Cleaning Can Help Ward Off Those Winter Blues
As I sit here at my desk typing this, I look out the window and see a lot of snow coming down. It looks like winter is in full swing now. During winter, we spend a lot more time indoors and that puts us at risk for health issues. Being indoors puts us in close proximity with more people, especially here in Cache Valley where large families are common. You probably want to do your best to minimize any health issues you might face. You might be surprised by just how much cleaning can help with that.
Cleaning Has Benefits on Both Physical and Mental Health
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio
You can probably guess how a clean house affects your physical health. Dust and other allergens can build up in a dirty house, which irritate your throat, lungs, and eyes. This will exacerbate any illness that affects these areas, as the most common winter sicknesses do. There are other benefits, too. For example, cleaning requires you to be up and moving, which is some limited exercise, and having a clean area encourages more exercise. According to some studies, people who have clean homes also tend eat healthier foods.
There are psychological benefits as well. According to the Journal of Neuroscience, having a messy, cluttered home can overwhelm the brain’s attention, making it hard to focus and increasing stress. Simply cleaning up your home can trigger the release of endorphins, which help relieve stress and make us feel better. Overall, a clean home gives you a sense of control and order that leaves you feeling relaxed. Since the brain also likes routine, as you make cleaning a regular task, this also makes you feel more comfortable.
Reduction of stress also has physical health benefits, as stress weakens the body’s natural immune response. So, one of the simplest things you can do to improve your overall health is to maintain a clean home.
What Cleaning Can You Do This Winter?
1. General Routine
The first step to having a clean home and de-stressing is to get a general routine. To do that, you want to set up a cleaning plan. It’s much easier to stick to tasks when you have a plan and sticking to a task is important if you want to get a routine going. Your plan should be divided up so that each area of the house has its own set of simple tasks. These include things like cleaning the oven and countertops for the kitchen, or making beds every morning. Having a written checklist will help you stay on task, as each item you check off will be a hit of endorphins for your brain and seeing your progress makes you feel more in control.
If you haven’t been very diligent in cleaning, perhaps you need a little help to get started. For that, there are many businesses around Logan that you can call on. Cleaning companies will be able to help you get a messy home under control so that it’s easier to stay on top of it going forward. Working with them can also help you get a good sense of what your cleaning plan should look like. Once you’ve got a basic routine down, cleaning will become less of a chore. Then you can take a look at some of the less regular jobs to do around the house.
2. Appliance Maintenance
We all have so many appliances these days. Ovens, microwaves, dishwashers, and so on. These appliances have become more and more complicated and complicated equipment needs maintenance. There’s nothing more annoying than when you need to use one of your appliances and it’s not working properly. Regular maintenance will help you avoid this as well as keep your appliances working longer, so you won’t have to worry about needing to buy replacements as much.
That said, complex machines aren’t easy to repair if you don’t know anything about their mechanics. Unless you actually have training in mechanical repair, you probably want to get in touch with an appliance repair company to do this for you.
3. Good Ventilation
Cache Valley is known for its regular inversion, in which the cold air drags all the air pollution down into valley, creating horrifically bad air quality. Having good air circulation in your home is important to keep air pollution from building up inside your home. Regular air duct cleaning will help by removing dust and other things that can hinder the flow of air through your ventilation system. This also helps reduce symptoms of allergies and other breathing troubles.
4. Professional Carpet Cleaning
Your carpet is a great air filter, as its fibers catch and trap dust inside them. That said, there’s only so much any good filter can hold. When it reaches its limit, walking on the carpet will send loose dust back into the air. Vacuuming should be a regular chore on your cleaning list, but vacuuming alone isn’t enough. Some dust will sink deep into the fibers, where the act of walking on it compresses it into hard, sharp crystals that will damage the carpet fibers. Your carpets will need regular professional level cleaning to keep them in good shape.
Generally, you should do this at least twice per year. The best times are in the fall and the spring, but if you missed last fall, that’s no reason to just wait for spring. Since people will be walking on the carpets all winter, it’s a good idea to get out as much of that dirt as you can so the extra traffic doesn’t damage it.
5. Snow Removal
When the snow builds up, it can create all kinds of problems. It blocks paths to walk on, keeps your car stuck in the driveway, and is generally wet and cold. In places where you walk regularly, it can condense into ice that you can slip on. Falls on ice can lead to serious injuries. Generally, it’s a good idea to shovel any snow that builds up more than an inch or two on the ground in any places where you want to walk.
That said, it always seems that we get a crazy snowstorm at least once each year. Last year, we had several blizzards; I don’t remember the last time I saw so much snow come down here in such a short period of time. When we get hit with storms like that, snow removal can be much more difficult. That’s why many yard cleaning companies in Logan will also do snow removal during the winter. If the weather reports indicate that we might be about to get a big storm, consider getting in touch with one to arrange for snow removal when it happens.
6. Declutter
Once you’ve gotten the general cleaning done, removing the dust and grime from your home, you can further improve things by decluttering. Clutter creates a lot of things for dust to gather on, which makes cleaning even harder. The best approach is to assign a proper place for everything in your home. When something isn’t being used, put it back. Having boxes and drawers to serve this purpose will help keep them from gathering too much dust. Furthermore, if you stick to keeping everything where it belongs, you should always know where it is, so you don’t get frustrated with not being able to find what you need.
The second thing to consider is getting rid of things you don’t use. We all accumulate stuff as we go, but we don’t always keep using it. It’s tempting for some to rent storage, but while that gets the clutter out of your home, storage rental can be expensive and make it even more likely that you forget what you have and never use it. The best option is to take note of things you have that you never use and get rid of them. There are plenty of groups out there you can donate them to, or you probably have friends who could make use of them instead. If you want to make a little cash and don’t mind the extra effort, there’s always Ebay.
A Clean House for Clean Living in Cache Valley
Keeping your house clean is an important part of healthy living, both physically and mentally. The best way to keep your home clean is to make cleaning a regular routine. With us spending more time indoors due to the cold weather, now’s a good time to make a start at it. You’ll find life is so much more enjoyable once you do.
