You want your home to be a relaxing environment, not a contributor to stress. Tackle the sources of stress in the home.
Five Ways to Destress Your Home
Our home is supposed to be our sanctuary from the hurly-burly of the outside world. But too often these days, the hurly-burly has moved right in with us! If you're feeling stressed at home, chances are that the stress is coming from the home environment itself. But there are positive steps you can take to return your home to the comfortable nest it was meant to be.
The first step is the one most people find the hardest, but it's crucial. Eliminate clutter!
Think of the photos and television travelogues you've seen of a Buddhist monastery's meditation garden. Crowded and cluttered? Not hardly! While monastic simplicity is unrealistic for most modern homes, take a look around your living room or bedroom and try to imagine meditating there. Odds are the sheer amount of stuff that meets your eye makes the notion seem unlikely.
Clutter crowds us. It eats up time and devours energy. (Have you ever spent ten minutes looking for something that you "just had in my hand a minute ago"?) Even if your house is packed with items you love and use frequently, the crowding is still a stressor. And let's admit it, how many of us have homes crowded with useful and cherished objects? Too much of the clutter are things we've outgrown either physically or mentally, but haven't yet disposed of. Drawers and closets intended to store the items we use when they're not in use are filled instead with things we never use anymore, so the items we do use are scattered around the house on furniture and countertops, creating visual chaos and stress.
So clear the clutter. Get rid of the items you no longer use, pitch the broken items and the masses of outdated paperwork, and donate the usable old clothes and toys, books and other items that you have no use for. That's step one. Start now.
Step two is to separate areas by function. Do you have a home office or exercise equipment in the bedroom? This can be a source of guilt stress when you're trying to relax, a reminder of the work or exercise that isn't done yet. If possible, find another place for both work and exercise. Maybe it's time to finish the attic space or convert a backyard shed or outbuilding. If you live in a tiny apartment and there's absolutely no other place for these items, at least devise some sort of room divider to separate the work and workout area from the rest and relaxation area.
An aside about the exercise equipment; when was the last time you used it? Be honest! More than a year? Then it's clutter to be disposed of. But even if you use it faithfully every day, you still want to have a visual separation between the exercise area and the sleeping area.
If you have children, their play area has probably expanded to encompass most of the living area of the house. Your declutter project should have included children's toys and clothes as well. If not, now is the time to get the play area confined to a manageable section of the house. Don't let this be a trauma that your children will remember as 'the time Mommy took the toys away'! Work on their generous nature to convince them to voluntarily donate the toys that they've outgrown to less fortunate children who have no toys, and you're teaching them concern for others at the same time you're destressing your home.
The exception to the separation by function can be the kitchen, called by many the 'heart of the home'. This is where people naturally like to congregate. As long as the decluttering has gone on here as well, there's no need to be concerned if socializing and homework take place in the kitchen along with food preparation and eating. Just keep an eye on things and don't let the clutter monster creep back in again.
The third step to destressing your home is noise control. Noise pollution can be external or internal, and there are steps you can take to minimize both types. If you live in a noisy neighborhood, heavy draperies and double- or triple-paned windows can cut down on the noise filtering in from outside. If loud traffic noises still intrude, invest in a white noise generator for your bedroom.
Inside noise can come from rambunctious children and also from the design of modern homes. Hard surface floors are all the rage now, hardwood and laminates, tile and even concrete. While trendy, these surfaces can also be noisy. Thick area rugs on the main traffic patterns will help here, with a good nonskid undercarpet to keep the rugs in place. Fabric wall hangings and bookcases filled with books are good sound absorbers as well.
The fourth way to destress your home is to arrange it to suit you. While many people spend a lot of thought and energy in furnishing a home to suit their tastes, many others do not. In a hurry to get on with other aspects of their lives, they furnish their living environment hapazardly with hand-me-downs, sale items, and hurried, thoughtless purchases, until they can look around and realize there is nothing in their home that they find attractive or reflecting their own taste.
If this describes you, you don't have to race out and spend a fortune on all new furniture. Just acknowledge the problem and set about correcting it gradually. There is nothing wrong with used and hand-me-down furniture, or clearance and closeouts, so long as these are items that you truly find attractive and comfortable to live with. Take your time with this step, don't rush it, but enjoy the process; you will find it a relaxing pastime.
The fifth step to destressing your home can be the most rewarding. Create a spot devoted strictly to the purpose of relaxation. It could be a whole room, or just a corner with a special chair. But arrange it attractively and devote it strictly to the sole purpose of relaxing. How you relax is up to you. You might meditate or listen to music or read poetry or inspirational works. This is the place to do those things. Once you've created the space and developed the habit of going there for relaxation, you will discover that you begin to relax as soon as you sit in your special chair.
And now that you've created your special place for relaxation, use it. Every day. However busy your schedule, do not neglect to carve out some time for yourself. The busier you are and the more harried you feel, the more you need this. A fifteen minute relaxation and meditation break daily will recharge your energy and make the issues that were stressing you more manageable.
Follow these five steps, and however small your home or how hectic your schedule, you'll come to feel that your home is the comforting environment you always imagined it could be.
