Most of us have had moments when our home was not in tip-top condition. This could be caused by a variety of factors like an illness, depression, or lack of time to keep up with everything. We can try to ignore it, thinking it’s not a big deal, but it is. A poorly maintained home causes a myriad of mental and physical issues like anxiety, allergies, depression, injury, and severe health problems.
The Chinese people practice Feng Shui, which is the art of using your furniture and other belongings to create a balance in your environment. They believe that a well-balanced and well-maintained home is a major factor in mental clarity and positivity. In fact, a well-maintained home has many benefits that can help you and your family feel better mentally and physically.
It can even help you save money. In this blog, we’ll explore ten benefits of a well-maintained home. Get ready for some motivation and inspiration!
1. Reduced Anxiety
It’s been proven that a messy and cluttered house can lead to anxiety and depression. It’s found that women with disorderly houses have higher cortisol levels than those with tidy homes. Cortisol raises the heart rate and blood pressure and can induce a fight or flight response. This causes the body to become full of stress and fear.
While maintaining your home offers mental clarity as a proven wellness benefit, a cluttered home causes mental congestion. This leads to the inability to focus and an overall feeling of no control. As our anxiety from the visual clutter builds, so does our ability to think clearly. It’s easy to lose essential items and take longer to accomplish tasks in an untidy home.
This, of course, leads to even more anxiety and stress. For example, most of us know the feeling of misplacing our keys or wallets. Imagine having that feeling every day because you can’t find essential items because of the clutter. Then think about the anxiety that’s induced if you need to have work done on your home.
Maybe you need a roof replacement, but the attic is so cluttered that the contractor can’t access it to do their inspection. The anxiety of scrambling to clean it can be overwhelming. People with orderly homes feel mentally lighter, more motivated, and in control of their lives, which leads to improved mental health.
2. Improved Physical Health
Improving your physical safety and health is another proven wellness benefit. Having a clean, uncluttered environment decreases the chances of slipping, tripping, and having items fall that could injure you. This is especially risky when you have very young, elderly, or people with physical mobility issues living in your home.
Less clutter can also reduce the chances of a fire starting in your home. Should a fire start, you’ll be better able to evacuate everyone if there’s no clutter impeding your exits—also, the fewer combustible items, the better your ability to contain the damage.
Maintaining your home can help keep you physically healthy because it keeps you active. Going up and down stairs to do laundry, vacuuming, dusting, wiping down walls, and mopping floors all make for a great workout! Most of us, when stressed, tend to binge on junk food.
If you feel good in your home environment, you are less likely to eat that entire bag of chips. Add that, if your kitchen is clean and well organized, you may be more inspired to go in there and cook some healthy meals and make nutritious snacks. You may even want to add a filter to your faucet for water quality improvement.
3. Enhanced Physical Comfort
This proven wellness benefit is pretty straightforward. If your house is comfortable, you will be too. Relaxation and overall comfort are much easier to achieve in a well-maintained home. It’s easier to chill if you know there aren’t piles lurking around every corner, or you’re afraid to open the closet.
You can stretch out on the couch and enjoy a movie with the family while sharing it with laundry or straining to see what’s happening through a layer of dust. You’ll be more comfortable letting workers into your home. Your comfort will be upset if your air conditioning goes out in July, and you’re too embarrassed to let the AC contractors come in. Your physical comfort will also improve because you’ve removed potential allergens, mold, and bacteria that can make you uncomfortable.
4. Reduced Financial Stress
Believe it or not, a clean and organized house can save you some money. It probably won’t make you rich, but in today’s economy, every little bit helps. For one thing, if your house is full of clutter, and you find it challenging to find stuff, you’ll likely go and buy replacements. For all you know, there may be 25 potato peelers lying around, and you just can’t find them. Imagine organizing your drawers and finding out you and your children’s children will be able to peel potatoes and never need to buy a peeler.
Anyway, the point is you’ll likely save a pretty penny. Another way to relieve some financial stress is to clean out your clutter and sell it to someone else. Have a giant yard sale or open a booth at a flea market. You’ll be cleaning and making money. What could be better? Another point to consider is that once professionals can maneuver your house, you can get a lot of money-saving work done, like insulation installation, duct cleaning, and basement waterproofing.
5. Disease Prevention
Most of us know that an unkempt house has the potential to make us ill if we let it go long enough. Things like trash and spoiled food can spread bacteria and germs. Furthermore, it attracts bugs and vermin like flies, roaches, mice, and even rats. These critters often come with their own set of germs and diseases that can make your family quite ill.
Even if you don’t have stinky trash lying around, the clutter alone can attract mice and rats looking for a warm place to call home. They especially love paper and plastic products, it’s just what they need to shred and make a nest. These pests can be challenging to eliminate, and you may need to add an exterminator to your to-do list.
Another thing that can make you ill is the poor air quality inside the home. This can happen when you don’t keep up with the regular maintenance of air ducts and filters. Dust, mold, and other airborne fibers can trigger asthma, migraines, and other respiratory illnesses.
Not vacuuming, washing bedding, and cleaning the fabric on furniture can cause rashes and skin irritation. Bathrooms that are not cleaned regularly can grow mold and mildew. These organisms can be dangerous to children, older people, and anyone with a chronic condition.
6. Allergy Symptom Reduction
If a home is allowed to collect dust, pet dander, and hair, the chances of allergic reactions increase significantly. When you don’t have regular air duct cleaning done or regularly rinse and wash filters, you’ll likely be sneezing the day away.
Dust can also bring with it mites. These tiny pests can cause itchiness not only in humans, but they drive your pet quite mad as well. Regular cleaning to avoid these irritants will not only cut down on sneezing, itching, and watery eyes, but it can also save you money.
Pets will often scratch themselves to infection, leaving bald spots and hot spots that require some costly veterinarian bills. Simple things like washing everyone’s bedding, dusting, vacuuming, and checking for mildew in damp areas can practically eliminate the triggers. But wait, we’re not done.
There’s a tricky culprit that can easily invade a less-than-tidy home, and if left unchecked, it can not only cause allergies to kick up but also some serious respiratory issues. We’re talking about mold. Once you’ve got these nasty spores floating around, they’re hard to get rid of. Consider investing in a mold tester to alert you when mold is detected in your home.
7. Decluttering Physically and Mentally
It’s not a proven wellness fact that most need to see research for (even though it’s out there). We know that when our physical space is messy and unorganized, so is our headspace. For some people, it goes past not having the time or motivation to literally get their house in order; it can turn into an obsessive need for things. While they may not qualify as having an all-out hoarding issue, they, for whatever reason, have formed a habit or think that they need things.
Most of us have done it; we collect napkins, magazines, or straws we think will come in handy. People often keep things that were once momentos or had special meaning but no longer do. This is when it’s time to sit down and make a plan. Declutter in your mind first, ask a friend to help hold you accountable, and once you’ve lightened the load, keep new stuff to a minimum.
Purchase some tools that will help, like inexpensive wholesale cabinets and storage bins for things that are truly valuable. Take the leap and rent a dumpster and get rid of anything you haven’t used in at least a year. Sometimes, mentally letting go of the past can help motivate you to physically get rid of the things that are holding you back in the present.
8. Increased Outdoor Time
Here is another proven wellness benefit you may not have thought about: when your house is nice and organized and generally clean, it’s much easier to keep up with. So now you can do a quick upkeep, clean every so often, and then have plenty of time to enjoy other things like going outside with your family.
Cleaning up the inside may even inspire you to turn your yard into an outdoor oasis by adding a patio, deck, or pool for everyone to enjoy. Maybe you like the fresh air and the idea of the outdoors but don’t like being out there. Consider building a screened porch. Perhaps you had an enclosed porch filled with junk; now, you can convert it to a more open space and enjoy nature.
9. Enhanced Privacy
You may not connect privacy with having a clean home, but it’s connected to the overall organization of your home. Maybe you’ve wanted to call a window treatment company for a while, but there’s clutter blocking your windows. That will keep you from getting new shades or blinds to keep prying eyes from looking into your home.
Another thought is, if you have spaces like basements, attics, or “junk rooms” you use due to clutter, you’re limiting your options for privacy and solitude within your family. Imagine the joy of cleaning out the basement and making it a space for the kids to hand out, so you and your partner can watch a movie in the living room. If you can clean out that junk room and turn it into a playroom or a den, you’ll have more space for everyone to spread out and do their own hobbies and have time to themselves.
10. Mood Improvements
The final proven wellness benefit of decluttering and cleaning your house is a better overall mood. It makes sense that if you’re healthier, sleep better, and aren’t tripping over things, you won’t be as grouchy. With a lovely home, you can participate in some great family activities and invite family and friends for holidays and parties.
Who wouldn’t be happy about that? A clean house is certainly not the cure-all for serious mental health issues, but it can give you a boost that can motivate you to take even better care of yourself. The better you feel, the more you’ll want to do around the house. Before you know it, you’ll be calling interior painting services and interior designers to give your home a fresh new look.
These proven wellness benefits of a well-maintained home can significantly improve your life. If your house has got away from you, but you want to start improvements, pick one room and start with a small goal. Keep going, and don’t give up. You’ll be clutter-free and sparkling clean in no time!