Depression truly takes up a toll on your body and mind. This mental illness leaves you exhausted without even doing anything, adversely affects your mood, and incredibly lowers your energy levels. While dealing with these major depressive episodes, one place that can really help you be at ease, making you feel a little bit better, is your home. However, if you seem to have a messy house, your condition may worsen, as a cluttered space makes us feel too discouraged. Even though the symptoms of depression include a significant loss of interest and you may not feel like doing anything, pushing yourself a little bit to keep the space around you clean can boost your mood as it makes you feel less sluggish and more accomplished. A de-cluttered space can often lead to a de-cluttered mind, which is a step closer to treating depression.
In this write-up, we shall talk about how the state of your house affects your mental health, including tips to have a clean home for people with depression. Let’s get started!
How does the state of your house affect your mental health?
A scientific journal called Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin conducted a study to measure the relation between the level of cleanliness in the house and its residents’ mental health. Around 60 individuals explained the conditions of their homes, and the individuals who described their home as “cluttered” or full of “unfinished chores” were more inclined towards depression and excessive fatigue than those who expressed their homes as “restful,” “clean” and “restorative.” The individuals with messy homes exhibited higher stress hormone cortisol levels than the other group.
Psychology implies that humans tend to grow extra moody, anxious, and frustrated, get irritated quickly, and lose patience when we surround ourselves with clutter and mess. These negative feelings significantly affect our mental health, leading to major depression. A messed up house results in a messed up mind, which often leads to messed up relationships. It may cause unfortunate events like fights with family members over missing objects, blaming each other for messes leading to more arguments, etc. It tells us that an unruly and messy house can damage relationships and ultimately causes depression and anxiety.
Now that we know the importance of having a clean house and the consequences of not having one let’s see how we can achieve that.
Tips to keep your house clean to ease depression:
Set Achievable, Small-term Goals
When you plan your cleaning schedule, make sure that you devise it such that it is manageable and achievable for you. Be practical with your planning by avoiding a highly packed schedule. Don’t try to do everything at a time, or in one day; break up tasks into doable segments so that you don’t overexert yourself and give up too soon. Only when you set your goals in a manageable way will you achieve them and feel accomplished at the end of the day. Otherwise, you may end up feeling all the more discouraged and stressed.
