Why do we clean our homes? Yes, sometimes it’s about pride and public perceptions — but more often than not it’s about our wellbeing. A clean, tidy and ordered home can make us feel more relaxed, which is why some of us spend several hours a week cleaning.
Here are five reasons why regular household cleaning can be good for your health. Once you’re done, you’ll be reaching for your vacuum cleaner immediately!
1. Reduces allergens
No amount of cleaning can completely eradicate allergens from your home. But if you can keep on top of dirt, dust and mould, you could make an impact — and make life easier for people in your home with allergies and respiratory problems.
According to the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, reducing allergens to a minimum can make you feel healthier and more energised too.
Tip: Always dust from the top of the room down, and always use a damp cloth to ensure you are not just moving the fine particles into the air to settle somewhere else. Not just the areas you can see – make sure you’re dusting out-of-the-way areas regularly too.
2. Reduces stress
Most cleaning jobs can be considered gentle exercise if you perform them rigorously enough. And exercise is clinically proven to reduce stress, depression and the effects of various mental health issues.
It’s not only the physical exertion at work here, though. Making things clean and tidy is therapeutic for many people — and conducive to relaxation.
Tip: Try not to make cleaning a chore. Instead, put on your favourite music and lose yourself in the solitude of cleaning. Try not to set yourself unrealistic expectations, otherwise you’ll get stressed about not finishing on time.
3. Enhances Moods
It’s easy to see how cleaning can boost your mood – a combination of exercise-related endorphins, the relaxation and the sense of achievement can help to clear your mind and inspire happiness. Then there’s the satisfaction that comes from knowing you’ve created a warm, welcoming and clean environment for the people you love most.
Tip: Take on small, manageable cleaning jobs within realistic timeframes to ensure your happiness doesn’t turn into stress. Cleaning with family or friends can enhance these positive emotions, so don’t be afraid to ask for help.
4. Boosts Focus and Concentration
Whether you’re vacuuming the carpets or steam cleaning the kitchen floor, a good job requires you to focus on the job at hand. If you can empty your mind of worries and concerns by focusing on your cleaning, you can recharge your mental batteries for the rest of the day’s tasks.
There is also evidence that a clean, uncluttered workspace or home is conducive to concentration. According to America’s Anxiety Disorder Center, an orderly environment helps you to clear your thoughts and save you stress in the long run.
Tip: Start small by clearing and cleaning your home desk or give the most lived-in room in your home a thorough clean. Concentrate on one job at a time.
5. Keeps Illness at Bay
A dirty home can make you ill — in more ways than one. For example, if your home is cluttered and filled with tripping hazards, you and your family are more susceptible to falls and accidents.
Cleaning is also about reducing bacteria to a minimum. By regularly sanitising floors, worktops, handles, switches and anything that your hands touch, you can help to reduce the amount of potentially-harmful bacteria in your home.
Pests such as mice and rats are attracted to warm environments with plentiful supplies of food. If you’re not cleaning away food debris in your kitchen, you could be sending out a rallying call to any nearby pests.
Tip: Keep sanitiser spray and a microfibre cloth in every room of your home, but don’t clean everything all of the time – you do need some level of exposure to microbes to keep a healthy immune system. If you don’t want to use sanitising chemicals on floors, close to your children and pets, Shark’s steam mops clean and sanitise floors using the power of steam alone.
Regular cleaning is good for your health if it’s tackled in a positive, constructive way. Plan your cleaning in advance, and you too can reap these important health benefits.
