EFR 918: Your Home Is Affecting Your Mental Health - How Clutter Raises Stress & What to Do About It with Sabrina Soto
Ever Forward Radio with Chase Chewning
Chase Chewning
5.0 • 947 Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2026
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode is brought to you by Caldera Lab and WHOOP.
Today we sit down with interior designer, TV host, and wellness advocate Sabrina Soto to explore how our homes profoundly shape our mental health, nervous system, relationships, and sense of identity. Sabrina shares her deeply personal journey—from growing up in chaos and creating a safe haven as a teenager, to landing her first HGTV role through a Craigslist ad—and explains why design isn't about trends or perfection, but alignment. This episode explores the emotional weight of clutter, how environment influences cortisol and stress, why small changes can create massive life shifts, and how designing your space is ultimately about designing the life you want to live—one intentional step forward at a time.
Follow Sabrina @Sabrina_soto
Follow Chase @chase_chewning
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00:00 – Why Your Home Might Be Keeping You Stuck
01:21 – Sabrina's Daily Wellness & Non-Negotiables
04:36 – How Home Design Directly Impacts Mental Health
05:21 – Childhood Trauma, Chaos & Creating a Safe Haven
06:15 – Why People Dread Coming Home (and How to Fix It)
09:12 – Creating "Vignettes" That Support Your Best Life
11:00 – Why Sabrina Rejects Design Rules & Trends
12:13 – How Life Phases Shape Your Design Style
13:01 – Music, Culture & Identity in Home Design
14:14 – Using AI Wisely (Without Losing Your Intuition)
15:09 – The Craigslist Ad That Changed Everything
18:25 – Acting "As If" Before the Opportunity Arrives
21:01 – Why You're One Phone Call Away From Changing Your Life
24:30 – Cuban Culture, Perfectionism & Letting Go
28:39 – How Sabrina Scans a Room in the First 60 Seconds
30:16 – The 5-Minute Declutter That Lowers Stress
32:22 – How to Refresh a Room With $500
35:16 – 3 Cheat Codes for Instant Room Elevation
36:20 – Where People Waste the Most Money in Design
39:49 – Timeless Design vs. Trends You'll Regret
42:25 – Should Your Whole Home Match?
43:27 – What HGTV Doesn't Show You About Makeovers
47:06 – Designing a Home That Calms the Nervous System
49:29 – When a Bedroom Makeover Saves a Marriage
52:14 – How Your Environment Creates a Ripple Effect in Life
56:48 – Ever Forward
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Episode resources:
- Save 20% on the best men's skincare with code EVERFORWARD at https://www.CalderaLab.com
- Get the WHOOP 5.0 activity tracker at https://www.Join.WHOOP.com/everforward
- Watch and subscribe on YouTube
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The following is an Operation Podcast production. |
| 0:03.4 | Hi, I'm Sabrina Soto and this is Ever Ford Radio. |
| 0:06.6 | What if your home isn't just where you live, but the reason you feel stuck or finally at peace? |
| 0:13.2 | Most people think design is about paint colors, furniture, or trends. |
| 0:16.6 | But the truth is, the spaces we live in quietly shape our mood, our relationships, even our |
| 0:22.8 | sense of self every single day. |
| 0:25.2 | My guest today, Sabrina Soto, has spent her career proving that great design isn't about |
| 0:29.8 | perfection. |
| 0:30.5 | It's about alignment. |
| 0:32.1 | Alignment with who you are, who you're becoming, and the life you're actually living, |
| 0:40.1 | not the one Instagram told you to want. |
| 0:45.5 | You may know her from television, from iconic transformations, or from rooms that somehow feel elevated and deeply human at the same time. But today, we go beyond the aesthetics. |
| 0:51.4 | We talk about identity, intuition, resilience, and why sometimes redesigning |
| 0:55.4 | your life starts by rearranging your space. We get into the emotional weight of a home, |
| 1:01.2 | the courage it takes to let go of what no longer fits, and how personal growth often mirrors |
| 1:06.0 | the environments we choose to stay in or walk away from. If you've ever felt like your space doesn't reflect |
| 1:12.8 | who you are anymore or you're entering a new chapter and don't quite know how to design for it, |
| 1:19.4 | this conversation is for you. I'm Chase Tuning and this is Everford Radio. So Sabrina, Everford |
| 1:26.8 | Radio at its core is a show about developing physical and |
| 1:30.3 | mental resilience like I was kind of telling you before. So wellness and mindset are absolutely |
| 1:34.6 | important, everything that I look for at the core for all of our guests. And so I'm wondering, |
| 1:41.0 | to kind of get us in the ground floor, what are your current wellness routines? If you had to describe, like, I know wondering to kind of get us into ground floor, what are your current wellness routines? |
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