Senior Care Tips: Getting a Fresh Emotional Start by De-Cluttering Your Parents' House
Senior Care in Wilmette IL
It is the beginning of the year and that means you have a fresh start ahead of you. The new year is filled with opportunity and is the perfect time for you to make changes in your senior care journey with your aging loved ones that will boost the benefits of the care, improve the mental and emotional health of everyone involved in the care journey, and make the most of all of the possibilities that lay ahead. One amazing way to get a jumpstart on all of this opportunity is to start with your mental and emotional health.
De-cluttering your parents’ home is something that you have likely considered before, and something that you probably understand is important to their physical health and safety. A home that is full of clutter poses extra fall hazards, tends to have higher dust, dirt, bacteria, pollen, germs, and other allergens, and can even cause the risk of injury if clutter on shelves or that is stacked up tumbles and lands on your parents. What you might not think about, however, is the mental and emotional impact that this clutter has on your parents.
Emotion plays a tremendous role in why clutter builds up in a home in the first place. Researchers looked into why people have such a connection with the objects that they own and found that simply touching an object forms an emotional attachment to that object, regardless of the actual value, intrinsic value, age, or other details of the object. This means that when you touch or hold an object, you immediately form a bond with it and begin to assign value to it. The longer you touch it, the more value it has. Further studies by researchers at Yale found that having to get rid of objects that a person owns triggers the same centers in the brain that control physical pain.
Even with the emotions that compel your seniors to hold onto items and not want to let them go, however, having a home that is cluttered can have even more extensive emotional impact. Research into the potentially negative impacts of clutter show that when you are surrounded by belongings all of these items compete for your attention, overwhelming your senses and increasing your stress and anxiety. This is much the same effect as having a large group of people around you trying to get your attention.
While challenging, de-cluttering your parents’ home is an exceptional way to remove the stress and anxiety of the clutter, soothing their minds and allowing them to focus more clearly.
Use these tips to help you and your parents get an emotional fresh start by de-cluttering their home:
• Evaluate each item to determine the reason for keeping it. If you can’t find a good reason, whether it is still truly useful or special and sentimental, get rid of it.
• Work on small spaces in the home first so your parents can immediately detect the benefits of not being surrounded by clutter.
• Eliminate obvious trash and disposable items first so that there is a noticeable difference but there is less emotional attachment to the items.
• Take time throughout the process to talk about your emotions and emphasize the good feelings that are coming from the de-cluttering efforts.
If you or an aging loved one are considering senior care in Wilmette, IL, contact the caring staff at Companion Services of America today at (847) 943-3786. Our home care service area includes Northbrook, Highland Park, Deerfield, Glenview, Buffalo Grove, Evanston, Des Plaines, Skokie, Lake Forest, Wilmette and the surrounding areas.
https://lifehacker.com/how-clutter-affects-your-brain-and-what-you-can-do-abo-662647035
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