April is National Stress Awareness Month, established to raise awareness of the negative impact of stress. The most common explanation of ‘stress’ is physical, mental, or emotional strain or tension.

Stress (the neurophysiological stress response to put it technically!) is useful in small doses: it helps us cope with situations that challenge our survival. However, constant or sustained stress can have strong and long-lasting adverse effects on on our brains and behaviours.

And easyStorage 0 being a caring storage company - rather than stress specialists -  is well aware that some of the big reasons for using self storage (or, in our case, ‘mobile storage’). Include highly stressful life events, such as moving house or a death 

As around 1 in 8 people use storage for decluttering purposes, some even joining the ranks of ‘lifestyle storers’, for week one of stress awareness month we take a look at the effect of clutter and how to avoid letting it get to stressful levels.

There have been endless studies into how our environment, notably our home environment, affects our psychological well being. The Institute for Challenging Disorganization (ICD) has even developed a Clutter Quality of Life Scale (CQLS).

So how can decluttering help reduce stress?

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Making space liveable

It’s time to think about decluttering your home when it becomes physically harder to do things. Signs that it’s time to act include:

·         you have to move things in order to get things done;

·         you can’t use spaces the way you would like to because of clutter;

·         you can’t find items when needed because there’s just too much stuff;

·         you’ve avoided essential tasks in the home because the mess makes it overwhelming or difficult;

·         you have so many things that they’ve become trip hazards.

It’s easy to see how simply slimming down the number of things in the home will make things easier and less stressful, resulting in a cleaner, more pleasant environment at the same time.

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Emotional wellbeing

You know that clutter is having a negative effect of your emotional wellbeing when:

·         you feel upset, distressed, depressed or guilty about the mess;

·         you proactively avoid thinking about, or addressing, the clutter, or feel by it.

For your own wellbeing it may be a good idea to declutter with a degree of priority.

Social life

You know that the clutter’s affecting your social life when you worry about what others will think about you if they get to know about or see the clutter in your home, even avoiding having people, including family, come to visit because of it.

For some people, avoiding ‘people’ is a good way to avoid stress, but repeated studies show that for most people positive social relationships have both short and long-term effects on health – physical as well as emotional.

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Financial effect

The link between mental health and financial wellness cannot be understated, with experts noting that stress caused by money issues is often chronic. People struggling financially often have poorer diets, fear losing their homes, have higher rates of absence from work for illness, and often feel shame because they can’t provide for themselves and their families.  Money worries have also been linked to physical illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and migraines, along with sleep problems and depression.

You know that the clutter is hitting your wallet when:

·         you buy things you already have because you don’t know where things are;

·         you have incurred debt buying too many ‘things’;

·         bills have been paid late (with or without subsequent late payment charges) more than once in the past three months because they got lost in the clutter/mess.

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How easyStorage can help

·         easyStorage has an ever growing web channel full of decluttering tips: https://www.easystorage.com/living/declutter

·         one of your options is to put clutter into storage. For no-obligation quotes, you can call a storage specialist on 0330 165 9347, or use our 24/7 quote systemhttps://book.easystorage.com/, which even has a way to estimate the space you need!

We don’t claim that decluttering will cure all stresses. If you are in need of help due to high stress levels, please seek help. The British Red Cross has some fabulous resources and suggestions, https://www.redcross.org.uk/get-help/get-help-with-loneliness/wellbeing-support/understanding-dealing-stress and if things have got really bad or reached crisis point, don’t forget that the Samaritans are there to help by calling 116 123.