How Cleaning Your House Affects Your Mental Health

You're going to get so much done today. It's going to blow your mind because my goal is to make you motivated, inspired, and to get you up and get you moving.

Hey clutterbugs, welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. I'm excited about today's podcast episode because I love bringing the tough love a little bit, but I also like having some small part in making a difference in your day and making a difference in your life. And I'm also busy, and I also have a bunch going on, and I also tend to procrastinate stuff that's boring and not great. And I feel like this is a human condition, especially when it comes to cleaning our house. It's something we all have to do, but very rarely do we look forward to the actual cleaning.

And I want to talk about the real connection between your mental health, your overall physical health, and the act of cleaning your house. And not in the way that you think. I know, and you know, that when we have a clean house, it makes us feel better. I mean, that's pretty obvious, right? We enjoy, we like it, we're like, "Oh, look at this, this is so nice." We know it's healthier, we know all the things. But that doesn't help us when we're stuck in the messy middle. Because we're like, "Okay, someday I'll get there, and it will clean, and then I'll see the benefits." But what about the meantime? And when we're stuck in a spot in our lives where it feels like we have a lot of work to do until we get to the good stuff, it's really easy for us to put off that work until tomorrow or the next day because it's not going to give us immediate satisfaction and immediate gratification and immediate results. So why bother when there's so many other more important things we could do?

And I feel like a lot of us feel like this when it comes to cleaning their house. And I used to 100% feel like this. There's so many more important things I should be doing, or it's not going to make a really big difference anyways, or it's just going to get messy again, and I hate it, and it's just never ending. And all of these thoughts kind of made me procrastinate. But what if we can change our thoughts? And not just change it with "fake it till you make it," which is important, but change our thoughts about cleaning with actual science. I'm going to show you the benefits of the act of cleaning today. That's what we're talking about. And I'm hoping that you clean while you listen to this, or do something, do your dishes, put away laundry, I don't know, vacuum. Put on headphones, take action on your house because I'm going to show you why you need to care and why it's important for way bigger reasons than you think. This isn't about what your house looks like at the end. This is about what the process of getting there is going to do for you.

But before I jump into all that, I did want to talk about a story. Just share a quick story with you. There's a person in my life right now who is just in a low spot. And this person has a lot of struggles in a lot of different areas of their life, their home being one of them. It's a very messy, chaotic space. But they're also having medical issues with a loved one, and they're having financial struggles, really terrible financial struggles. They are struggling to run the business. They're having difficulties within their business, which is contributing to the financial problems, but also just day-to-day stress and workload. And they have children and pets, and so much going on, so much going on that it feels like the house is very low on the priority list. But because the home is so low on the priority list, it's continuing to get worse and worse and worse. And now it's having trouble finding the bills to pay, which is contributing even more to the financial. It's having trouble, you know, the chaos of the house is having trouble finding what you need, the keys, and your purse, and the clothes, and two matching shoes for the kids, getting out the door, which is just again, again, compounding everything, giving you less time to dedicate to business, or dedicate to improving different areas of the life, or even rest, which is important. There's not a lot of time to rest because there's so much time living in chaos.

And our environment directly affects not only our stress levels, but just like the distractability and how fast we can get things done. Because if your bathrooms are a wreck, it's adding 15 minutes to your get ready time and probably your go-to-bed routine time. Your kids doing homework, if they can't find pens and pencils and what they need, or if they don't have a relaxing place with less distractions to do their homework, they're going to be struggling, and it's going to take them longer. It's going to be taking you longer to get out the door. It's going to be taking you longer to cook, especially if you have to clean the kitchen before you clean. So it's adding all this extra stress and pressure and distractability and work, but also time into your life.

But I think the most important reason why this loved one of mine should care is because all those other things and pressures that are going on and horrible things in the life are really out of control, out of this person's control in this moment of time. You can't make a loved one not sick. You can't improve your finances in this moment. There's nothing, unless you win the lottery, you can make small changes, but you can't make a difference in this moment. You can't make your business successful in this moment. You can slowly work towards that. But sometimes we need a win in this moment. Sometimes, in order to get us out of the funk, and when we're in a funk, you know, if you've ever been in a funk, you know what it's like to be in a funk. We need wins. We need not only to shift our mindset, but we need to start feeling those happy hormones, dopamine and endorphins and serotonin. We need things in our life that are going to make us feel good.

And there is a lot in our life that we have no control over. But what we do have control over is what your kitchen looks like right now. You have control over that. You have all the control. You can transform what your kitchen looks like in one hour while listening to this podcast. You have control over that. You are the boss of that. You can make not only a difference, you can complete that and have a finished task. That, okay, say you spend one hour today and you're cleaning your kitchen. Tomorrow, you're like, "It's just going to get messy again." Nope, it's not going to go back to how it was. That took a whole hour to clean it. But it is going to get messy again. But tomorrow, you only have to spend 15 minutes resetting it because you've done all the big deep down tidying, putting things away, scrubbing the counters, getting everything clean. So tomorrow, you're looking at a 15-minute tidy-up, probably after dinner, 15 minutes. But it's not costing you an extra 15 minutes because you did an hour the day before. You're saving 15 minutes the next day because it's easier to cook. You're saving cooking time. You're finding things quicker. You're able to put things away faster. You don't have to scrub. So your net even, does this make sense? You spend an hour today, and if you spend 15 minutes every day after that, it's actually not going to cost you those extra 15 minutes to do the main maintenance of the space. You're net even because you're saving 15 minutes in not having to deal with a chaotic space, and you get the added benefit of always having a clean kitchen.

So like, what the issue comes when we let it go and it gets crazy chaotic, and then we deep clean the whole freaking thing, we spend a really long time, and then we let it go again until it gets really chaotic, and then we have to like crazy clean it again. When we do the big crazy clean and get on top of things, and then follow that up with daily maintenance, it's no more extra time, and we get the benefit of having a clean and tidy space all the time.

So I want you to focus right now. I mean, if you're doing your laundry, you do you, boo. But I think the kitchen is such a great place to do this because you can make a wow impact fast. And here's what we aren't doing. We're not making things worse. We're not reorganizing the entire kitchen. We're not pulling everything out. We're not like emptying the fridge to scrub it. We're not taking all the dishes and mugs and pots and pans and spreading it all. We're, that's not what's happening today. You're making this space better. You are getting stuff off your counters. And if you have no place to put those counters, what can leave inside your cabinets? Don't pull everything out to look for things to leave. Open the cabinets, grab a trash bag, and just get stuff out so you can put the things on the counters somewhere. A good enough home. This isn't about perfection. You need a win.

And thinking back to my loved one, whose life right now is a chaotic, crazy pants mess, their home is something that they can control. They're going to feel in control of, and they can do this relatively quickly when we're focusing on just tidying and cleaning and light decluttering, not making things worse, just pushing the needle forward, making it better. But why should they care with all the things going on, illnesses, money problems, who the heck cares what your house looks like? Right? Who the, what, who the heck cares? I promise they do. I promise their children do. I promise their spouse does. And I promise you care too. You care what your home looks like because it's human nature to have our moods, our emotions, even our physical health be affected by our environment. And stop. When things are really messy and all over the place, you feel, feel like crap. And there's no lying to yourself that that's not the truth. You feel like crap in a messy space. Maybe you're so used to it that you don't know that it makes you feel like crap, but I'm telling you, it makes you feel like crap.

And so let's, let's take action and let's make a real difference in the space where we can, in the thing that we can control, which is your freaking home. But there's other reasons why you should care because it isn't about, yes, when it gets there and you finally hit that end goal and everything's clean, you're going to be happier. We know that. That's great. But that could be a ways away depending on what your house looks like. So why should you care today? Well, science will tell you that you should care today because the act of cleaning does the same thing to your brain as meditation. So all the benefits you've heard, meditation calms you, and meditation is good for letting go of distractabilities and worries. It lowers your cortisol levels. It does all of these things. There have been study after study that have shown that the act of cleaning, washing dishes, not while arguing with your kids. This is you time. This is your mental, mental health time. Put on headphones if you have to. Listen to this podcast. There you go. Do that. Or an audiobook or music and get in the zone. All the stress, all the worries, all the overthinking that you're doing, you're shutting that off because you're doing this repetitive behavior with your body, whether it's vacuuming, mopping, scrubbing. It might take a few minutes for all of those thoughts that you currently have to kind of float away, but you're going to get into a zone, and your brain is going to do the same type of thing that you do when you meditate, which is enter a form of relaxation. True story, friends. So cleaning is a form of meditation.

You've always, you probably thought, I know I'm like, I want to meditate every morning. When I found this out, I'm like, I meditate every day for 15 minutes. And it actually, like, I remind myself of this when I'm cleaning, that this is just like meditating, and I'm actually excited to do it because I'm getting the benefits of cleaning while also getting the benefits of meditation. So it's like a two-fer. I could be sitting on the floor going, "Um," doing nothing but meditating, or I could be cleaning and getting all the same benefits while actually also getting the benefit of a cleaner space. I'm choosing option two because I'm a multitasker like that.

So another thing, another reason why you should care. Cleaning is literally a chore. Sometimes, like, it's physical, right? You're moving, you're lifting things, you're putting things away, you're moving around. So you're getting exercise. I mean, it's not like you're running a marathon or whatever, but it is, you're moving, you're, you're, you're lifting your arms, you're pushing the vacuum back and forth, you're scrubbing, you're walking around tidying things up. And any form of exercise, even light walking, so even light cleaning, actually releases endorphins, which are happy hormones. Like, this, this makes you happier. It's releasing endorphins, and endorphins ease pain and stress. That's what they do. They make you happy, but they also alleviate a lot of pain and stress, like from your body. So every time we're like, "Oh, I should exercise every day. I should go for a walk, or I should go for a run, or I should do some sit-ups or crunches." Or every day I should be exercising. Cleaning is freaking exercising, friends. And it's also meditating. And you're also getting the added benefit of a clean house. Like what? You're doing three things in one when you're cleaning your house. This is why we should get excited instead of realizing that that's what it is.

So many of us, including myself for a very long time, I saw cleaning as like a, "Ugh, I have to pick up after people, and this isn't fair, and it's like, oh, I should be doing this, but I also need to exercise, and I should be doing this, and I should be doing this, and this is more important, and this is more important." No, hold up, friends. I'm actually getting so many health benefits from this one act of cleaning. Pretty maze balls. I just read another study that said they literally tracked a bunch of people and had them go to sleep in a messy bedroom for a month, for 30 days, and then like clean their bedroom every day and go to bed in a clean bedroom every 30 days for 30 days, and track their sleep cycle, like track if they felt more rested, how many hours they slept, how long it took them to go to sleep. Somebody did a study on the effects of a clean bedroom on your sleep. Like, I feel like they should have done this a really long time ago. And you can guess what the results were. We know, we innately know what the results are. But obviously, people who had a tidy bedroom fell asleep faster than people who had a messy space. Maybe it's subconscious, who knows? Maybe for whatever reason, like a messy space is making them feel stressed. I don't know. For whatever reason, they fell asleep, they stayed asleep longer, and they felt more well-rested when they woke up. A clean bedroom affects your sleep. And stop. It's freaking amazing.

And here's the other thing that I know for a fact. My daughter's very allergic to dust. She's also 17. When her bedroom is very cluttered, is really, with sometimes she, you know, I just let her do her. Sometimes it gets a little yucky, or it hasn't had a good thorough thorough clean because she's in charge of cleaning it as well. So vacuuming, dusting, doing all of that. When it gets bad, I notice she's coughing, she's sneezing, her eyes are getting watery. So a messy space in your bedroom can also affect your overall health, especially if you're allergic to dust. Like, if this isn't, if this isn't, you're improving now. You're improving your sleep. You're improving your physical health. You're going to get less sick less often and feel better. You're having the same benefits as exercise every day. The same benefits as meditation every day. And you get to enjoy a clean and tidy space. Are you getting excited? Like when I'm thinking of all these benefits, I'm actually excited to get up and start cleaning. Whereas the normal feeling is, "Ugh, I know I'm going to love it when it's done, but I don't want to do it." So I procrastinate. I don't want to get started because, because, because.

But listen, friends, when I focus on all the amazing benefits that I'm going to get, and that you're getting, think about this. What you're actually getting from the act of cleaning is worth it in itself. It is a reason to want to do it. It is shortcutting all this crap we're supposed to do to be good for ourselves and our health and live longer and our mental health. You know, we hear this all the time. We're all like, "Oh my gosh, there's so much to do. It's so much to think about and have to worry about and like add to our plate." Wait a minute. What if it isn't extra? And all this extra? Maybe what if it's just cleaning? And not all day, and not like a crazy person. What if you could do a half an hour to an hour? And if you're behind, you definitely need to do an hour. But you can do an hour. You're getting an hour of exercise, an hour of meditation, an hour of all the good stuff and all the endorphins.

Let's talk about the next, the next reason why it's important and that you want, you want to do it for the here and now, not just for the end result. Okay, cleaning gives you a sense of control. In this world that we live in, we don't have control over a lot of stuff going on. There's wars, there's just all this horrible crap going on in the world. And maybe even in your workplace, or in your family life, or with your friends, who knows? But there's so many things that are out of our control, which can be really, really frustrating. But the act of putting our house in order gives us this sense of control with a beginning, a middle, and an end, like a finite thing. Whether we're cleaning the kitchen counters, or putting the dishes away, or vacuuming the house, or putting away a load of laundry, we are in control of this. We, we, we affect the outcome. It gives us stability. And we can take this a step further. And I mean, we don't want to be full control freaks. That's not healthy either. But we can plan our days, plan our week, give ourselves some sense of structure and control, which we need as human beings. Human beings do not thrive in constant chaos. We don't. It's why when you put a toddler on a schedule, they just do better. Their mood is more regulated. They have less outbursts. They're just happier. Human beings as a whole, doesn't matter what age you are, we need some semblance of structure and control. And we can create that in our house. And when it's out of control, that has a huge impact on every single area of our life, including our happiness and peace of mind.

So it's another reason to put away the dishes because think of it that way. Like, honestly, think of it as, "I am in charge of this. This is something that I can complete however I want to. I am in control. I'm the boss of my home." You are the boss of your home. You are the leader in your family. And you have the ability to do this right now, like right now.

Which leads to the next reason why you need to care about cleaning your house and getting excited about the act of cleaning. Like that's what this podcast is about. Like I want you to look at it differently and actually get pumped to do it because not only does it feel good and looks pretty at the end, that's great, that's a bonus, that's a cherry on top of the cleaning sundae. But there's so many other health benefits and mental health benefits, right? Okay, so let's talk about this. When you've completed a task, even if everything isn't completed, you vacuum a room and you're done. You empty the dishwasher and you're done. That task, even if the rest of the space looks like a hot mess, sandwiches and a total disaster, completing a task, doing it to the end, releases dopamine, which is your reward hormones. Basically, it's pride. You feel like you feel proud. You feel happy. It makes you feel happy. And proud of yourself when we, when we do something, when we check something off our mental list, when we complete a task, however small, we feel really good. Like, scientifically, this has proven. You will be happier. And so let's just keep piling on that happiness. As you're listening to this, what have you done? What have you accomplished while listening to this? Did you put away a load of laundry? Good job. Do you feel proud of? Like, good freaking job. You could have been sitting on the couch watching freaking Netflix, or you could have been scrolling through the internet on Facebook. You instead got your butt up and did something today. Feel good about that. Feel proud about that. Feel that happiness. And not only do you feel that happiness and feel proud of yourself, but also you exercised. And also you meditated. And also you took control of your life like a freaking boss. You did that. You're amazing. And now you made it. You took your house further forward. You're going to save yourself time. Life's going to be easier. There's so many incredibly, incredibly positive reasons why we should care and make this a priority. And it has nothing to do with what your neighbor Susan's going to think if she unexpectedly stops by, or what your husband thinks, or what, or what, you know, your mother-in-law is going to think about what your house looks like. It has nothing to do with anyone else except you and your happiness. This is why you're doing it because it's good for you because you're going to live longer and you're going to be happier while you're living. And stop. Because you deserve this. Not just what it's going to look like when you're done, that's great. But that is not what this is about. You deserve to treat yourself with this level of respect. You deserve to have this time to just shut your brain off and do a task that's going to release endorphins and serotonin and dopamine. You deserve to meditate. You deserve to exercise. You deserve to have a healthier environment with less bacteria and less dust. You deserve all of these things. And you're gifting to the to yourself right now. You are not cleaning for your family or up after your family. This has nothing to do with anyone but you. And yes, the fact that they get to enjoy the benefits of living in a clean, beautiful home, that's a lovely gift that you're giving to them. But that's not what this is about. This is not why you care. You care because this is good for you. And you deserve to feel good. You deserve to be proud of yourself. You deserve less stress in your life and in your day and in your home. You deserve more time. And remember, the work that you're putting in now is not just added time because tomorrow you're going to be net new neutral when you're doing your maintenance. This is an investment in your time. It's not going to cost you time. You're cleaning hard now, you're not going to have to clean hard every day. We're just going to have to keep up. And we're keeping up. We're treating it like meditation and exercise. La la la la la because we're getting three or four or five benefits out of just one activity.

Okay, so let's talk about the last way that you can get incredible benefits from the actual act of cleaning and not focusing so much on the end results of like, "Yay, it's going to be great when it's done," but, "Oh, that feels like it's going to be forever from now." I want to know why I should care and why I should get started and why I should be doing the work right this minute. And for me, I'm busy. I'm running a business. I have three kids. I feel like I'm always going, whether I'm recording a video or a podcast or doing interviews or planning or doing emails, replying to comments. And my mom's ill, and I'm going to see her all the time and spend time with her and friends and family. We have birthday parties on weekends. And my kids, I'm always running them to activities and to go to their friend's house and grocery shopping. And oh my gosh, I'm just going on and on. But the truth is, I don't have a lot of time for me. And I feel sometimes really selfish just doing something just for me, if that makes sense? Like, I feel like my days are so jam-packed full of all this other crap that I got to do that it doesn't feel always right to every day carve out time to go to the movies or read a book for myself. I just, that feels like a luxury that I don't allow myself to have. And I should. And I got to work on that.

But that being said, when I clean, I really do see it as some alone time. And it's great when my family helps me clean, but I'm going to tell you the truth. I like to clean by myself. I really do. If I'm cleaning bathrooms, or if I'm vacuuming, I want to zone out. I want to put on headphones. I want to listen to an audiobook, usually some like romance novel with vampires and werewolves or some ridiculous thing like that. And I just zone out. And I, I, I it feels like I'm detaching from my life almost. Like I get peopled out. I get exhausted from always having people around me, people to talk to, even my own children and husband, honestly, even my own dog sometimes. I just want a break from the world. And I can really get that when I'm cleaning. I can turn on a great audiobook, or sometimes a great podcast, turn my brain off, go into meditation mode, just, you know, have some absolute cherished alone time. And I don't feel bad doing it because I'm also giving to my family at the same time. Like this doesn't feel like a selfish act, even though I'm getting the same enjoyment that I do when I do something just for me. And I'm not saying, like, listen, you should do things just for you. I need to do more things just for me. I know I need to do that. But if you can get the same benefits and also be doing, like, have a cleaner house and be kind of exercising and be meditating and be releasing endorphins and de-stressing and then having like the accomplishment of like, "Look what I did. I cleaned that." Like there's so many insanely wonderful benefits that we get from this. So many wonderful benefits. Why are we not focusing more on that?

And now I do feel like I get to a point. I'm at a point where I enjoy cleaning my house. Sometimes I forget I enjoy cleaning my house and I like have to talk myself into it. But when I focus on the fact that, no, I actually really enjoy this. I feel really good after. I feel proud of myself. I feel less stressed out. It calms me. Calms my anxiety big time. So many health benefits. When I clean my house, I, I, I look forward to it. And I know this. My body, I think innately knows this because anytime I'm really stressed, like before we go on vacation, or just think also anytime I've been pregnant and about to have a baby, I start nesting. I start going really crazy. Anytime there's something in my life where I'm stressed out and things feel out of control and I have a lot of anxiety, I, I start cleaning. I start cleaning because I think my brain and my body innately know that this is real medicine for my soul because it's such a powerfully positive thing for your mental health. It really truly is. And yeah, I think when we focus on all these wonderful reasons of why we should clean, we're going to be way more likely to get off the couch and make it happen.

My friend Christine, she's an athlete and, um, she works out all the time. And I look at her and I admire her. I'm like, "Why? You get up and like, run." We went to Mexico together, and she got up every morning and ran on the beach. And every morning I saw her, like, "Ugh, don't want to. I don't want to really want to." Even though she does this every day, she had to like force herself to get out there and do it. And then she came back and she was so, you know, happy. She was happy and she was proud of herself and just ready to da da da da with the day. And I think you've probably heard of people who exercise all the time talk about exercising highs or running highs. And holding on to that knowledge is what keeps them doing it every day or a few times a week. We need to look at cleaning our house the same exact way because it is the same. It is giving us all those same highs, which is the serotonin and the dopamine. It's giving us the health benefits of the moving and the exercising and the de-stressing. And we get the added benefit of actually having a clean house. So why are we not talking about cleaning our house the same way that runners talk about running, or people who work out talk about working out, or people who, whatever it is they do that's a positive habit? They say, "Yeah, I got to make myself do it, but man, it's worth it because it feels so good." Why can't we say that about cleaning? And we should. And we should. And I think there's a stigma out there, maybe that people who enjoy cleaning their house are neurotic, they're weirdos, they're cold, maybe they're unloving, maybe they're not, they don't have their priorities right because they're not prioritizing their family or themselves or exercise or whatever. That's, we know that's all bull crap. We've just proven that that's all crap. That actually, it is so beneficial to not just us, but everybody that lives in the house. And it doesn't have to be all day long. We don't have to be neurotic clean freaks to get the benefits. We just got to do it and make it a priority. And the way that we can feel motivated is to remind ourselves that this feels awesome. This cleaning, not just having a clean house, but the act of cleaning, even if it doesn't get all the way done, feels incredible. Let's get addicted to that. Every day, 15 minutes, a half an hour, one hour a day of exercise, meditation, relaxation, alone time, because you deserve it. And I think this mindset shift will not only make us happier about getting up and getting started, but it's just going to improve every area of our life.

So I hope you got something done, friends. I hope you're freaking proud of yourself. I hope you're pumped to keep going. And I hope you think about the act of cleaning your house a little bit differently after listening to this podcast. Thank you guys so much. I love spending time with you and I'll see you guys next time.