Just about everyone knows that it’s good to keep your space clean, but did you know that being clean and organized can actually help improve your mood?
It has been scientifically proven that cleaning can help improve your mood and brighten your spirits.
Along with this, keeping things tidy has a wide range of mental health benefits, from decreased stress to increased productivity.
There are many steps you can take every day to keep your home a little cleaner and your mood a little brighter.
Here are the top ways to improve your mood through cleaning, and their benefits 🙂
Mental Health Benefits
You may be the type of person who typically dreads cleaning and organizing, and does the bare minimum to keep your space looking reasonable.
However, there are so many incentives for you to start keeping your space a little cleaner.
Have you noticed yourself feeling stressed or overwhelmed, especially when you see all of the clutter in your home?
It has been scientifically proven that people tend to experience more stress when their home is messy.
Keeping things cleaner can do so much to help your mental health and brighten your mood, from decreasing your stress levels to increasing your productivity, not to mention cleaning can be fun!
Decrease Your Stress
One of the major benefits of keeping your surroundings cleaner and more organized is it can help you to be much less stressed.
Clutter and mess have the tendency to increase stress by making it difficult to relax and causing anxiety.
Stress can put a lot of strain on your mental well-being and has many negative health effects, including:
- Poor sleep quality
- Weight gain
- Increased risk of heart disease
- Increased blood pressure and heart rate
- Suppressed immune system
- Slower metabolism
There are many negative health effects to being stressed out, so obviously you want to decrease your stress levels whenever possible.
One of the best ways to reduce your stress is through cleaning!
Stress is often rooted in feelings of worry about the past, but cleaning can help you alleviate some of those feelings and can help you to feel mentally lighter.
The process of decluttering can help you to let go of some of the negative emotions and experiences that you may be stressing over, so cleaning is such a great way to decrease your stress levels.
Also, research has proven that house cleanliness is a great predictor for physical health.
This is because those who spend time keeping their house clean and live in a clutter-free environment tend to be much less stressed.
This means they do not experience the negative health effects listed above, so they tend to be much healthier than those whose homes are messy, cluttered, and disorganized.
This is yet another reason why keeping your space clean is so important.
Decrease Feelings of Depression
Whether you are someone who deals with depression or not, clutter and mess can make you feel worse about yourself and can lead to feelings of depression.
However, living in a clean environment can help you to elevate your mood.
Cleanliness is a form of self-respect, so by spending even a few minutes everyday cleaning, you can increase your feelings of self-worth. Over time, this can be very helpful to your overall mental health.
Also, keeping things clean will make you feel more confident and valued.
When you finish cleaning your space, you will feel a great sense of accomplishment. You are also valuing yourself by recognizing that you deserve to live in a clean space and taking action to make that happen.
Once your space is clean, your clear surroundings will improve your overall mood and outlook.
As you can see, cleaning can help ease feelings of depression in so many ways.
Become More Productive
Clutter can lead to a massive reduction in your productivity and motivation.
When your space is disorganized, your brain is focused on the unfinished work around you, instead of the task at hand.
In order to remain focused and be productive, your work and relaxation spaces need to stay clean and organized.
When your space is clutter-free, your brain can exclusively focus on the task at hand because you have more literal and mental space to work.
This is especially important for your creative flow and for those who work in creative fields.
Clutter tends to inhibit creativity by invading the open spaces that allow people to problem solve.
For this reason, to increase your productivity and creativity, clean up your workspace!
This will help you to maintain the motivation to get your work done and will give you the mental clarity you need to do your work well.
Tips for Keeping Your Space More Clean and Organized
All of these benefits probably have you feeling inspired to keep your spaces more clean and organized, but where should you start?
In this section, we’ll discuss some simple tips to start making your home feel a little cleaner.
It’s important to remember not to get overwhelmed or try to clean everything at once. Start small with some of the tips outlined below, and you can start cleaning your space and reaping the mental health benefits today.
Make Your Bed Every Morning
It has been found that people who make their beds every morning are likely to be more productive throughout the day.
Making your bed is a great habit to start off every day feeling productive, and it is an easy way to make your space appear more clean and organized.
In addition, a survey conducted by the National Sleep Foundation found that people who make their beds every morning tend to get better sleep than those who do not make their bed.
Making your bed every morning can increase your mood, productivity, and sleep quality, and it is such a quick and easy habit that you can start today!
Use a Calendar
Using a calendar and keeping track of everything in your life can make you feel so much more organized.
Use your calendar to create a cleaning schedule, so that you can make sure you are staying on track with your goals to stay clean and organized.
Breaking down your cleaning into small tasks spread over time can help you better manage your time and can make keeping your home clean so much easier.
Clean One Room at a Time
So you want to start making your home more clean and organized, but looking at how much there is to clean probably makes you feel overwhelmed.
When cleaning your home, try taking it one room at a time. Focusing on one area at a time minimizes the stress and pressure associated with cleaning that you may be feeling.
Also, cleaning one room at a time can help you get the job done more efficiently before moving onto the next room or task.
This way, you will be able to feel mini bursts of accomplishment as you finish cleaning each room in your home.
Use Cleaning Products You Enjoy
Something that may make the cleaning process a little more enjoyable is using cleaning products that you enjoy. Try using a safe, all purpose cleaner that you can feel good about.
Also, scents are very important while cleaning your home. The smell of the spaces you spend the most time in can have a big impact on your mood, so use products that you think to smell good.
You can also try lighting a candle or getting an air freshener to make your spaces smell a little fresher.
Declutter Your Workspace
As previously discussed, having a clean workspace is essential to maximizing your productivity.
Try simply organizing your desktop or buying some organizational tools, like a file folder, to make everything a little neater.
Make sure that there is not too much clutter in your workspace so that your brain has the physical and mental space it needs to get those creative juices flowing.
Try to Enjoy the Process
Cleaning and organizing do not have to be something you dread!
There are so many ways to make the process more enjoyable, by listening to music or putting the T.V. on in the background while you clean.
Also, remember that cleaning is a form of exercise. Exercising helps your body to release endorphins, which will make you feel happier.
Not only will having a clean and organized space help your mental health, but the actual process of cleaning can be pretty enjoyable as well.
Recap
Hopefully, you are starting to feel inspired to clean up your home and work-space to improve your mood!
There are so many benefits to organizing your space, from decreased stress and feelings of depression to increased productivity and creativity.
Even though cleaning may be something you typically dread, it doesn’t have to be!
If you follow some of the tips we discussed, you can get your space cleaner and organized with just a few minutes of work every day.
Because of all of the mental health benefits, you will experience, dedicating this time to cleaning and organizing will definitely be worth it.
