A few years back I watched an interesting video talking about why beautiful things make us happy. More importantly the video broke down why beautiful things are good for our health and for our society. Then, somewhat more recently, I saw a woman present a Ted Talk on the Aesthetics of Joy. Seems the world is waking up to something we all feel and know intrinsically, but stopped prioritizing in a lot of ways.
Because it’s easy to think of beauty as something frivolous. Perhaps just a “nice to have” in a project, as long as the functionality is there and it gets the job done. But it’s this exact kind of thinking that’s led us to wonder why everything around us is becoming desaturated, devoid of personality, and dare I even say drab?
In case you haven’t already seen this circling social media, our world is literally losing color. Here’s a graph showing the percentage of pixels across all photos from the 1900s to the 2000s. I would argue that somewhere along the line utilitarian aesthetics (hello beautiful minimalist Apple advertisements) became the benchmark for better business. But does this trend really serve us as a collective?
The truth is the joy we get from the beauty around us is hardwired into our survival system, our biology. When we were hunters and gatherers living close to the natural world, harmony and beauty were tied directly into whether or not we woke up the next morning. Like the Kurzegat video examples, symmetry and fractal patterns helped us answer questions like “Do those clouds mean rain will come soon? Are these waters safe to swim through? Can I eat this?”
And so our desire to be surrounded by beauty, our love for what designers like to call “aesthetics” goes so much deeper than the surface. It is tied directly into what allows us to thrive. It’s in our biology.
Don’t believe me? There are measurable examples of how beauty positively impacts our bodies and our societies.
Example 1:
A large-scale, peer-reviewed study published in Frontiers in Psychology (Costa et al., 2018) followed 443 university students who lived for roughly 13 months in nearly identical residence halls. The only meaningful difference between the buildings was the color of the interior circulation spaces.
Researchers found that:
- Students living in the warm-colored building reported higher environmental satisfaction.
- Students in the muted, low-saturation color environment reported lower satisfaction and reduced positive affect.
- Long-term exposure to different color palettes measurably influenced daily mood, comfort, and overall perception of the environment — even though the architecture, lighting, and layout were exactly the same.
In other words, color alone was powerful enough to shift emotional well-being for hundreds of people over an entire year. Aesthetic choices accumulate, shaping how we feel, think, and connect to a space over time.
Example 2:
A 2021 randomized controlled trial published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health followed 80 patients recovering from major orthopedic surgeries (total hip or knee replacements). After surgery, patients were randomly assigned to identical hospital rooms that differed in only one way:
one was a standard, neutral hospital room; the other was intentionally designed with calming colors and curated art.
The results were striking:
- Patients in the aesthetically designed room reported significantly lower pain levels, measured by the widely used Visual Analogue Scale.
- They regained mobility faster, improving more quickly on standardized tests like Timed Up & Go (TUG) and walking distance assessments.
- Their overall functional recovery — including joint mobility and ability to perform basic movements — was measurably better even though every other part of their medical care was identical.
- They also reported lower anxiety, higher satisfaction, and a greater sense of emotional comfort throughout recovery.
In other words, adding intentional color and art to a healing environment didn’t just make the space “nice” — it helped people heal faster, with less pain, and with a better emotional experience of their care.
Example 3:
A 2021 study in Frontiers in Psychology (Shi et al.) used neural imaging to compare people’s responses to products with high vs. low aesthetic design. Objects with more thoughtful, beautiful design triggered stronger positive emotional responses, altered attention patterns, and increased perceived value — all measurable effects showing how deeply our brains react to aesthetics.
Across environments as varied as college residence halls, hospital recovery rooms, and the everyday objects we interact with, one truth emerges again and again: beauty has material, measurable effects on our well-being. Color changes mood. Art eases pain. Thoughtful design captures attention and elevates our emotional state. Far from being superficial, aesthetics shape how we feel, heal, and connect with the world around us. When we choose beauty — in our homes, our work, and the experiences we create — we’re choosing environments that help people thrive.
