By Megan Lawton Entertainment 27.09.2026

This Is the Secret to Feeling at Home, According to Psychologists

It’s so much more than how your space looks.

What does home mean to you?

The answer feels obvious until you try to put it into words. Is it a place, a feeling, or simply a space where we keep our possessions?

Over the past few years, I’ve moved between the UK and Canada, housesitting across half a dozen cities without a permanent address. It’s made me realize I have a clear idea of the homes I do and don’t like, but little understanding of why some give me a sense of home, while others don’t.

Two nights in a country cottage is enough to recognize the bliss, while also knowing I wouldn’t want to live there. On the flipside, one night in a vibey suburban neighbourhood, with great coffee and a mean margarita, can have me trawling through online house listings.

So what is actually happening when somewhere starts to feel like home?

Dr Katie Blake, a social and cultural psychologist specializing in travel psychology, points to a phenomenon called “place attachment”, defined as the emotional bond that develops between a person and a physical environment.

“We often consider how we are attached to people,” she explains, “but what can often be overlooked is that we are also psychologically attached to places.”

Part of that attachment comes from something environmental psychologists call “place identity”. Our sense of who we are is shaped by our relationship with the places around us, so a space can start to feel like home when it reflects our identity back at us.

Blake suggests this is why somewhere can immediately feel like home: when a new space contains enough familiar sensory cues, such as lighting, scent, bedding or aesthetic. “Your brain doesn't need to build a new attachment, it just recognizes you in the space,” she explains.

What’s more, familiarity builds through routine. Blake describes this as “procedural familiarity”, the small, unconscious knowledge we develop by living somewhere - knowing where the mugs are, exactly how the stairs creak, or where the light switch is. Over time, those small details make a space feel less like somewhere you're staying and more like somewhere that's yours.

Psychologist Jasmin Tahmaseb-McConatha, whose work focuses on wellbeing across the adult life course, approaches the idea from another angle. For her, feeling at home comes down to whether a space “satisfies our psychological needs”.

That includes the basics – shelter, safety and security – but also comfort, self-expression and identity. What makes us feel at home can vary from person to person. For some, home means being surrounded by people, noise and activity, for others, it’s somewhere they can find peace and quiet.

Tahmaseb-McConatha believes the surroundings beyond our front door can matter just as much as what happens inside. She highlights access to nature and the wider community as key factors that can make a home feel like a refuge or a place of confinement.

“If you can get out and walk in nature and you feel safe doing that,” she says, “your home becomes a sanctuary.”

Of course, having your dream surroundings on your doorstep is a privilege. Many of us might imagine our ideal home overlooking the sea, or with expansive country fields at the end of the garden, but, given the cost of property, it’s not always financially realistic.

But reassuringly, both Tahmaseb-McConatha and Blake say we can bring a little of our favorite places into the spaces we already have.

This is where interiors come in. Blake mentions personal possessions, photographs, scent, lighting and bedding as sensory cues that can signal that a space belongs to us.

Bedding, in particular, she says, has a powerful role. “It is tied to rest, the body and vulnerability, while also being something we interact with every day.”

Tahmaseb-McConatha also points to the importance of bringing personal history into the home. Her own home contains Persian carpets and artwork that connect her to her family's Middle Eastern heritage.

“Having things that are a part of our identity, or what's important to us can help create that feeling of home”, she says.

Sometimes that connection can be even more literal. Tahmaseb-McConatha remembers two Italian neighbours in the US who planted a fig tree when they moved house. It had been grown from a piece of the tree at their family home in their village in Italy, creating a physical connection to their family and childhood.

It’s worth taking a moment to think about your own fig-tree equivalent. Could it be a color that reminds you of your childhood home, a painting of a much-loved holiday destination, or even a coffee mug that brings back memories?

Perhaps the most important thing is not to expect a feeling of home to happen immediately. As Blake puts it: “give permission [for a space] to feel unfamiliar for a while. Attachment is a process, not a switch you can just turn on.”