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How Cleaning Improves Your Mental Health

The University of California conducted a study and found out that those who have a messy home have an increased level of cortisol, which is the hormone produced by the adrenal gland to cope with stress. Needless to say, the state of our home has a more profound effect on our mental health than we realize. That’s why in this blog post, we’ll discover how cleaning can help boost your mental state and make you feel happier.

Cleaning Helps Us Gain a Sense of Control
Most of our anxieties come from not knowing the future. Believe it or not, most of our fears come from the unknown. Our brain is constructed in such a way that it constantly seeks out ways to control the environment. While we may not have the capacity to control other people or events in society, we do have control over our own house. By taking action to clean up a messy kitchen or an untidy room, we regain that sense of being in control again. Next time you start feeling down or anxious, don’t just sit there overthinking about the future or the past, get up and start cleaning your house. You’ll be amazed by how much better you feel afterward.

Cleaning Helps Us Become More Active
Cleaning up requires getting active, but do you know that having that clean, tidy house can boost your activeness as well? Research has shown that people with a cleaner home tend to be more active than people living in a messy environment. Perhaps the reason why you prefer sitting on the sofa watching TV instead of going to the gym has to do with the environment you are living in.

Cleaning Helps Boost Our Immune System
The air quality of a house that hasn’t been tidied for ages is much worse than that of a house that’s cleaned daily or weekly. Since the air we breathe can have a direct effect on our health, it makes sense to try to keep that air as clean as possible. While we don’t have control over the air quality in the street, we can make our air quality at home better by cleaning up often.

Declutter Your Mind by Cleaning
In “Declutter Your Life: The Art of Tidying Up, Organizing Your Home, Decluttering Your Mind, and Minimalist Living”, author Kevin Garnett shows us how important a clean environment is to our mental state. In fact, many of our life problems can be solved by changing the environment. If currently your life appears to be out of control and you are filled with anxiety, take a look at your home. Most often, you will realize how messy your home has become. It’s because our mental state can manifest in the surrounding things. Instead of taking a mental approach towards getting out of your current problems, get active, and start cleaning up. After you are done, you’ll realize the new tidy environment can alter your state of mind and the answers to your problems may not be far away.

Improve Family Bond
No one feels good living in a messy place. Your mind will get too distracted by random things that get scattered around or how dusty the floor is to properly focus on anything. Don’t let a messy home affect your relationship! Cleaning up won’t take much time, but it will have a tremendous effect on how family members interact with one another.

As you can see, it’s not just about physically declutter your home. Your mental health and interpersonal relationships may depend on how much you tidy up. If you are not happy with where you are now, why not start cleaning up now and observe the difference?

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