Everyone likes to feel “good,” but those feelings of wellness don’t always come naturally. Most people understand that spending more time with other people, eating healthy food, physically exercising, and getting enough sleep can make you feel better – but did you also know that cleaning your house regularly can stimulate a similar response?
It’s true – and a clean home can increase your feelings of wellness in multiple different ways.
The Stages of Cleaning
What is a “clean” house, anyway? The term can refer to a few different things, so it’s best to think of cleaning as occurring in multiple separate stages:
- Decluttering and organization. First, there’s a “clean” house as it pertains to decluttering and organization. If your floor is full of dirty laundry and your tables are full of old mail, it’s going to make your entire home feel disorganized and unclean. Picking up scattered items and reorganizing your possessions is ample work here.
- Surface cleaning. Next, there’s surface cleaning, designed to tackle the most commonly used surfaces and objects in your home. For example, you can use a vacuum and a carpet cleaner to keep your floors free of dirt, dust, and debris, and you can wipe down countertops, fixtures, and tables.
- Deep cleaning. Occasionally, you’ll also need to engage in deep cleaning, giving your entire home a much-needed scrubbing. Here, you’ll move furniture out of the way and focus on every nook and cranny in the home.
You’ll need elements of all three to see the full benefits of having a clean house.
The Benefits of a Clean Home
When your home is clean, you can enjoy the following benefits:
1. Higher indoor air quality. Indoor air quality has a direct impact on your physical health – and can even make you feel more comfortable. Cleaning your house of dirt, dust, pet dander, hair, and other forms of particulate matter will make the air you’re breathing much cleaner and fresher. Ultimately, that can have a dramatic impact on your sense of overall wellbeing.
2. Physical exercise and activity. If you’ve ever spent time detailing a countertop or vacuuming the entire house, you know that some forms of cleaning are a form of physical exercise. Exerting yourself with physical activity triggers the release of endorphins and is beneficial for your cardiovascular health. If you commit to cleaning the home regularly, you’ll get lots of extra physical activity into your schedule.
3. Subjective aesthetics. For most people, a clean home is a more aesthetically pleasing home. When your furniture is properly dusted and cleaned, you’ll be more likely to enjoy your environment. You’ll be more comfortable when resting and more at peace when you come home at the end of a long day.
4. Less guilt and stress. If you’re like most people, having a dirty home makes you feel stressed and guilty. You might look around at the piles of items that need sorted or the dirty carpets and think about how you shouldn’t have let it get this bad. This can weigh heavily on you, but there’s an easy way to get rid of these negative feelings; even a few minutes of cleaning can give you a sense of relief.
5. A sense of control. When your home gets cluttered and dirty over time, you can lose a sense of control over your life – and cleaning your house allows that sense of control to return. This is your home environment and you have all the power necessary to change it however you like. Exercising this control can make you feel more confident in other areas of your life as well.
6. A sense of accomplishment. While it may seem minor, catching up on your cleaning responsibilities and giving your home a deep clean will give you a sense of accomplishment – and you deserve it. When you feel like you’ve done something both challenging and beneficial, you’ll feel good for the rest of the day.
7. More opportunities for socialization. Having a clean home also gives you more pride in your dwelling, leading you to be more likely to invite people over. And as many studies have demonstrated, regular socialization is good for your mental and physical health.
8. Less maintenance and repairs. On top of all that, cleaning your house regularly may reduce your need for maintenance and repairs in the future. For example, if you keep your refrigerator condenser coils clean, your appliance will last longer.
Cleaning your home may not be capable of curing diseases or overcoming your biggest sources of stress, but it can stir feelings of wellness in some surprising ways. The next time you feel lethargic, stagnant, or disaffected, consider giving your home a clean and seeing how you feel afterward.