Your Home Should Be Your Comfort Zone

Home is where you often go to relax and de-stress after a long day. Sometimes though, home can be the cause of our stress. This happens to a lot of us when our house is cluttered or unorganized.

There are many steps you can take to eliminate the clutter and start creating a stress free environment for yourself. Here’s just a few of them:

Identify Your Stress Triggers

Does it drive you crazy when you get home from work and there are ten pairs of shoes by the door? Do you hate opening your overstuffed pantry cabinet and getting a can of green beans straight to the face? Whatever your top stress trigger is, remove it immediately! It may seem small but your irritability will begin to diminish by removing even one of your stressors. The more stress triggers you remove, the better you’ll fee. 

Take a Weekend to Organize

None of us feel like cleaning when we get off work, so make the effort to set aside a weekend and get everything in your home cleaned and organized. By doing this once you can maintain the cleanliness by simply picking up the house 10-15 minutes every couple of days.

Click here to check out more ways to turn your house into a home!

Creating a Safe Place

With your stress triggers eliminated and your house clean and organized, you can begin to find what relaxes you. Create a space where you can go to feel your best. Whether that be the living room you designed or your bedroom that always brings you comfort. By taking even a couple minutes to yourself in this setting you can reduce some of the stress picked up throughout the day!

Take a Walk

Many of us make excuses when it comes to doing exercise, but with everything at home organized and the chores done, we don’t have much to do! Now of course we can’t miss our favorite show at 8 p.m. but there is still plenty of time to get outside. Try to find a time each day where you will be able to consistently walk 20-30 minutes. This will not only reduce stress but can also lower your blood pressure which helps decrease your risk for heart disease. Weather not on your side? Try a little yoga in your safe space.

Get Enough Sleep

Let’s be honest, no one gets enough sleep 100% of the time. We’re all busy! We don’t necessarily need to get eight perfect hours of sleep each night but we do need to find what works for us. How much sleep do you need to not hit snooze on your alarm clock seven times in the morning? How many hours do you need to find a healthy balance? It’s going to be different for each of us. If you struggle waking up in the morning, go to bed an hour earlier tonight. See how you feel tomorrow!

Fun Tip! Do you have trouble falling asleep? Try what’s called progressive muscle relaxation, “start with your toes and work your way up: tighten your foot muscles as much as you can then relax them. Make your way up, tightening and relaxing each muscle until you’ve finished with your face” This technique also helps reduce anxiety which could be a cause of your insomnia.

While there are many other steps and strategies to reduce stress at home, these are a couple that can be done quickly and easily (and even provide some instant gratification).

You probably spend the majority of your time at work and at home. You have the ability to control the stress levels at one of these places, use it!

Take advantage of these strategies and create a happier, healthier lifestyle for yourself.