Stress Awareness Month: How cleaning can help your stress levels
Introduction
It is timely that April is Stress Awareness Month. After a year in a global pandemic, the strain of repeated lockdowns and uncertainties have increased stress and impacted mental wellbeing. However, stress can be controlled in our daily lives. In this article, we look at the connection between a clean house and mental health and how cleaning can help stress levels.
Clutter increases stress
Because of lockdowns and working from home, we are spending most of our time stuck at home. Over the past year, 74% of UK adults have experienced problems with mental or emotional pressure. Researchers have found that clutter and mess are strongly associated with increasing stress and anxiety. According to a study clutter starts with loosing pens and papers, filling your desk with unnecessary clutter and leads to low quality work environment and increased anxiety levels.
Over 82% of Brits’ mood is impacted by clutter in some way. Once the clutter starts piling up, it can be impossible to clear it on your own. A survey conducted by Coral Sapphire, an English Teacher from Newcastle upon Tyne examines the different effects of clutter on her mood and concludes that it triggers emotional distress and feelings of displacement and loneliness.
The importance of the home environment
Ben Edwards, a self-confidence expert, argues that the surrounding environment plays a huge role in our mental health and clearness. It is hard to believe that something so simple could be a prerequisite for a productive lifestyle. This could mean that organising your place is much more than cleaning your external environment, it is having your life together.
One in ten of the British public put off cleaning their living place and reach the point when they do not even know where to begin cleaning. This leads to increased levels of fatigue and decreased concentration. Over 86% of survey participants experienced problems with remembering where they have left some objects only because cluttering helps for reducing productivity levels and memory loss.
Decluttering your home
No matter how tidy you are, decluttering an entire home is a big job. The best way to tackle it is to create a checklist which will help you reduce the roadblocks and ease your stress. This will also improve your mental health and boost your confidence levels as you move through the different tasks.
Start decluttering one small area at a time, and it will add up so fast that you will not realize how quickly you are getting your home in order. Breaking down the cleaning process into smaller steps will allow you to check off each task and in turn will keep you on track with the progress. Combined together these small goals can make a big difference and it would be easier to maintain in the long-run.
When you are decluttering keep in mind the final goal is to have your house cleaned. This will make it easier to turn decluttering into a habit because not only will your home be neat, but you will be setting the foundation for a clutter-free life. If you need help, hire a local London cleaner.