Is a spring clean good for your health?

You only have to look at the queues at your local recycling centre to know that we love to have a good clear out at this time of year, but aside from making space and tidying up the garden after the long and freezing winter, what are the potential health benefits of having a good spring clean?

According to Psychology Today, cleaning and organizing can reduce our anxiety. 

This is, they state because when you get things done, you make a series of quick decisions (and therefore solve a series of problems), you put yourself into getting-things-done mode.

But you don’t need a psychologist to tell you this, as we probably are all aware that cleaning and tidying definitely give most of us a lift mentally. 

Given the very frustrating period over lockdown this is even more the case, as many of us are welcoming getting little jobs done around the home or garden, now as the weather is starting to improve.

As well as the mental benefits of having a spring clean, there are obvious physical benefits as the act of cleaning and tidying by its very nature burns off those winter calories and releases mood enhancing endorphins.

A good garden tidy up in an afternoon can be the equivalent of a gym session or jog around the park, with a similar, if not greater number of calories burned. 

It’s true to say, with this additional physical activity, whether that looks like cleaning out gutters on the conservatory, collecting leaves, or even re-configuring that overladed book case in the study gets the arms and legs going and blood pumping.

This is a time when for many people, some of the old niggles can appear, or even the odd injury here and there as seldom used muscles, tendons and ligaments are suddenly called into action.

Daily living aids can be a great help in these situations, as they can give either additional support and balance, through to simply making an ordinary activity, like lifting a kettle for example, simpler and easier whilst reducing risk of accidents.

In the garden, daily living aids also come into their own, as there are a plethora of gadgets, aids and devices to help the avid gardener, work harder and for longer as these tools can help in so many ways.

Gardening daily living aids can range from kneelers, reachers and grabbers, long-handled garden tools and many more innovations to save the arms, back and legs from over-extension and pain. 

Getting that spring clean underway is often a question of mind over matter and not over-thinking the whole process.

Getting started for many is the hardest part, as for some of us, it’s that feeling of being overwhelmed by what looks like a huge job ahead of us. 

Even looking outside to a massive pile up of dead leaves in the garden that need a good clear up can seem like a job too far, but the key with these jobs is to start small and just start on a small bit for a few minutes.

It’s amazing how just starting something, and only spending a short amount of time on it can break us out of that winter and lockdown lethargy. 

It’s very often the case, that accompanied by the radio on, and taking regular tea and coffee breaks can make the whole task actually enjoyable, once you’ve got over the inertia of actually starting!

Of course, for some, a spring clean looks like a much bigger project and it may involve getting external tradesmen in to do some jobs, like decorating or garden tidies.

If that’s the case, as always do your research and don’t just go with the first quote. Read the reviews thoroughly and see how recent they are and that they appear to be genuine and from reliable sources. 

It can also be a good idea to go on local groups on Facebook, if you don’t mind technology, and asking for recommendations from other people in your local area. 

If there’s an aggregate of a trader’s name coming up a lot in the comments, from different people independent of each other, it’s a good clue that the person is genuine and worth hiring for the job.

Back to Psychology Today, who also state another benefit, in that during your spring clean, ‘you may find hidden treasures’ as in items you’d put away and forgotten about and then uncover as you are cleaning and tidying, there may even be the odd piece of exercise equipment tucked away that could set you on a new health kick!

To conclude, it seems that whichever way you look at it, doing a spring clean is good for our health and adds to our mood and general wellbeing. Enjoy the decluttering and prepare to shine into spring. 

If you want more information on any of our daily living aids or gardening aids click here for more information and ordering details.