November 2, 2020 is Stress Awareness Day, and it's something we take seriously.

According to esteemed journal Community Health, out of control stress generally shows itself in three ways:

1.       Physical: headaches, feeling light-headed, shallow breathing, sweaty hands, dry mouth, stomach aches, trouble sleeping, poor concentration;

2.       Emotional: depression, anxiety, nightmares, tearfulness and feeling unable to cope;

3.       Behaviour: “irritability, impatience, anger, aggression, social isolation, lack of energy,changes in appetite, loss of interest in activities previously enjoyed, boredom, significant alcohol or drug use and diminished sex drive”.

No fun!

So after a hard day (or night) at work, which may these COVID affected days actually be in our own homes, it’s important to de-stress to avoid feeling these symptoms.

Working from home doesn’t always help. Videoconferencing tool Zoom went from 10 million daily users in December to 300 million at the height of the early Covid-19 crisis, which is a clear demonstration of just how many of us are homeworking due to the epidemic. Data from NordVPN, a personal virtual private network service provider, shows that this change has resulted in people working up to two hours extra a day in Europe and three hours in the United States, and a Eurostat survey backed this, demonstrating that one in every four employees needed to use their free time to meet their obligations.

Yet according to the American Institute of Stress, “your home should be a tranquil and stress-free environment”. Community Health takes it one step further. A poor living environment can, according to them, result in depression and evening domestic violence. A hectic and chaotic house, it seems, exacerbates those feelings of stress, which can be bad for both your health and emotional well-being.  (I guess they’ve never been full time working parents with children!)

With it being Stress Awareness Day, we at easyStorage think you’ll be getting information from everywhere, but we put our heads together to think of the three biggest ways that we as an organisation might be able to help you make your home space a little less stressful on an everyday basis:

1.      Decluttering: UCLA’s Centre on Everyday Lives of Families ran a study that showed that clutter at home can trigger those pesky stress hormones.  We can help you declutter by moving things that you want or need, but not all of the time, out of the way.

2.      Space to work at home: Dak Kopec, director of design for human health at Boston Architectural College and author of Environmental Psychology for Design, told The Atlantic magazine that has shown that stress from being over crowded can increase rates of domestic violence and substance abuse. We can give you a temporary storage space to create an area to work from home by rejigging things without having to give up the things you love permanently.

3.      Putting seasonal things out of the way: Autumn/winter is here, and it’s time to put away those holiday sarongs and swimsuits, and bring out the winter woollies. With the season also come festivals, with Hallowe’en and Christmas paraphernalia coming out and on show into spaces that are already being used for home working and extra studying on top of everyday life. These are things that you don’t need constant access to, so popping them into storage will free up extra space and reduce the stress.

Of course, there are stressful events in life as well that we can help make a little less painful. These events are all not only stressful, but sad, and if there’s a way to ease the load we will do our best (bearing in mind that we are a storage business, ofcourse).

The most stressful things for most people - and the way we may be able to help - include:

·        Bereavement: Bereavement comes with a huge amount of stress inducing paperwork on top of the emotional stress. Often, properties need clearing for sale or rental:easyStorage can give you a temporary space for these things to allow you to deal with the practicalities and make big decisions when the tough stuff eases up.

·        Divorce: easyStorage can hold onto belongings while divorces are sorted and new homes found; or look after things that are precious if you’ve had to move somewhere smaller.

·        Moving home: We can help you to declutter while you sell or rent your house; and hold boxes etc as you pack up to move.

·        Serious injury or illness: If you need to create space for special beds, medical equipment and the like, we can offer temporary storage space for the things you move out, rather than having to dispose of them.

·        Losing a job: You can see our latest vacancies here: https://www.easystorage.com/jobs-with-easystorage

Whatever the stresses are in your life, we hope they ease up soon.

Please note that this information is provided in a spirit of helpfulness, and is not intended as a substitute for medical advice or professional medical care.

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