Make Your Home a Positive Space for Mental Health

It’s no secret that as a whole, people are stressed out. Most Americans function under moderate to high levels of stress and confess they feel like that stress is increasing over time. Toss a global pandemic on top of that, and many of us feel like we’re teetering on the edge of insanity! It can be easy to believe that the solution to all of this stress is just dealing with our emotions on the inside. Just keep smiling, right? In reality, there are a number of environmental factors that can help or harm our mental health. Check out these factors that could be contributing to your stress, depression, and anxiety.

• Cleanliness of the Home
• Rural vs Urban Area
• Space for Community
• Healthy Workspace

Cleanliness of the Home

Nothing beats the feeling of walking into a clean home at the end of the day. There’s something refreshing about a freshly made bed, an empty sink, and a lack of clutter. If only those things would just take care of themselves! Our cleanliness and organization impact our mental health. In fact, living in poor conditions can create an unhealthy level of stress that can intensify mental illness over time. Investing in maintaining your home is worth it. It may take some time to clean on a regular basis, but you’ll be able to keep track of things and rest easy at the end of the day.

Rural vs Urban Area

We have to admit up front that we’re biased on this one, but we have the research to back it up! Living in a rural area can help reduce stress. Let me prove it to you! Researchers from the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany evaluated the brain activity of two groups: people from the city and people from the country. The researchers put these volunteers through a series of stressful situations while looking at how their brain reacted. The conclusion? People from rural areas handled stress better than the citydwellers. Our environment and our community might influence us more than we even realize.

Click here to learn more about the Central Institute of Mental Health study.

Space for Community

Humans are relational beings. We crave companionship and quality relationships. If we don’t have a strong sense of community, it can take a toll on our mental health. So, one way you can cultivate some meaningful relationships is by creating a space in your home that you want to entertain in. (If we’re self-conscious about our home, we’re not going to invite people over, right?) Pick a space – an outdoor patio, a living room, a breakfast nook – and designate that space for entertaining. Keep it tidy so you can seize any opportunity to host guests! Having friends to talk to about personal issues and the daily grind will help relieve some of the resulting stress. Enjoy!

Healthy Workspace

We’ve all experienced workplace stress. Difficulties with co-workers, unrealistic workload, demanding schedule… sound familiar? Most work-related factors are out of our control, but our physical work space is often something we can change. (Especially for those of you working from home!!) A messy workspace or an uninspiring environment can raise stress levels. Why make things harder on yourself? Do what you can to make your physical space organized, uplifting, and gratifying!

Check out this blog post for tips on creating a function home workspace.

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You can’t always change your circumstances, but it’s critical that we acknowledge how they affect our mood and overall mental state. Our home, our region, our community, and our workplace can all contribute to stress, depression, and anxiety. If we start grabbing hold of what we can control, then we will be better prepared to respond to stress in healthy ways.