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How Cleaning Your Home Can Help Clear Your Mind

By on January 24, 2022

By Cora Gold

You finally come home after a long day, and your blood pressure climbs again. After you walk in the door, a messy home can make you feel like your work is never done.

However, diving into your second to-do list could have considerable mental health benefits. Here’s how cleaning your home can help clear your mind.

1. It Reduces Germs in Your Home
If you haven’t given your home a good scrub since the beginning of the pandemic, it’s high time to repeat the process. The omicron variant continues to sicken people daily, and you and your family could fall ill even if you’re vaccinated. Ensure you use one of the EPA-approved cleaners for COVID-19 when wiping down cabinets and other surfaces.

Germs can also linger in your rugs, as shoes can track in bacteria and dirt. Consider scheduling a professional cleaning or buying safe products to try yourself. It’s also wise to have your family and friends take off their shoes upon coming inside — put a rack by the door for this purpose.

2. It Instills a Sense of Agency
Have you ever wanted to throw up your hands because you felt like you simply couldn’t do it? Feeling overwhelmed and defeated chips away at your sense of agency, which is the confidence that you have the power to make positive change in your existence.

Recapture your power by tackling that tidying you need to do. Putting your immediate environment in order reconfirms your belief that you can make a difference. It can also serve as an anchor. You might have found yourself cleaning more in the initial days of the pandemic shutdowns, as that was the one place you felt like you had a sense of control over your world when everything else seemed chaotic.

Try to find that energy again and take on a decluttering project. Getting rid of items in your house that are just taking up space can give you peace of mind — and keep you from tripping over clutter. Think about the one-year rule: if you haven’t used it in the past year, say goodbye.

3. It Gives You a Productive Way to Expel Nervous Energy
When you feel stressed, it triggers your body’s innate fight-flight-freeze response, sending your cortisol levels sky-high. This hormone evolved to take over where adrenaline wears off, protecting against threats lasting longer than a few minutes. The problem is, humans can’t run from modern stressors, like overwhelming bills, like their ancestors fled from hungry bears.

Over time, your body becomes resistant to this hormone’s effects, pumping more and more into your bloodstream, where it works less effectively. As a result, you could struggle to control your blood sugar, putting you at risk for Type 2 diabetes.

Cleaning taps into your body’s innate response to stress. Getting busy helps lower your cortisol levels, restoring your sense of balance and minimizing health risks.

4. It Provides an Immediate Reward
Few things in life provide immediate rewards. Most new businesses don’t profit for the first year or more. Diet and exercise seem to take forever to shave pounds from your waistline.

However, cleaning provides instantaneous perks. The minute you step back, lean on your broom, and observe the job you did, you get a sense of accomplishment. You can take that rosy glow and use it to power you through anything else on your to-do list you need to tackle.

How Cleaning Your Home Can Help Clear Your Mind
Coming home to a messy home after a long day can make you feel overwhelmed. However, breaking out the vacuum has the power to boost your mood. Follow these tips to use cleaning to clear your mind while decluttering your home.

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Cora Gold has spent over five years writing about her passions for life, love and happiness. As Editor-in-Chief for women’s lifestyle magazine Revivalist and a freelance writer, she enjoys connecting with others who share these passions. Follow Cora on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Feature slider image by Jan Kopriva

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