The Spaces That Heal Us

What if your room could lower your stress, sharpen your thinking, and help you sleep—without you doing anything extra? That’s the promise Dr. Esther Sternberg brings to life as we explore how design choices become signals to the brain and immune system. From the science of stress and inflammation to the subtle ways air, light, sound, and nature steer your biology, this conversation reframes “interior design” as everyday preventive medicine.

We trace Dr. Sternberg’s research journey—from early evidence that the brain and immune system talk, to a personal health crisis that healed in a small Cretan village. That experience revealed the seven domains of integrative health—sleep, resilience, environment, movement, relationships, spirituality, and nutrition—and showed how a place can make healthy behavior effortless. We dig into the practicals: why clean air and great ventilation are nonnegotiable, how rising indoor CO2 silently sinks cognitive performance, and how circadian light in the morning pays off with better sleep and mood the next day.

If open offices frustrate you, you’ll learn why noise is the biggest culprit and how to hit the sweet spot near 45 decibels with materials, baffles, and smarter layouts. We share simple home upgrades too—plants by a window, full-spectrum morning light, blue-light blockers at night, micro-movement breaks, and gentle nature soundscapes. And because work isn’t only about work, we talk about the ROI of social connection: choice-rich spaces that let introverts and extroverts find their focus while making it easy to gather, recharge in nature, and actually enjoy coming in.

You’ll also hear about immersive “recharge rooms” delivering a 15-minute daily dose of calm that reduces anxiety, depression, and burnout while improving sleep and team cohesion. By the end, you’ll see how tiny shifts in humidity, temperature, light, and control can reset your baseline and make well-being the default. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who cares about healthier spaces, and leave a review to help more people turn their rooms into tools for better living.

Subscribe to Room to Think

If you enjoyed this episode, leave a review and share it with someone who would appreciate a more thoughtful approach to their space. New episodes every week. Build a better life by design.

Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Instagram

Transcript

Welcome And Big Idea: Space As Biology

Dr. Esther Sternberg 0:00

I was convinced that the brain and the immune system communicate, that they talk to each other. Looking at a screen which has blue light for 30 minutes in the evening is as stimulating as a cup of coffee. Humans are social animals, and we need that nurturing support from our colleagues. Quite apart from it also stimulates creative thinking and so on, but it's that emotional social support that's really important.

Lyssia Katan 0:26

What would you like to see more of in buildings and in workspaces?

Dr. Esther Sternberg 0:31

You need to design buildings that incorporate spaces that support social connections. There's a sweet spot for noise level where the relaxation response, the well-being response is optimal. About 40, 45 decibels. One of the things that I didn't mention that's really, really important is that.

Lyssia Katan 0:55

Did you know the space you spend most of your time in could be quietly harming your health? Welcome to Room to Think. Today I'm sitting down with Dr. Esther Sternberg. She's a neuroscientist, physician, and the author of Well at Work and Healing Spaces. Dr. Sternberg's research connects stress, the brain, and the environments that we live in. In this episode, you'll learn how space directly affects your immune system, your cognition, and your ability to heal. Things like how poor ventilation can dramatically reduce brain performance, to how light, sound, nature, and carbon dioxide levels shape your body without you even noticing. Dr. Sternberg shares the personal experience that changed her career and her health when extreme stress led to illness and how a radically different environment helped her heal. This episode is full of practical, science-backed insights you can use immediately, whether you're designing an office, working from home, or just trying to feel better in your own space. By the end, you'll understand why your environment isn't just background, it's your biology and it's acting on your body every single day. Let's get into it. Dr. Sternberg, what an honor it is to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for coming on Room to Think.

Dr. Esther Sternberg 2:11

Well, it's really my pleasure.

Lyssia Katan 2:12

Thank you so much for having me. Of course, thanks for being here. So, Dr. Sternberg is a physician, neuroscientist, and an author whose research explores how stress, the brain, and the environments we inhabit shape human health, resilience, and well-being. She brings this all to life in her books, While at Work and Healing Spaces, which translate neuroscience and stress research into practical insights for healthier workplaces and everyday environments. Dr. Sternberg, it is truly an honor because I, as I told you, I've been listening to your book and it is fantastic. There is so much information in it. Before we get into that, for listeners who may recognize your name or your books, but don't really know your story, how would you describe what you do and why you do it?

The Brain–Immune Connection Emerges

Stress, Illness, And Healing In Crete

From Aha Moment To Healing Spaces

Dr. Esther Sternberg 2:58

Wow, it's been a journey. So, first of all, thank you for having me on this podcast. It's really great. It's been a journey. I started off as a family physician. I then trained as a rheumatologist and arthritis doc. And uh I fell into a research career serendipitously because of a single patient I saw, and that's a whole nother story. Um and I was convinced by that patient that the brain and the immune system communicate, that they talk to each other, and that in order to have health, you have to have a healthy connection between the brain and the immune system. And if that connection is broken, you have disease. Well, that was in 1979-1980, and the majority of my colleagues and scientists and physicians did not believe in the mind-body connection. Some of them were even skeptical about the idea of stress. And in fact, they looked really stressed when you talked about stress. So, but I was convinced because of that single patient who had received an experimental drug for a fatal form of epilepsy and developed an autoimmune scarring inflammatory disease. And that put me on a research track in order to try to figure out that brain immune connection. And I eventually, I trained at in Montreal at McGill University. I did all my medical training. I was born in Montreal and grew up there and eventually went to the National Institutes of Health, where I discovered back in 1989 that the brain stress center, the hypothalamus, is important in susceptibility and resistance to autoimmune inflammatory diseases like arthritis in rats. And when you can prove that connection in rats, the scientific community begins to believe it. And so that became an important piece of the science of the mind-body connection. In the 1980s and 90s, there were a few of us around the country, around the world, who were studying different pieces of that puzzle. How does the brain send signals to the immune system? Well, it turns out there's lots of nerves that actually innervate immune organs. How does the immune system send signals to the brain when you're sick? Well, there are molecules from the immune system that cross the blood-brain barrier and change how the brain functions. I mean, we all know that. When you're sick, you want to sleep a lot, you lose interest in the outside world, you lose your interest in all of your appetites, in uh food, sex, uh, you curl up and you go to bed. That's because those immune molecules are making your brain do that. So there's a wealth of information now since the 1980s, 1990s, that there really is a brain-immune connection, and that keeping that connection intact is important for health. If that connection is broken, you get disease. So, how did I get into place and well-being? Um, well, back in the year 2000, well, there are two things. One is what happened to me, and then the other was a single question. And I tell this story, I'll tell this story in well at work, creating well-being in any workspace. I tell some of the story in each of my books, in the balance within, and in healing space is the science of place and well-being. Um so I'll start with what happened to me. So I was studying the brain immune connection and discovered that stress was important in illness. And about eight years later, I went through a period of extreme stress in my own life. My mother was dying of cancer, my father had just died of a seven-year illness that included Parkinson's and dementia, and uh I was under a lot of stress at work. I testified before Congress on a very controversial issue on which the institute director of my institute was on the other side. So I was under a lot of stress in a lot of domains. I had just moved into a new house, which is another huge stressor, and my mother died. And um I was in Washington, D.C., in my new house, writing what was to become my first book, uh, The Balance Within, the Science Connecting Health and Emotions. And my new neighbors uh knocked on the door, they saw me writing on the deck, and they were Greek, and they brought me all kinds of wonderful Greek food, tsatsiki, dolmares, musaka, which by the way reminded me of my parents' cooking, my mother's cooking, because they were from Romania and the food is very similar. So they said, Are you a writer? And I said, I don't know, why do you ask? And they said, We've always wanted a writer to stay in our cottage in Crete. And I said, I'm a writer, and I went with them to Crete. I was so I had developed during that period of extreme stress, I had developed inflammatory arthritis. I mean, how ironic is that? An arthritis doc discovers that the stress center is important and susceptibility to arthritis, I go through stress, I get arthritis. It is not a coincidence that I developed the arthritis at that point in time. What happened when I went to Greece was that I felt so much better after I was there for only 10 days or two weeks, that when I came back, my doctor said, What did you do? You don't have to go back into hospital because I was going to get liver biopsies, more knee biopsies, be on an experimental drug for arthritis. And my doctor said, You don't need to go into hospital. What were you doing? Well, what I was doing was, and I didn't fully appreciate this until I moved to the Andrew Wilde Center for Integrative Medicine 13 years ago in Tucson, Arizona. I was inadvertently or unwithout realizing it practicing the seven domains of integrative health. I was sleeping healthily every night, sometimes under the stars. I was in a wonderful green environment. I was outside in nature, I was breathing fresh, clean air. Um, I was uh surrounded by the grandmothers of the village and my neighbors who were all feeding me wonderful healthy food, a healthy Mediterranean diet. Um, so I had the support of all of these friends and uh villagers. Uh I was began to move every day. I had been very sedentary. I'd been in Washington, I had been eating French fries and hamburgers and cheeseburgers every day for lunch, and sitting in front of a computer. And so I began to slowly walk and eventually climbed to the top of the hill above the village where there was the ruins of a temple to Asclepius, the Greek god of healing. And uh I would sit there for hours, not realizing time would go by, and I'd look out at the blue, blue Mediterranean and the white stucco buildings and the uh fuchsia buganvillia, and I'd listen to the birds and the sheep and the goats and the wind, and I'd be breathing in this wonderful air with the aromas of the lemon and uh orange trees and eucalyptus. And I didn't realize actually until very recently that I was meditating. That's what meditating is, it's being in the moment. Um so I was practicing these seven domains of integrative health. Um, and and that's really what made me. I had an aha moment in the middle of that period there, which by the way, uh my computer blew the first day because I had the wrong connection. So I couldn't write. Oh no. So my my neighbor said, What are you doing? You're supposed to be writing here. And I said, Well, it's actually was better because this way I was able to really immerse myself in the village life and in the life that where they live by the seasons and the sun, and uh it's a very healthy way of life. Uh I was able to slow down. And and that's really what helped me heal. And I realized halfway through that time there that if I continued doing what I was doing in Washington, D.C., being sedentary, being stressed, uh overworking, burning the candle at both ends, eating hamburgers and french fries, I would continue to get sick. And if I did what I did in Greece, tried to bring a little bit of Greece with me back home, uh, I would continue to heal. And I have kept that with me ever since. That was uh back in 1997. So what was that? Almost 20 years, uh what, 30 years ago. 30, yeah. Yeah, wow, time flies. Um and so I planted some uh jasmine trees on my deck in DC. I planted herbs and so I could sit in the evening and smell the fragrance of the flowers and the herbs and be quiet and take moments out during the day to just relax. And I went back to what I had been brought up on, a healthy Mediterranean diet, because that was what my mother cooked, and I went back to that. And uh every time that I do get overstressed, I I do try to throttle back and get back into that mode. So thinking about what was it that helped me heal there. Um, that's what contributed to the my second book, Healing Spaces. It was what I saw, what I heard, what I smelled, what I did, what I touched in that space. Um and and I became really very aware of how physical environments can help you heal or can harm you. That was in 1997. In the year 2000, my colleague at the U.S. General Services Administration, Kevin Campcher, who at the time was research director at the General Services Administration, came to me at NIH and as a sister agency and asked me, he knew I was studying stress and illness, and he said, Can you help me measure the impact of the built office environments that the over two million uh office workers, uh civilian office workers in the federal government were working in so that he could design these spaces and operate them so that the people in those spaces could be happy, healthy, and productive. What a novel idea. You know, design the spaces to keep people happy. And so that's why we began this work, which we continued through 2025, um uh together using wearable devices, tracking health measures, so stress and relaxation response, sleep quality, um, psychological responses, mood, um, and the impact of up to 11 different environmental attributes on those aspects of health and well-being. And we eventually, our last paper from this series of studies where we studied a total of five federal buildings, and um, and actually we also studied a couple of private sector buildings, um, and we came up with basically a prescription for a healthy well-being building. Well, that became really, really important during COVID. As you may recall, there were lots and lots of animations on the internet showing the spread of the virus through the ventilation system and people getting sick because they're sitting under a the ventilation system. And um, and that was really important. That was in many ways the silver lining of COVID that people became very aware of how important clean air is in health. And we spend 90% of our time indoors, probably more than that. And it is therefore essential to create indoor spaces to support physical health, which clean air is essential for, but also emotional health. And I think what was lost in the enthusiasm for clean air during COVID is this other need for designing spaces to optimize emotional well-being as well. And that's becoming more and more recognized now, especially after the return to work, because um, you know, you can clean the air. So, first of all, let me emphasize that clean air is essential. You know, if you have a spread of virus, spread of mold, spread of bacteria, you get illnesses like sick building syndrome, uh, legionnaire's disease, severe allergies, um the if the ventilation system is does not have frequent fresh air turnover, excellent filtration, uh, inline uh ducts, outflow and intake ducts, um, you're gonna get people sick inside these buildings. Um that is absolutely essential to have clean air. And in fact, I'm uh on uh I'm a commission, commissioner on a commission now for healthy uh indoor air that was launched at the United Nations on September 23rd in New York, and it was very exciting to see over 160 representatives there from uh countries around the world, from companies around the world, from organizations, NGOs, uh, all pushing for clean air. Um, and that's really, really important. It was led by um France and Montenegro, and uh Australia played a very large and important part. International Well Building Institute played a very important part in uh bringing the whole thing together. So that's really wonderful and very exciting that there is such an impact now and movement in many countries to uh to assure clean air indoors. The other thing that happens if you have poor ventilation is carbon dioxide builds up because as we're breathing out, we breathe out carbon dioxide, which is different than carbon monoxide, which is a poison. But as you you breathe in, you take in oxygen and you breathe out carbon dioxide. And the more people there are in a room which is poorly ventilated, and the longer they're in there, the more the carbon dioxide builds up. And as carbon dioxide builds up, your cognition, your your mental capacities start to fail. So room air, outside air is about 450 parts per million. At 950 parts per million, you're down to about 85% uh cognitive performance. At about 2,000 or 1,500 parts per million, you're down to 50% cognitive performance. What does that mean? You're nodding off, you're going to sleep, you're you're really feeling fatigued, your judgment is poor, you don't realize that you're making mistakes, and you're making a lot of mistakes. Uh so I like to tell my students if I'm lecturing, if you're starting to fall asleep, it's not me, it's the carbon dioxide, it's the ventilation system. But really, that that is very, very important. So, but what happened after COVID is people began to go back to work, um, people didn't want to go back to work. Many people. They wanted to stay home, they want to work from home. And in fact, studies showed that people were just as productive, if not more productive, working from home than working in a common office. Um, so organizations started to mandate people back to work. Well, you can fix the ventilation system till doomsday. If you don't create a space that attracts people to come back to work, they're not going to want to go back to work. Now, many organizations are doing this, they are creating beautiful, well-being spaces, but many still can't or don't because of the cost. But in fact, the cost of the personnel is much higher down the road. Over 95% of the costs of an organization comes from the people in that organization. So it's worth the upfront cost to create well-being spaces that embed the seven domains of integrative health into them. And that's really what well at work creating well-being in any workspace talks about. It's how do you do that? Now I've been talking a lot. You have any questions?

Lyssia Katan 20:29

No, I have so many questions. So I would love to talk about the seven domains of health in a space, as well as your move to Arizona and everything that preceded that.

COVID, Clean Air, And Cognition

Why People Return: Social Connection

Choice-Rich Workplaces And Nature Access

Indoor Nature, Light, And Plants At Home

Dr. Esther Sternberg 20:40

So, as I said, when I was in Greece, I didn't realize that I was practicing integrative health. And the seven domains of integrative health were uh defined by the Andrew Wiles Center for Integrative Medicine as sleep, resilience, environment, which includes clean air and green environment, movement, relationships, spirituality, and nutrition. And if you engage in all seven of those activities, those healthy behaviors, um then you're going to maintain your health to the best of your possible healthy self. You know, you may not be an Olympic swimmer, but you know, everybody has an optimal health that they can achieve. I was uh at the National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Andrew Weil recruited me to go out to these uh Tucson, Arizona to create a research program and lead a research program at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Health. And I did that 13 years ago in 2012. And um and I learned a lot, even though I was studying the mind body connection, I was mostly studying it in rats. And um and I learned a lot about these concepts of integrative health and how one can entail. Intentionally engage in these activities to maintain health. What really attracted me to move out from the East Coast, you know, I told Andy that I'm I'm a big city East Coast girl. I grew up in Montreal. I know snow. The desert is not in my future. But first of all, when I flew out to Tucson, I was completely blown away by the beauty of the place. It's a high desert, surrounded by mountains. It's um and and also I was blown away by the center and the amazing people in the center and how they were all working together to train physicians and uh at all levels, medical students through mid-career and many health professionals, uh, nutritionists, um massage therapists, yoga meditation folks, and and so on, to in this integrative health, whole person health approach to wellness. Um and so I I went out to, I moved to Arizona, and I have to say it's like living in a spa. I just love it here. I'm much more able to engage in these healthy activities in my own life. I swim every single day. It gets cold at night, but if you heat the pool, you can really do it no matter how cold it is. And so it it keeps me healthy. And I became aware of the important of the importance of healthy diet, healthy nutrition. Um at about 2019, um, Dr. Wilde got the go-ahead to build uh a new uh building complex, three buildings for the Andrew Wiles Center. When I moved here, the center was housed in a tiny little 1930s cottage on the university grounds. And um, you know, it was has a beautiful desert garden, but it was not ideal. And uh so Dr. Weill asked me to convene uh an advisory committee uh to be sure that we embed the seven domains of integrative health into this building complex. And so I did that. The uh dean of the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture, several of the faculty, and my colleagues from the U.S. General Services Administration, Kevin Capsher and Brian Gilligan. Kevin, by then, and by the way, by COVID, had become Chief White House Sustainability Officer for the GSA and Director of High Performance Federal Green Buildings. So he was able to put into practice all of the research-based discoveries that we had made for creating healthy well-being spaces. Um, and so he and and uh his colleagues advised as well. And we worked closely with the architects of Line and Space to really collaborate and co-create these buildings to be sure that they included elements, the seven domain domains of integrative health. So we met first to really share information about what what does it mean and how do you embed. So, what's important for sleep, for example? One of the most important things for sleep is early morning, full spectrum sunlight. Now it's a little counterintuitive that what you do in the morning impacts how you sleep at night. But that's really important. Um the more you move, one of the things we found in our studies with the GSA is the more you move during the day, the better you sleep at night. The more you move during the day, the less stressed you are when you go home or when you stop work. And stress impairs sleep, so the less stressed you are, the better you sleep. And we found that in fact sleep quality was greatly impacted by these different features, and that people who slept better because they were exposed to uh early morning sunlight, moved more during the day, had less stress at night, also woke up the next day less fatigued and in a better mood. Um so, you know, it's hard to intentionally engage in the seven domains of integrative health. You know, if I tell somebody on New Year's Day, you know, okay, this year you're going to do all seven things. Well, that's daunting, right? That's totally stressful. Um, but if you do it without even realizing it, because you're in a building that helps you to do that, then you are engaging in those seven domains without even realizing it. So one of the things that we wanted were was glass walls to get lots of circadian light into the building. The architects suggested a very narrow footprint because in order to get light to the people in the middle of the office space, you need a narrow footprint. Um But then the architects and our building science experts said, but you can't build a glass box in the desert because there'll be heat gain. But there are things you can do to mitigate heat gain. Put in high performance glass, put in shades, external shades that are angled just right to the angle of the sun, have overhangs to create shade. And then our dean of the College of Architecture, who is also a landscape architect, said, put in mesquite trees on the southern facing wall. One of the interesting stories about that is that when we were walking through the construction site, close to the the buildings were finished and they were putting in the desert gardens around, um, we noticed that they were ironwood trees, not mesquite trees. Well, ironwood trees take a very long time to grow and they're short. And we said to the facilities folks, why did you do that? We wanted mesquite trees. And they said, Well, the mesquite trees drop too many pods. If you want to pick up the pods and use the pods for your mesquite flower, you're welcome to do it. But so the architects went literally went back to the drawing board and found mesquite trees that have very few pods. So the bottom line is there is a solution for every potential problem. And if you do this intentionally, you can achieve a building that supports both physical health and emotional well-being and is sustainable. So that's, you know, reducing heat gain is sustainable design. One of the things that happens when you have so much light coming in is you don't need to turn on the electric lights. So that makes it even more sustainable. Um we had our two, we had an advisory meeting to embed the seven domains of integrative health. Then we had an advisory meeting to make sure the building was sustainably designed, green design. And then we had, then COVID happened. March 2020, everything stopped. We didn't even know if the buildings were going to go forward. Fortunately, thanks to the president of the university, the buildings went forward. Um but what that pause did is it gave the architects the opportunity to go back and redesign for post-COVID design. And what was the most important thing that they had to redesign was the ventilation system. So they put in an extremely powerful ventilation system with frequent fresh air turnover and in-line uh outflow uh ducts and intake ducts so that the turbulence was reduced. So we now have three buildings: the mind building, the body building, which is also the cantor building because of a generous donation, um, and the spirit building. So it it it really exemplifies the mission of the center, mind, body, spirit. And um and they are really a flagship for how to embed the seven domains of integrative health into the built work environment. Now we did uh a pre-post-occupancy survey. We hired um uh Casey Lindbergh, who's with the University of Colorado Boulder and also HKS, and he designed uh, he's a PhD psychologist and uh architect, master's in architecture, and he designed a pre-post-occupancy survey to see how the buildings were operating after people moved in. And people love to work there. And in fact, even people in the other parts of the university who don't work there like to come and work in our space. Even the IT guys who they love to come and help fix our computers because they can spend time in our space. Um but the way the buildings uh performed best was really in the way that joint common office buildings should perform. And that is 85% of the uh staff felt that they were more connected with their colleagues, more connected with the organization, and more connected with the outside community when they were in the buildings coming to work, compared to pre, which was when they were working from home. So the idea that yes, you can be more productive working from home, but the thing that you missed is your social interactions, that really important element of the seven domains of inner in of integrative health relationships. Because, and we know, you know, from former surgeon general Vivek Murti, uh there's really an epidemic of loneliness. Loneliness is associated with shorter lifespans, with many physical illnesses, um, with high blood pressure, with obesity, with cardiovascular disease, with depression, with suicidality. People who are working continuously from home get Zoom, I don't want to say Zoom, but um video conference burnout, you know, video conference after video conference. But if you're working with others, you get that social, that nurturing social support at work, which is so important for health. So, and that what happened with COVID is that many organizations had an existential crisis of why do we even need office spaces? You know, why why should everybody go lockstep to an office building? And and it turns out that the really important reason is that social connectedness. Humans are social animals, and we need that nurturing support from our colleagues. Quite apart from it also stimulates creative thinking and and so on, but it's that emotional social support that's really important. And so when you think about that, you need to design buildings that incorporate spaces that support social connections, which means you need to have spaces that uh that are smaller for smaller groups, for more intimate gatherings, for larger groups. And one of the things that we found in our GSA studies was that people who are more introverted preferred quieter, sort of more contained spaces. And people who are more extroverted preferred spaces with lots of stuff going on around. I mean, those are the people who are sitting all day working in the coffee shops, right? I happen to be one of those people. But but the goal then is not for an organization to give everybody a psychology test and see where they stand on the introvert-extrovert scale and say you work here. That is absolutely not what should be done. What should be done is you should have many choices. Many choices of many places to go, depending on your personality, depending on the particular kind of work you're doing at that moment of the day, depending on how you feel. If you're not feeling real well, uh if you're fatigued, you may want a quieter space, even if most of the time you're an extrovert. So people need to self-select and choose where they want to work and also have spaces where they can gather. One of the things that I didn't mention that's really, really important is that when you think about an office space, um we mostly think about the indoors. But it's important to have access to nature. Access to nature is nourishing, it's stress-reducing, it helps with resilience. And so easy access to nature and creating gardens around the buildings are really important. And so we we put in a beautiful um desert gardens with medicinal plants and uh lemon tree and pomegranate tree and uh and uh aloe and so on. And our previous executive director, Dr. Victoria Mazes, uh, had recently retired, and um we and uh others at the center created a QR code self-guided uh walk through the through the gardens so that people could learn about, and it's called the Victoria Mazes Walk, and um and people can learn about the medicinal value of um of aloe or what is the symbolism of an iron tree, sort of in different indigenous cultures and and so on. And um and the interesting thing about that is it's also connected to a next door park uh so that it's not just the gardens around, but people can actually walk to the park. We actually sometimes use the park for drumming between the main parking garage, parking structure for the rest of the university. And I've when I stand there uh in front of the labyrinth, we have a labyrinth, which is a walking meditation space. And sometimes when I stand there, people from the rest of the university will on purpose, instead of walking through the parking lot to their other buildings, will cut through the garden. And I've asked them, you know, why are you doing this? They said, well, because it's just so wonderful and it's shady and it's so pleasant. So you don't have to tell people to do things if you create spaces where they want to go.

Lyssia Katan 36:46

There's a lot there that I'd like to unpack. The first is the plants. I mean, outdoor, not of course, everyone who has an outdoor space, I should hope, uses it. But what about indoor in apartment buildings or places where maybe they don't have access to a garden?

Dr. Esther Sternberg 37:04

Yeah, so I uh there is at the um later chapters there there are tips on how you can create the seven domains of integrative health in your own workspace at home or your own home. Actually, somebody, one of my um the readers who read my book, he said it should be called well at life instead of well at work, because there are so many tips for doing creating these well-being spaces anywhere where you work or play or live or learn. And in fact, we're we're working with a local high school to help them embed these principles into their spaces. So, what can you do? Yes, plants indoor are indoors are very important. Um, you know, I s I say in in the in the book, I say start with a window. If you have a workspace, to the extent possible, face your desk to the window so that you can look outside. You know, if there's nature, if there are trees, you can sort of take mini, mini um moments off to just gaze. And that'll help reset the stress response and lower your stress response just a little bit. Um, but also having the circadian light is important and light for plants, plants in the room. I see you have some plants behind you.

Lyssia Katan 38:27

This one's dry, but this one is alive very much. I'm a plant person.

Dr. Esther Sternberg 38:32

Yeah. So that I mean that's great. My mother used to have so many plants, and she used to um she used to actually talk to the plants and as she watered them, and she really believed that that was important. And I think she was probably right because when you talk, you exhale carbon dioxide, and the plants take in the carbon dioxide, they clean the air, and they make sugar out of it. That's what photosynthesis is. But there are indoor hydroponic um um vertical gardens, which are really very successful. They come with um the right kind of full-spectrum sunlight uh boxes that help uh the plants grow. And in fact, if you don't have much light coming into your office space, those full-spectrum sunlight boxes can also help with circadian light, help you sleep at night and so on. So, yes, plants are very important. And um if you were allergic, I mean, one of the issues is if you're allergic to molds and things, um, plants with earth might not be the best idea for you, but the hydroponic vertical uh gardens are self-contained, and that avoids that problem. You won't be exposed to uh mold.

Lyssia Katan 39:50

Yeah, I mean I propagate all my plants and I just put them in water and it takes out that problem. Another space that I I particularly called out, it's it's very much in the beginning of your book, and I didn't even think that you would even mention it, but was True Food Kitchen. Can we talk about that for a quick second? Because the True Food Kitchen. The reason why it caught my ear was because we actually at Lily Tile, we they've used a lot of our tiles on their floors. So we visited their cafes and they are just exceptional. And I'd love to chat about that because they it's just that's a restaurant that every time I walk in, there are plants, there's beautiful decor, the lighting, it's great lighting. Is that can can we talk about the connection of was it Dr. Andrew Wilde?

Hospitality Lessons And Designing For Well-Being

Dr. Esther Sternberg 40:37

Well, yeah. So Dr. Wil, Dr. Andrew Weil, we all call him Andy here. Um, one of the he wrote the um the preface to the book to Well at Work, Creating Well-Be in a Workspace, and he tells his own story in that of how he came to uh Arizona, how his car broke down in the desert, he was heading to California, but he ended up staying in Tucson, and the rest is history. Um, his big focus has been healthy nutrition and a Mediterranean diet, the anti-inflammatory diet. It's been on the top 10 list of diets for, I don't know, decades. Um and um and he had the idea, I don't know, about uh 10, 12, 15 years ago, um probably 15 years ago, to create a restaurant where they served healthy food instead of hamburgers and french fries and whatever. Um and I think he had some trouble convincing um chefs that this would be a good idea because they felt that, well, nobody's gonna go there. But he worked with uh a chef to um to create true food kitchen, and it was important to him to also have the ambiance that reflected well-being. And uh and so that's why those um those restaurants are um you know really embody um integrative health with plants, with indoor-outdoor seating, with the comfortable lighting, and the food is is amazing. Well, he ended up selling the restaurants. I think there are more than 70 now across the country. Um, and uh he ended up selling them and actually turned around and gave the money to the university, which is how we ended up with our three buildings. So yeah. Um but yes, so actually I was talking to a local chef, and this is something that the entertainment industry, the hospitality industry, does really well. I I wrote an article for the Arizona Daily Star when uh when post-COVID people were being mandated back to work. And I said, I live about a 10 at most 20-minute drive from five world-class spas. Nobody is mandating anybody to go to those spas. People go to those spas because they are designed and operated to attract people there. And that's really what we need to do with workspaces, well, and learning spaces, um, is I'm not saying that you should design the FBI building like a spa, but you need to have spaces that will support all of these aspects of integrative health. That's that's really actually in in healing spaces, I tell this story. And healing space is the science of place and well-being. I was um, I was, this was I wrote this in Washington, D.C. while I was at NIH. And I was, I had been invited to a um uh a dinner party in Georgia. Town. And I was talking to the gentleman to my left, and he said, What do you do? And I said, I'm writing a book about how place and space can either stress you or make you happy and calm you. And he said, Oh, we do that all the time. And I thought, ooh, you know, somebody else is writing this same book as me. What am I going to do? And I said, What do you do? And he said, I was vice president of Disney Imagineering. Wow. And that's cool. And he said, our whole mantra at Disney is was to take people from a place of fear and anxiety to one of hope and happiness through the environment and through the experiences. So I said, How do you do that? And he started to explain it to me. And I said, you know, it'd be much better if I could get a behind-the-scenes tour of Disneyland. And then that then I'd really understand how that works. So he contacted the then vice president of Disney Imagineering, Bruce Vaughn, who very kindly gave me a behind-the-scenes tour with my daughter and son-in-law, who both, by the way, are live in LA and are design professionals and professors at Art Center College of Design. So the three of us went on this amazing behind-the-scenes tour. And really what the Disney Imagineers did in the 1950s was through trial and error, through what they knew for stage design and movie settings, is they were able to create spaces to guide people through the space at a certain pace so that they're not walking too fast or too slow, that they stop and you know go into one of the stores, for example, on Main Street. You smell fudge when you're walking past it. So of course you go in. Well, they had that idea. Instead of having the vent to the uh roof, they put the vent to the street so that people would be attracted to go into the store and they sell more fudge there than anywhere else in the United States. You know, there are many, many elements that I describe in Healing Spaces that have become so ubiquitous in shopping malls, in shopping centers, in stores, in restaurants, that in many ways started with this intentionality by Disney and the Disney Imagineers for creating spaces that would take people from a space or place of fear and anxiety to one of hope and happiness.

The Invisible Stressors: Noise And Scent

Lyssia Katan 46:43

And the visible elements are key, but the invisible elements, especially the ones you speak about, like noise and scent, how can those be taken into account when designing a space?

Simple Fixes: Sound, Light, And Movement

Dr. Esther Sternberg 46:57

Sure, absolutely very important. So one of the things we found in our the first paper we published with the in the GSA study, the Well Built for Well-Being studies, we found that people in the open office design settings were more, they moved more during the day, they were less stressed at night, they slept better at night, less fatigued the next day because they were moving more. When we published that first paper in 2018, there was a hue and cry in the internet of people saying they hate their open spaces. They hate their open office design. Why is it that they hate it? It's because of the noise. Noise is the single biggest stressor in any space in open office design. And we actually did find that, well, we know that when when noise, when noise is too loud, it actually damages the ear. Many studies in, for example, emergency rooms or intensive care units have found that the noise level can be over 90 decibels, which is the the loudness of a motorcycle firing at close range. And that damages your ear, that's extremely stressful. But we also found that when it's too quiet, your stress response is higher. And there's a sweet spot for noise level, about 45, 40, 45 decibels, where the relaxation response, the well-being response is optimal. Now, how do you design for that? I was talking to the general manager of our local Arizona public media radio television station here, and they were designing a new new studio. And he said, we start with acoustical engineers. If you're designing a studio for recording sound or video, you know that the first thing you need to do is work with an acoustical engineer to make sure that the sound levels are optimal, not too high, not too low, that the sound is directed. Every single building material has an acoustical rating. You know this with your tiles, right? There's acoustical ratings for everything. And it's it's a no-brainer that when you design an office space, you should design with the acoustical rating in mind. So in our office, we have open office spaces, and um in those spaces, these there are there are acoustical tiles, uh, the there are baffles on the ceiling that absorb sound and direct it. Um the ducts above the baffles are wrapped in acoustic material. There's carpets in the uh open areas, and it's really quiet. It's it's actually very quiet, even though it's a very large uh space. Um so yes, I actually wrote an uh I write a psychology today, a monthly blog for psychology today, and I wrote one about the invisible uh the invisible stressors in your workspace, and certainly sound levels are very important. Um you talked about smells, scents. Um, one of the things about cubicles, cubicles are the worst because they give you a sense of visual privacy, but you don't have acoustic privacy, and you don't have odor privacy. You know, if the person in the next cubicle is re-eating a uh a garlic onion uh burger, it's gonna float over the cubicle. And you may think you're protected from viruses or whatever, but just as the smell floats over the cubicle, so do viruses and molds and allergens and so on. So it's very important to, you know, what what helps get rid of those odors? Good airflow. You know, uh a musty smell um uh is is a signal that there is a problem with the airflow. Musty also could be a problem with mold. Um so those are things that need to be addressed really very, very meticulously. Um it's not a good idea to put fake uh chemical air fresheners into spaces because all that does is it covers it up and um and you can be allergic to those chemicals. They're they're harmful. Now, if you want to use a little bit of uh aromatherapy, of of essential oils, um, you know, that that can be that can be okay. It also depends on the other people around um who might be overly sensitive and you don't want to have that problem.

Lyssia Katan 51:50

So, in terms of the sound and the airflow, that's when designing the space. What about once you're in the space? Does it take a large financial overhaul to create a space that's good for working in and better for our bodies?

Dr. Esther Sternberg 52:09

Well, you know, what can you do if if you can't redesign the acoustics and so on? There, you know, the great thing about modern technology is there's all kinds of uh devices now where you can have your own um local sound, white noise, nature sounds. Um, you know, nature sounds are calming, they reduce stress, they help you fall asleep. Um you can certainly wear uh earphones. And in terms of design, office design, if it's an open office design, there's also ways to place noisy machines in such a way that they're not close to where the people are working. So the layout is important, and those things can be moved around. You know, there's thoughtful ways of of reducing sound in that regard. I I have in in Well at Work the last chapters are about the future, and what I would envision is do you know the the um the movie Get Smart?

Lyssia Katan 53:18

No, I don't think I've seen it.

Dr. Esther Sternberg 53:22

That really dates me. Um well there's um he's uh it's a funny movie about a uh a clumsy spy, um, and there's this um uh cone of silence that descends over you you may have this may ring a bell, that cone of silence that descends over them, and it's it's really very funny because then they can't talk and whatever. But but it is possible now. If you go to a museum, you will stand in front of a painting and there'll be a cone of sound that comes that you know explains what the painting is about. It is possible to direct sound in such a way that it can not bother the person next door to you. And and those things are feasible. Um you're not gonna do that at home, but um those kinds of technologies are are feasible and are are coming online.

Lyssia Katan 54:22

What about the things that you can do at home for all our listeners who work from home? Besides for getting near a window.

Immersive Nature And The 15-Minute Dose

Dr. Esther Sternberg 54:30

Yeah. Window, as I said, plants. Um lighting is really important. As I said, full spectrum sunlight, boxes, so that you get that healthy blue light in the in the morning, redder light in the evening. Looking at a uh a screen which uh has blue light for 30 minutes in the evening is as stimulating as a cup of coffee. So you can actually get glasses, um lenses that block out blue light. So I I actually have a pair of glasses that um see they have a sort of a bluish uh rim to remind me that these have lenses that block out blue light. So if I have to do any work in the evening, I wear the those glasses. So you you can do that as well. Um reminding yourself to get up sitting is the new smoking. It's not good to be sedentary, and um, you know, you should be getting up stretching every 20 minutes or so. You know, if you have a health tracker, it'll remind you. And sometimes I tell it to not remind me, but um, you know, it's important to do that. Get up and walk around uh if it's an apartment or outside, take a walk outside to breathe in some fresh air uh and and you know, energize you. Um I visited a uh teddy bear factory in Vermont where um the uh workers, every 20 minutes they play dance music, and all the workers get up and they do their little dance, and then they sit down, and it's it's wonderful. So there are activities that you can do, and there are ways that you can design your spaces to optimize uh well-being. One thing I wanted to mention in terms of uh technologies is that I didn't mention is our recharge room in the uh Andrew Wiles Center for Integrative Medicine. Um and I can tell that story uh now, or you wanted to ask a question about the room because I'm excited to hear it. It's an immersive nature reality experience where you sit in a room and you see about eight different nature scenes, and you call out elsewhere, take me to, you know, you pick one, uh a misty mountain lake, and the whole wall lights up and it's a misty mountain lake, and you hear the birds chirping and the water lapping, and you see a canoe going. It's very calming. Um this was created by a young woman named Morel Phillips, who had been in the video game industry and uh then was in a serious accident and was uh had neurotrauma and she was in hospital and and was desperate to be in nature and couldn't. And she shared with me that she'd read my previous book, Healing Spaces, and had an aha moment and decided that she was going to quit the video game industry and set up this studio, which she called Studio Elsewhere in New York City as soon as she got better, and uh to create these immersive nature reality spaces. And that was in 2019. 2020 happened, she realized she was at ground zero for uh burnout, suicidality, depression, anxiety, and healthcare professionals and quickly ramped up with Mount Sinai Hospital to create recharge rooms for health professionals. She had even one in a triage tent for COVID in New York City and now has well over 70 across the country in hospitals. As she has one in our space, uh created one for the high school that we're working with because the stress is a big issue amongst students and teachers. And one of the great things that she's doing is research uh on the usage of the rooms and the impact on stress, anxiety, um, depression, burnout, and so on, and is finding that 15 minutes a day, this is the low the dose effect of being in this nature reality space, 15 minutes a day reduces depression, reduces burnout, reduces anxiety, improves sleep quality, even improves teaming amongst members in the organization. And we've actually collaborated with her her and her team at Mount Sinai, um, and we find that 15 minutes a day also reduces cortisol, the stress hormone cortisol. So there's no question that being in nature, whether in real nature, which we've also done studies on that, there are many studies showing that being in nature reduces stress, um, but being in this uh nature virtual reality space also is a way of reducing stress in um in larger spaces in hospitals and and elsewhere. So um I tell that story in well at work as well.

Forest Bathing, Birds, And Calm

Lyssia Katan 59:51

Yeah, and I and I love that because also something you mentioned is instead of having a nature space, you can have art on the wall that is a beautiful landscape, and that your body doesn't know the difference, and it actually calms you down as well. So it's nice to see technology also being in that same vein as of calming us down even if we don't have access to the real space, the real outdoor space.

Dr. Esther Sternberg 1:00:14

I mean, obviously it's best to be, and this is what's called forest bathing, being in nature, walking slowly, calmly, breathing deeply, experiencing all the wonderful fragrances from the plants, which are called biogenic volatile organic compounds that actually are chemicals that reduce stress, reduce anxiety, and can actually help you heal. Um you hear the nature sounds. It's being in this surround, surround sound experience of nature is optimal. But if you can't, you can look at a picture, a photograph, a view of nature. Uh you can uh inhale the um uh aromatherapy, forest bathing aromatherapies. You can get that online. Um you can listen to nature sounds, or you can do all of the above and recreate to the extent possible being in real nature.

Lyssia Katan 1:01:08

It's so cool because I actually I read somewhere, maybe you can confirm it, that the reason why uh bird song is so calming for us as humans is because birds chirp when it's safe, and so our bodies recognize that it's safe and there's no threat. Whereas when there are threats, birds are not chirping.

Dr. Esther Sternberg 1:01:27

That is really wonderful. I love that. I thought you were going in a different direction because in our GSA study where we found the optimal um decibel level for uh well-being response, that was 45 decibels, which is the same level as bird song.

Lyssia Katan 1:01:45

Wow.

Dr. Esther Sternberg 1:01:45

So that's really interesting. That that may be why birds tell you, okay, this is the well-being space here.

Lyssia Katan 1:01:52

Right. Physiologically, we think we're so evolved, but really we're not that evolved when you think about it. And that's something you mentioned as well. You've studied everything from hospitals to offices to natural landscapes. Um, are there design elements that, besides for the invisible things, but actual tangible design elements that you've seen consistently support resilience and emotional regulation, regardless of the scale? So we've talked about light, we've talked about sound, we've talked about scent. What about the things that we can touch?

Touch, Humidity, And Comfort Control

Dr. Esther Sternberg 1:02:29

Ah, that's interesting. Certainly, touch is an important. So let me go back. Um healing in healing spaces, the book is structured around sensory neuroscience. How does what you see and hear and smell and touch and do in a space affect your moods? And we know that touch is an important element of reducing stress. There are studies, um, John Cassiopo did these many, many years ago, um, uh showing that heart rate variability, which is a measure of your stress and relaxation response, um is is very much affected by holding hands with a loved one. So touch is really important. Um there's um studies in newborns showing that massage therapy, massaging newborns of premature babies, um, actually enhances um gastric juices and uh and um and uh digestion and reduces stress. So touch is very important, as is temperature, by the way. We didn't talk about temperature. Um and we found in the GSA studies that it's actually not so much the temperature as the humidity which matters. So we found that when the humidity is less than 30% or greater than 60% relative humidity, the stress response is 25% higher. Now, if you are sitting in a too dry or too wet space every single day of your life, uh and your stress response is 25% higher every single day, that amounts to a medically relevant cumulative amount of stress. Um and so regulating the humidity and the temperature is important. Now, one of the problems with temperature is that everybody has a different set point for how comfortable they are. I mean, everybody knows about thermostat wars, right? You know, they people want it colder. Typically, women want it warmer and and men want it colder in office spaces, possibly because of the way they dress. If a man is wearing a you know a suit, a heavy suit, compared to a woman with a light um uh light summer dress, then but but still our metabolisms are different. So again, one of the great things about being in this in this era of technology is that many technologies are being developed for personalized spaces. So you can actually get office chairs that heat or cool just the way car, you know, this has been around in automobiles for a long time. Uh, you know, heated seats, cooled cooling seats, cooling uh steering wheels, and so on. Um, and that can also both save on the cost of heating a whole building uh or dehumidifying or humidifying a whole building for one size fits all when one size fits no one. So again, if we talk about humidity, um you know it's very dry here in Arizona, you have a desk humidifier, you have a desk dehumidifier.

Lyssia Katan 1:05:45

How much does a sense of control impact stress in the ability to change the temperature?

Dr. Esther Sternberg 1:05:51

Really, really, really important. And that's partly why people prefer to work from home. You know, you have control at home, you don't in an Office space. And there's no question that there is a relationship between control and the stress response. If you're in a high stress, low control situation, you will feel stressed. If you're in a high stress, high control situation, you'll feel exhilarated. Which, going back to Disney, by the way, is another principle of those rides. The reason that people love to be on those, you know, theme park rides is because they have a sense of control over that stress, otherwise very stressful experience. And so they feel exhilarated. So, yes, a sense of control is very, very important. And again, having local right around your desk devices that help with sound, with temperature, with humidity, with airflow, with light to your optimal of what you prefer will give you a real sense of control, even if you're in the middle of an open office setting. Also, having the opportunity to go to different spaces when you need to gives you a sense of control.

Lyssia Katan 1:07:16

In terms of looking forward, what would you like to see more of in buildings and workspaces? Is it giving the individual employees or team members control, or is it just taking into all of this into consideration? What do you want to see more of?

ROI, Programming Spaces, And Culture

Dr. Esther Sternberg 1:07:33

All of the above. I want to see more. I want to see more of the bottom line of priorities, budget priorities, turned to creating physically healthy and well emotionally well-being spaces for all. I think that is absolutely essential. And unfortunately, it has not been a priority until now. It's beginning to be more so. Um, but it's easy, you know, it's easy when budgets are being cut to say, okay, we're not going to have access to the outdoors. We don't need, you know, it costs a lot to maintain these plants and and so on. But if what you focus on is your personnel's well-being and realize actually, there's a lot of studies that are being beginning to be done now for return on investment of spending money to create these well-being spaces. And uh Casey Lindbergh authored one of those studies. Um there's a study that shows that lack of sleep for any reason, whether it's medical or whether it's all of what I talked about before, um, costs the organization about $3,500 a year per employee. Wow. When you add that up, that's an awful lot of money. So it's worth to do what you can to help people to be healthy. There's um there's triple bottom line studies, which again show something in that general range of $3,000 a person when you design for well-being that is saved. Um and because you have less absenteeism, less less presenteism. Presenteeism means that you're at work, but you're sick and you're not really doing much. Um, so the cost of healthcare insurance and so on, you can add all of these things up, and it costs a lot of money to an organization to have people who are not happy, healthy, and productive. And if that can be revealed through more ROI studies so that more organizations will put a priority on creating spaces for health and well-being. Um and the other thing that needs to be done, which we found from our pre-post-occupancy surveys, you can create these spaces, but if you don't program them, people may not take advantage of them. So it helps to have somebody who is in charge of programming spaces, you know, maybe uh a yoga break or an exercise break or um, you know, different kinds of activities. We have uh cooking classes. We have a teaching kitchen in our in our candor build building, in the multi-purpose building, which can be used. The building can be used as a classroom, as um gathering space, teaching. It's very popular. This uh teaching kitchen is popular with not only with the staff, but with the rest of the university, but also the community around. And um, you know, you don't have to do all of that, but but there are things that can be done to help people engage in these healthy domains of integrative health. And um and if the priority is set from above, um, I think we'll have a lot happier and healthier workforce, and people will want to go back to these common workspaces to uh you know be um nourished by them.

Lyssia Katan 1:11:35

It's like that you mentioned in the book Google's offices in California, with the bikes and the outdoor spaces and the bright colors that's and the individual that you interviewed that decided to go to Google or go to a high you know a tech company because they were offering so many things, including all of this well-being, whether it's daycare or it's laundry services or things to make their employees' lives easier.

Personalization, Future Tech, And Inspiration

Dr. Esther Sternberg 1:12:01

Yeah, and they actually have free, wonderful food. Everybody goes to the cafeteria to get this delicious food, and that means that they're gathering and have the benefit of relationships. Um, a number of these tech companies are doing that. Um, Microsoft, Apple created a new um um headquarters. They call it a donut, because it's sort of a circular thing with a space in the middle, but uh it is uh on purpose surrounded by green grounds, forest area where people can wander and walk and meditate and think and uh and and you know rejuvenate. So, yes, there are a number of organizations that are doing that and do see a benefit in terms of bottom line. Now you want to know what else in the future. I think in the future, technologies will allow more personalized spaces, you know, to be able to have control and create your own personalized uh soundscape, your personalized temperature, humidity, uh, lighting, and so on, even if you're in a a common space. And I think the technologies for that are are really very exciting that are coming online.

Lyssia Katan 1:13:21

I agree. So, one final question I have for you that we like to ask everyone, since this is a show about interior design and spaces is there a space that has changed you for who you are today? It could be past, it could be present, but a space that really it could have been a space that you grew up in or something that took your breath away. But is there a space that you really that you really feel that changed you as a person?

A Space That Changed A Life

Dr. Esther Sternberg 1:13:45

It's a great, a great question. And yes, I've the the Greece experience. There's no question. Um, that being in Lentas in that tiny village on the island of Crete really, really changed me. And it made me realize that that lifestyle, that uh connection with nature, connection with the rhythms of the seasons and the sun, the connection with the others in the village, and the way one of the things about that village is you you couldn't drive, the streets are too narrow, so you you have to walk, and then you swim every day, and uh the spaces to meditate. I mean, there's there's no question that that changed me. You know, in thinking about it, and I've talked to my my neighbors, the Papa Vasilius, who with whom I went there, um about this, and uh I said, you know, it's a little strange that that you just immediately asked me to go to Crete and you didn't know me, and I immediately said yes. But what I realized in retrospect is that it's because they reminded me of my parents that they came with European accents. They came with the same food that my my mother made. So there was a familiarity there. And and being in Crete, in Greece, immediately I felt at home because it reminded me of the way I was brought up by my European parents. And and then when I did some work on my house in Washington, D.C. and I put in a new deck, I only at the very end, when it was finished, did I realize I'd recreated my mother's deck from home in Montreal. Wow. And I, you know, the the architect had said to me, you know, you have this big holly tree. If you cut down the holly tree, you can make the deck wider. And I said, no, no, no, I have to keep the holly tree because I love the holly tree. Well, I didn't realize until after I had done that that my mother had done the same thing. She had a beautiful lilac tree outside her deck, and the uh the uh the architect said, You if you cut down the lilac tree, you can make make the deck bigger. And she said, No, no, no, I have to have the lilac tree. So I think there are elements of my experience in Greece that did bring me back to my childhood at home and and those spaces that were so nurturing. I I tell the story of in in Healing Spaces in the last chapter, I tell the story of how I would sit uh when I was in kindergarten or grade one with my father sitting outside on our deck at breakfast. And every once in a while he'd look up from his book, he'd be always reading a book, and say, he said, listen to the sounds of peace. Now he had been in the war. In retrospect, that was not even ten years after the war. He'd been in a concentration camp in Russia during the war. And um and so he was very aware of, you know, the sounds of peace. I didn't know what he meant. All I heard was a dog barking and the tennis balls across the street, and you know, the wind, and and but what he made me realize is that you should be in the moment and you should appreciate everything in the moment. And in that book, in Healing Spaces, in that chapter, I talk about his favorite psalm was the 23rd. That psalm captures everything about a healing space beside the still waters. Um, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. And, you know, that really tells you how deep in our psyche is the importance of a healing space, even if you are in the valley of the shadow of death. And I think that's what sustained him through that horrible concentration camp experience. And it stayed with him and um transmitted it to us, to my sister and me, um, as we would sit on my parents' deck in Montreal.

Lyssia Katan 1:18:14

That's so beautiful. And thank you for sharing that. It's it's funny how things come full circle and we don't even realize them until much later that the things that impact us and and really make us who we are and make us appreciate the things we do. Dr. Sternberg, that is so beautiful. And thank you so much for being on the podcast. You have shared a wealth of wisdom with us, and I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to speak with you. It's not every day that you get to speak to an author you admire. So thank you for your time. Thank you for your brain and your wisdom. And I know our listeners are going to get a lot out of this episode.

Dr. Esther Sternberg 1:18:52

Well, thank you so much. It's not every day that I hear my readers who who've been inspired. So thank you very much. This has been a real pleasure.

Gratitude And Closing

Lyssia Katan 1:19:01

Thank you so much for spending this time with me on Room2think. If you enjoyed this episode, feel free to follow the show, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who you think would really appreciate a more thoughtful approach to their space. You can find more Design Meets Psychology insights on social, in our community, and definitely in upcoming episodes so you can build a better life by design. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you next time.