Of all the things a wellness room may be, it should never be cluttered.

“I keep things light, bright and clean in my wellness room at home and at Sojourn,” explains Whitney Yarnall, community director and founder of Sojourn Healing Collective in downtown San Diego, which offers classes and workshops on everything from yoga to crystal sound healing. “Creating clutter-free areas is essential. Do regular sweeps of your space to get rid of old clutter and to maintain an ideal setting for relaxation.”

Flexible Furnishings

Prioritize comfort and adaptability for easy rearrangement when choosing your pieces, and you can make it work in any area.

“It is important to pick seating that is really cozy, that you can just sink into,” Whitney says. “Either floor cushions or a really plush chair would be perfect.”

Jesse prefers multifunctional items that can be easily moved or reconfigured to suit your needs. “I think that the flexibility of portable furnishings, like the poufs, lets you enjoy them in different ways and allows you to get whatever you need from any space.

“Living in Southern California, we have smaller houses and you have to be able to maximize the space you do have. Flexible spaces in your home, where you can do multiple things, are essential to utilizing your space to live well. I live with my husband and kids in a 1,200-square-foot home and make it work. My kitchen is a gathering space, dining area and where I de-stress doing art projects with my kids. Multipurpose furniture is key. I have a bench in my kitchen that’s used for storage and seating for the kitchen table. Choose pieces that are lighter and on the smaller side so that you can make the most of your space.”

Whitney Yarnall, community director and founder of Sojourn Healing Collective, emphasizes comfortable seating and a light-and-bright color palette in her wellness-based business. / Photo by Vincent Roazzi Jr.

Tranquil Textures

A space that inspires relaxation should be an amalgam of soft fabrics. Stray from jarring prints and vibrant colors. Instead, pick plenty of cozy pillows, bolsters and cushions in soothing, muted tones.

“[In the studio] we wanted textures, but not a lot of prints,” Jesse shares. “We didn’t want to tell you what to feel; we want the studio to be what you make of it. If we had used a print that was super yogi inspired, it would have been too hippie. We want people to be able to breathe in the space and have it tell its own story rather than having a print shape it. So, for fabrics we went with plain, neutral tones—tans, creams and a dusty rose—in very soft and comforting textures. The fabrics are all completely natural [and there are] no rough synthetics. We mostly just picked simple linens.”

Natural Elements

It’s been well documented that spending time gazing at views of nature can help reduce stress and improve attention and concentration, so invite Mother Nature in.

“Keep live plants and flowers in your living spaces,” Whitney recommends. “One thing that I’ve always heard about flowers, in life and in feng shui classes I have attended, is that they carry a very high frequency, which raises the vibration in a space and makes it feel very pleasant and alive.”

Natural light can do wonders too. “We made sure that plants and natural lighting were a big part of the [studio] design from the beginning,” Jesse says. “When you don’t have natural light and real plants in a place, it just feels empty and devoid of life. Really emphasizing both of those elements can transform everything, and they go hand-in-hand.”

You might also consider adding chunks of crystal, geodes and other decorative rocks; pieces of wood; shells; an aquarium; anything to transport you to a peaceful place.

Spiritual Tools

Incorporate a meaningful object, or collection of objects, which you can utilize as a focus for unwinding and looking to the future.

Whitney has a small altar in her home wellness space that is not symbolic of any particular religion, but is dedicated to her own brand of spirituality and how she lives her life. For others, this could take the form of a favorite memento from travels, a significant work of art or a well-loved photograph. Choose something that really resonates with you and brings on feelings of calm and tranquility.

Soothing Scents 

Whether you prefer candles, incense or essential oils (like those from Quinntessentials Organic Essential Oil Products shown here), include an element that engages your sense of smell.

“Have some type of candle or cleansing tool in your space,” Whitney says. “Burn a small bundle of Palo Santo sticks (readily available online) to actively cleanse a space of negative and stressful energy. This is a very useful tool if you have a lot of people coming and going in your home, so that their energy doesn’t linger.”

Now comes the most important part: practicing self-care in your space. Schedule 10 minutes of “me” time in your area every day. Can’t commit to a full 10? Try five minutes in the morning when you wake up and five minutes in the evening as part of your nighttime ritual.

Read our Essential Oils 101 primer here. Certified herbalist and aromatherapist Julie Quinn shares which scents help calm, energize and more.