The way you feel about the cleanliness your home or environment either hinders or benefits your mental health. It’s essential to appreciate how the circumstances happening (or not happening) in the background of our daily lives impact our quality of life. Unfortunately, these conversations don’t happen nearly enough.
But today, at least, we can take some time to reflect on the benefits of mental health and physical health when we keep our surroundings clean and organized.
Mental Health and Physical Health Overlap
Mental and physical health are often regarded as separate and distinct, but there is quite a bit of overlap between the two. For example, one study found a clear association between fitness and mental health. It found several significant benefits to mental health from even moderate levels of exercise. It also found that low levels of muscle strength correlate with poor mental health status.
But the benefits of mental health and physical health extend beyond the amount of exercise you get. Especially if you’re someone who needs a little extra motivation to keep things clean and organized, this countdown is for you:
Mental and Physical Health Benefits from Keeping Your Space Clean and Organized
1. Less Prone to Anxiety and Depression
Your surroundings don’t magically affect your mental health. Instead, mental health is tied to unique, individual perceptions about your surroundings and how they impact your sense of self. If you constantly feel guilty about not keeping your home clean, for example, then you might continuously meditate on these thoughts and develop anxiety and depression.
When you surround yourself with an environment that makes you feel good about yourself, this adds a net positive to your day instead of bringing you down. This means that strategies for straightening up can help protect against debilitating mental health problems like anxiety and depression.
2. Better Sleep
Sleep is critical for both mental and physical health. According to sleep experts, mental health and sleep are closely interrelated. Getting enough sleep is vital for physical health. Additionally, the proper processing of emotional information and activities is crucial. These involve thinking, learning, and memory.
3. More Energy
Although it may seem like more energy is a secondary benefit of more sleep, that’s not exactly true. Yes, sleep plays a significant role in energy level, but think about this — depression can cause both oversleeping and low energy. If energy levels were determined entirely by sleep, then oversleeping and low energy may not be the only factors involved in energy production.
There is a mental health impact on low energy, and vice versa. When you feel good about yourself and your surroundings, you are more optimistic about the world and more motivated to be productive.
4. Stronger Immune System
There are so many ways that mental health, and particularly stress, affects the immune system. It’s important to note that anxiety contributes quite a bit to stress levels. Especially if global circumstances have heightened your concerns about illness, keeping things clean and organized gives you a greater sense of control over your environment.
Regularly cleaning and sanitizing surfaces and frequently touched objects help eliminate germs. Additionally, you also gain some peace of mind, reducing your stress levels and offering that compounded boost to your immune system.
Discover how Cleanliness Benefits Your Mental Health and Physical Health
Although it’s essential to recognize the differences between mental and physical health, we gain quite a bit by seeing how they affect one another. By practicing some additional self-awareness, we can better understand how these two aspects of our health correlate with daily living patterns, especially when it comes to keeping our homes or workspaces clean.
The benefits of mental health and physical health are all around us. When we do our best to keep things clean and organized, they multiply. Try out a new strategy and discover what you stand to gain.
