Hello! We’re back with more cleaning tips! In this article, we’ll let you know everything research has shown about the connection between a clean home and mental health.
This is one of our favorite topics because we believe that cleaning is so much more than having your home look nicer.
The state of our home environment has a deep impact on our mental health. We all know that a messy space makes our brain feel ‘crowded’, especially if we are already stressed out or going through a hard time.
The same goes the other way around: a clean, tidy home is a good symptom of our lives being somewhat organized and on the right path.
Before we start, remember to check Dallas Maids if you need a professional cleaning service in the Dallas area.
Not Having a Clean Home Will Affect Your Mental Health
A cluttered home leads to a cluttered mind. Or is it the other way around?
When we live surrounded by mess and chaos everywhere, it’s difficult to focus and stay consistent with work. You have probably noticed that, whenever you see clutter around your home, your stress and anxiety increases.
Research has shown that women who describe their homes using the words ‘cluttered’ or ‘messy’ have higher levels of stress, when compared to those who describe their homes using words such as ‘restful’ or ‘restorative’.
Other studies have shown that people working around messy environments tend to make more errors. Therefore, a messy home impacts on your productivity as well. This is particularly important if you work from home and, as we all know, working from home increased a lot since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Furthermore, we all know that a messy home is a constant source of arguing between family members.
We’ve all heard complaints in our homes about cleaning. There’s a saying that goes like “A housekeeper is cheaper than a divorce” and there’s a reason why!
“The dishes are still dirty”, “no one vacuumed the floors”, or “when are you going to clean the bathroom?” probably sound familiar to you. If you don’t fix these small issues, you can have serious marital and/or family problems.
As you can see, a clean home (or lack of) has a significant impact on mental health.
If you think about it, most (if not all) people you know who are truly happy and proud of their homes, are usually organized and tidy around their household.
This doesn’t mean your home has to be immaculate all the time. You just need to take the right steps to keep your home at least somewhat tidy and clean.
How Can We Keep a Clean Home (And Good Mental Health)?
This is the heart of the problem! Now that you know all the different ways a clean home will impact on your mental health, we’re going to discuss how to get to this point.
Cleaning is certainly a daunting task at first. It’s a repetitive set of tasks and a house is too big to do them all at once. Besides the physical demand, you have to choose your cleaning tasks and work your way around your home. And that is overwhelming sometimes!
So, what can we do to create a clean and organized living space? Here are some tips for you to try:
Declutter regularly:
Decluttering is, to some degree, the essential part of a clean home. According to research, between five million and 14 million people in the U.S. are compulsive hoarders. That’s half the entire population in Texas!
And that’s only actual compulsive hoarders, now imagine how many people with low to mid hoarding tendencies are.
This is why it’s important to declutter our home regularly and get rid of things we don’t want or need anymore.
Create a Cleaning Schedule
As we were mentioning earlier, there are a lot of cleaning tasks that you should do in a year. However, they are way too many for you to do at once, and some of them are more urgent than others.
This is why you need to come up with your own cleaning schedule/routine for cleaning your home. A schedule helps you keep your home clean and organized in a consistent way.
It never hurts to clean your home without planning beforehand. It’s certainly better than not cleaning at all! However, if you do it with a plan, it will be easier to keep your home tidy on a regular basis and not just once in a while.
This is one of the most direct links between a clean home and your mental health. And it’s especially important if you have several members in your household (roommates, family).
If you know exactly who should be doing what cleaning task today, you remove a lot of the mental burden of cleaning.
Related: January Cleaning Checklist
Organizing Is Important for Your Mental Health Too. Develop a System for It
Besides a cleaning system, you need to have an organizing system.
Knowing exactly where every item in your home should be makes your organizing and cleaning faster. Also, finding that object is much easier afterward.
It’s always a good idea to come up with an organizing system shortly after you’ve decluttered. All your items will be fresh in your mind.
With the momentum you created from decluttering, it will be easier to organize them.
Make Cleaning Fun!
Cleaning doesn’t necessarily have to be boring or a dread task. In many ways, it’s like exercise: it’s tiresome but with a little creativity, you could turn it into something fun!
Put on your favorite music or podcast. Create a challenge with goals and give yourself a reward if you’ve accomplished what you had in mind.
It’s important to give ourselves a pat on the back when we’re doing things right.
Related: 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Cleaning
Get Help If You Need To. And Even if You Don’t Need To!
We all know sometimes we’re at a point in our lives where cleaning is the last thing in our priority list. And that’s ok!
If you’re busy with work, family, or whatever ‘lemons’ life is giving you at the moment, then you should consider hiring a house cleaning service and/or a professional organizer.
There are dozens of maid services in the Dallas area (or wherever you are currently!). By removing cleaning from the equation, you will have much more time during the week to focus on what’s really important for you at the moment.
You don’t even need to be overwhelmed or unavailable. Maybe you do have the time and energy to clean, but you actively decide to leave that in the hands of professionals. And that’s perfectly acceptable!
We all pay someone else to fix problems for us. Every day when we go to the coffee shop, we’re leaving that task in the hands of someone else. It’s exactly the same with cleaning!
Related: How to Hire House Cleaning Professionals
Conclusion
That’s it! We hope this article helped you understand that there is a strong connection between a clean home and mental health.
Remember: a clean home doesn’t have to be a perfect home. You can have a few items out of place or a kitchen cabinet can be messy.
Many times by doing excessive cleaning and organizing, we are actually creating unhealthy habits that bring more problems instead of solutions.
The goal is to create a space that feels comfortable and works for you in the long term.
As always, we invite you to visit Dallas Maids if you need help from a professional cleaning service.
We’ll be back with more cleaning tips!