Hello World! Welcome Friends! Today please welcome Christine H. to the blog who has great information for making your home environment anxiety-free!
Anxiety disorders affect millions of Americans every year. These disorders can be crippling, and make us feel like we’re never able to fully rest. If you, or someone in your family, struggles with anxiety, it can be helpful to make a few changes in your home in order to help it be a more relaxing and calming place. Even if you’re not directly confronting a disorder, reducing anxiety in the home can make for more harmonious family relationships, better sleep, and even less frequent sick days.
Here are some tips on changes that you can make in your home to create a relaxing and calming atmosphere:
Choose an Analogous Color Scheme
The most common color scheme used is a complimentary one wherein you use two colors opposite to each other on the color wheel (for example, red and green, or blue and orange). However, if you’re going for a soothing effect instead of a stimulating one, you might want to choose analogous colors instead. Analogous colors are right next to each other on the color wheel, which means you might pair soft yellows and greens, or lavender with blue. This creates a sequential look and imitates a pattern often found in nature.
Designate a Space
One of the most effective coping techniques for stress and anxiety is this: take it one thing at a time. If you allow yourself to get overextended, thinking about all the things that you have to do tonight and tomorrow and next month, and all the problems that could crop up along the way, you quickly become overwhelmed. However, if you’re able to draw in your focus to just one task at a time, you can much better handle stresses as they come.
Your home can reflect this coping technique. Instead of spreading a work assignment all over every surface (in the kitchen, on the floor in front of the television, on the nightstand by your bed) designate a specific space for that task. This way, you can concentrate on the task while you’re in your study, and then put it out of your mind when you step outside for a break. This link has some great suggestions for making an effective study or work space.
Bring Some Plants Inside
Numerous studies of workplaces have found that when people look at greenery, they experience lower stress levels, and more clarity and productivity. Plants also purify the air and add some welcome natural elements to the indoors. Remember when you’re choosing a houseplant that you’ll want one that will thrive in the conditions you’re putting it in. Avoid putting plants under a vent, and read their care instructions carefully. This article has some great suggestions for easy-maintenance plants that will look great in your home.
Eliminate Triggers
One horrible contributor to anxiety is a history of trauma. Because trauma is distressing and unsettling, even after the event has passed, people struggling with this problem often experience anxiety and seek out different ways to feel safe and secure. Admittedly, examining those triggers and learning how to cope with them is a part of effective therapy. However, you should never need to deal with those triggers in your own home. Whether you’re suffering with PTSD, or generalized anxiety, take note of things that make your anxiety spike. Remove them from your home.
Be Vigilant against Clutter
Speaking about triggers, one of the most common triggers of anxiety (especially for overstressed mothers) is clutter. We know that eliminating clutter is easier said than done, but you really can do it!
Start by identifying trouble places (like the junk drawer in your kitchen, the laundry room, or the doorway where your children tend to kick off their shoes and automatically drop their book bags.) Instead of constantly cleaning up these spaces, make them more functional. Put a basket by the door where kids can kick off shoes, and add a coat rack or something that holds their bags without being in the way. Make sure there are baskets in the laundry room designated for dirty and clean clothes. Allow your junk drawer in your kitchen to still hold all those things you need it to, but get an organizer so that it looks orderly and each item is easily found.
Make Happy Focal Points
Feng Shui is a multifaceted (and often overwhelming) practice if you’re just a dabbler. However, there’s one principle that I love and have learned to adapt in my own home. The energy of a room can largely be determined by how you feel when you walk into it. So, make sure that you get a positive impression as soon as you walk into a room. Determine those things about a room that make you feel negative or frustrated, and those things that make you happy when you see them. Step one is to eliminate the things that bug you. For example, do you have a couch riddled with stains? Well, tackle that problem! Get a new couch, or invest in a cleaning and a new cover that will make you like the couch again.
On the other hand, if you have a favorite picture, or a decorative accent that you love, consider putting it somewhere where it will catch your eye as soon as you enter the room, so that you immediately have a positive impression as you walk in. The energy that you bring into a room is just as important (maybe more important) than the harmony of all the non-sentient items in the room.
Think of Creative Ways for Clear Counters
One of the most stressful things about a home can be to walk into a room and see a tabletop cluttered with things. Whether that’s your nightstand, coffee table, or kitchen counter, it stops us from enjoying those spaces in the way we actually want. Do whatever you can to make it so that things that wind up on tops of surfaces actually have a space to go.
For example, do you always have a coffee table crowded with junk mail? Get in the habit of tossing out junk mail right away, or get a small box that goes against the wall and can hold your mail until you have the chance to sort through it. Have drawers and cubbies that can hold things like extension cords, or messy blankets. Keep kitchen appliances tucked out of sight unless they really are things that you use every day.
Thank you, Christine! Such great tips.
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Toodles,
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