Depression is serious and can significantly affect your day-to-day life. It’s sometimes quite tricky to keep the house clean when you don’t feel like doing anything. Still, a messy house might make you feel worse. In most cases, mess tends to make us more nervous, sad, and anxious. For this reason, you must tackle it at least step by step. Still, there’s more to it. Did you know that cleaning can actually make you feel better? It sounds a bit funny, but vacuuming, scrubbing, and de-cluttering can improve your mood and help build momentum. Stay tuned to learn how you can clean your house when depressed. These simple five ways are efficient and helpful in achieving shiny results and improved mood. How can cleaning help? Some people love cleaning, cooking, or gardening when they’re feeling down. These tasks allow you to relax and enjoy the silence while thinking about whatever you want. Plus, working around the house can make you feel better because it’s the space you spend time in. Making this effort will make you feel incredibly good once you’re done. Though you might not enjoy cleaning when you first start, you’ll find some satisfaction in looking at the results. A clean home is much better than a dirty one, especially knowing that you’ve worked hard to clean and maintain it. 1. Do the little things Big piles of messes can be quite daunting to look at. More so, most people are dreading to start these big tasks, knowing that they’ll take a lot of time. For this reason, you should start with something smaller than a closet waiting to be de-cluttered. Instead, do some dishes or sort out your mail. Completing a few of the smaller tasks will instantly pick you up and make you feel better about continuing to clean. This can be anything from making the bed to taking out the trash. Anything that takes less than five minutes to complete should be completed first. This way, you’ll be in a better mood, and it’s more likely that you’ll want to continue onto something a bit more time-consuming. 2. Don’t let things pile up A good way of keeping the house clean is preventing things from stacking up. Dirty dishes, unsorted mail, and piles of clothes keep on growing each day if you don’t attend to them. For this reason, you might want to consider washing that plate and cup right after you’re done using them. If you have a dishwasher, take a moment to put them in as soon as you’re done so that they don’t clutter your kitchen. Also, avoid bringing your mail inside before you go through it right by the mailbox. This gives you a chance to throw away the unnecessary stuff instead of bringing it in the house. If you do bring all of it inside, make sure to take some five minutes to sort it out immediately. 3. Just start now Thinking about having to scrub the bathroom might put you in a worse mood. The task seems time-consuming and tedious, so it’s only logical that you’re trying to avoid it. However, the more you think about it, the worse it will become. Not only your bathroom gets dirtier with each day passing, but the pressure of having to clean it also grows. Before you know it, you’ll find yourself stressed out and looking at a bathroom that wasn’t even as dirty when you first thought of cleaning it. To prevent this from happening, you should just get up and get going. In other words, don’t think about it as much. Try to complete the task as early as possible, so you don’t have to think about it for the rest of the day. Plus, doing something so big early in the morning will make you feel good. 4. Do something every day By doing a little bit of cleaning each day, you ensure that there’s no mess buildup. Though it seems a bit daunting to clean every day, these can be simple tasks that take only about half an hour. So, pick a day to clean your bathroom, and then another day to do laundry. Pick a day for vacuuming the floors and furniture, which is something that helped Max Kenyon a lot when he was depressed. Today, he owns CleanThatFloor, where you can read all about vacuum cleaners. By doing something each day, you’re avoiding the vicious cycle of laying in bed all day. You’re also preventing buildup while feeling better about yourself after being productive. Here are some things you can do one at the time:
- Check pantry/fridge for expired food
- De-clutter your closet
- Scrub the bathroom
- Wash your windows
- Do laundry
- Vacuum the floors
You might want to consider making a little weekly plan of chores to do each day. Add checkboxes and mark each task as you complete it. Once the week is over, and you see all the boxes checked, you’ll be much happier with the excellent work you did. 5. Be realistic and lower your expectations You’re not doing yourself a favor by expecting things to come out ideally. Nobody is perfect, so if your kitchen doesn’t look as shiny, that’s fine. You’re already doing great by trying and giving your best. What you want is to take baby steps and avoid procrastination. Just the conscious effort is what counts, so try not to beat yourself down with striving for perfection. Surely, if you can scrub the entire house top to bottom, do it. But if you’re just not feeling like it, break the process into sections to do each day. It’s more likely you’ll finish everything if you do a little each day than trying to do it all at once. Conclusion As we said, doing a little bit each day is already a big thing to stick to. Be consistent and try to keep up with the schedule as best as you can.
