Decluttering and Mental Health: What You Need to Know

It’s easy to get into the habit of holding onto things you don’t need anymore. Maybe you no longer have the time or patience to clean the spacious house you’ve lived in for decades. Or perhaps you started a postcard collection a few years back and currently find yourself with hundreds of postcards without a purpose. When your living space is untidy and cluttered, it can actually have a negative impact on your overall state of well-being.

Research shows that clutter can induce a negative physiological response in your body, including producing increased levels of cortisol, a stress hormone. Fortunately, taking control of your living environment and decluttering your space can improve your mental wellness and help you stay productive, focused and stress-free every day.

5 Health Benefits of Decluttering for Seniors

1. Increased Focus

Decluttering your living environment can help you focus on what’s really important in each day. When you take time to declutter a room in your home, you’re giving yourself the opportunity to prioritize hobbies, relationships and fun activities instead of concentrating on the mess.

2. Reduced Stress and Anxiety

When you’re constantly surrounded by a cluttered, messy living environment, you can experience chronic stress. Decluttering your home can help ease your mind and reduce feeling overwhelmed by a disorganized living space.

3. Improved Sleep Quality

Clutter can negatively impact your sleep, keeping you from feeling rested and relaxed. A messy bedroom can lead to sleep disturbances, increasing stress, risking cognitive dysfunction and worsening anxiety and depression. When you take the time to tidy your bedroom, you’re helping to relieve tension in your brain and help you get a good night’s sleep that improves your overall quality of life.

4. Improved Air Quality in Your Home

Pollen, dust and other allergens can accumulate in a variety of places within your home. When you have a cluttered space that’s filled with too many items, that area is more likely to gather dust. When you eliminate excess belongings from your living space, this can improve the airflow in your home, helping you breathe better and improving your quality of living.

5. Elevated Mood

When you’re constantly living in a cluttered environment, your brain will notice and constantly try to filter out irrelevant information and focus on what actually matters. This can lead to increased fatigue and unnecessary stress on your mind. Tidying the environment you live in can boost your mood and help you concentrate better throughout the day.

Decluttering Tips for Seniors

Decluttering can seem overwhelming at first if it’s not something you’re familiar with. Luckily, there are many different decluttering tips to help you get started.

• Pick One Area to Start Maybe focus on the room you spend the most time in and start there. Cleaning one room at a time will help ease any stress you feel about the process and help you focus.
• Separate Items as You Go As you’re sorting through each room, place items into piles for keep, donate, recycle, sell.’ This can help you stay organized and ensure that each item is properly sorted.
• Recruit Help Consider asking friends or family to assist you in the decluttering process. Afterall, this can be a big task and you may find it easier to accomplish with some support.

Find Vibrant Independent Living Options at Fellowship Village

After you’ve decluttered your home, perhaps it’s time to consider leaving household maintenance behind all-together. When you make the move to an Independent living community, like Fellowship Village, you can put weekly household upkeep in the past and live the life you truly want to live in your retirement years.

Our independent living residences are spacious, vibrant and designed to fit your unique lifestyle. When you make the move to our community, you won’t ever have to worry about shoveling snow or fixing a leaking faucet again. Instead, your days can be spent doing more of what you actually enjoy.

If you’re comfortable continuing to live out your retirement in your newly decluttered home, our in-home senior care services can help! Fellowship Helping Hands can cover light housekeeping and laundry for you, provide transportation to appointments, offer medication management and so much more. These in-home services can ensure you live safely in your home and enjoy more of life.

Contact us to learn more about our independent living options at Fellowship Village and in-home senior care services.