Minimalism For Mental Health

We are surrounded by clutter in all spheres of our lives: Our Nutrition, Our Schedules, Our Relationships, Our Minds, and Our Environments. Find out why minimalism fosters mental health and wellbeing. This talk is not just about getting rid of "stuff". We dive deep into understanding why letting go is the path to living your best life.

Transcript

Welcome to Living Simply,

A guide to mindful living and mindful parenting with your host,

Dr.

Gina.

Hello,

Everybody.

Welcome back to Living Simply.

My name is Ben Barber.

Dr.

Gina,

It's so good to see you.

What are we talking about today?

So let's start with talking about minimalism for mental health.

I love it.

I love that.

I haven't even gotten into the episode yet and I love the title.

I'm here for it.

So what does that mean?

Minimalism for mental health?

Well,

First I want to say so nice to see you again,

Ben.

And starting up the podcast again,

I've been missing doing this with you.

So I'm excited for the episodes to come.

Couldn't be more excited.

Yeah.

So what is it?

Well,

If I speak for us in the developed world,

We live in a land of plenty.

We have too much of everything,

An abundance of everything.

The fear of missing out,

We're overly scheduled.

Our minds are cluttered with busyness.

We have too much food.

There's an overflow of food.

It ends up in the garbage.

There's just too much of everything at so many levels,

Too much debt.

You name it.

There's too much of everything.

And I see how much stress it causes people.

So I think minimalism is more than just a trend of,

You know,

A decoration trend.

I think there's an actual mental health benefit to simplifying our lives and minimizing the amount of stuff,

People,

Things,

Schedule,

You name it,

In our lives.

Yeah.

I think that that makes a lot of sense.

I mean,

Obviously,

This show,

Like this episode is,

But this show in general,

This podcast is not about minimalism.

But it is sort of baked into the title,

Right?

Like,

Living simply.

And so much of our lives now are complicated and we're in the weeds with everything.

And we have so many things,

Right?

Like,

There's consumerism is a gigantic issue and we're all sold things every single day.

Products,

Goods,

Things that we buy and then collect in our houses and don't necessarily have anything to do with them or we use them once.

Or I had a conversation with somebody this morning about how they all bought these really expensive exercise bikes and they became $2,

000 clothes hangers.

And,

You know,

Like we're all,

Everything seems like a good idea at the moment and we put the credit card down and we grab it and we accumulate it.

And then clutter,

You know,

I've also heard a long time ago,

And I would love to hear your thoughts on this as an actual psychologist.

I've heard like if you have like a cluttered room,

Like if your bedroom is a mess,

It affects your mental health.

Like going to sleep and waking up in chaos affects your mental health.

What do you have to say about that,

If anything?

Yeah,

Well,

There's a reason for the show Hoarders.

Like,

Obviously,

This is an extreme of clutter,

But there's truth to it.

It causes enormous stress,

Confusion.

So if you see the difference when you yourself declutter.

So if we start with the easy part,

Which is things,

Be in a messy room,

Messy office.

You're even desensitized to it.

But if you have someone clean up or you clean it up,

You feel so much lighter.

You energetically feel an immediate impact on you when you clean up and you get rid of stuff.

So there is an impact,

Obviously,

At the level of Hoarders,

There's huge mental health implications.

But to a lesser degree,

What it does cause is stress and overwhelm and disorganization,

Which then can lead to and I'm thinking of a few clients who they're not Hoarders.

There's just too much stuff in their house and they feel overwhelmed.

They don't know where to start because it's like,

Oh,

I should do this.

I should do that.

And then they're frozen because they don't know where to start.

There's just too much to tackle.

So on a continuum,

Yes,

It can from a minimal level disrupt your sleep,

Stress you out to the extreme where it can cause severe depression,

Some isolation,

Even suicidal behaviors,

Especially if you think clutter,

And then extend clutter,

For example,

To excessive spending.

It's become so easy to shop.

People get in debt.

So that's you cluttered your credit card with debt.

So people mortgage their houses,

They get one credit card to pay off the other credit card.

That causes a lot of stress.

Or if people don't want that much debt,

They get a second and a third job.

And then that impacts their relationships because they're too busy working.

They don't even have time to be with their kids or their partners or just time for themselves to relax.

And then clutter at the level of your schedule.

If every minute of your day is scheduled,

Where are you finding time for yourself to relax and refuel?

And when you declutter your schedule,

You actually have time to gain insights,

What's not working in your life and how to tackle it.

So there are so many areas that when you do address the clutter,

You do see immediate improvement.

You don't need to wait weeks or months to see the effect of decluttering.

That's one of the good things that you see an immediate effect.

Well,

Some of that hits pretty close to home.

Last night,

Literally last night I was working and there was a knock on my door to the office.

And I immediately,

Like my heart sank because I was like,

That means I missed an entire day with Brayden.

If that knock comes,

That's him coming down to say good night.

And I was like,

I did it again.

Buddy,

Okay,

Listen,

What time do you get out of school tomorrow?

I promise I'll be done working at four and we can hang out all night.

And so that stuff is crazy.

Another thing that I thought of that was actually part of the thing that caused me to be working all day yesterday was digital clutter.

Yes.

So I'm constantly like editing videos,

Making podcasts for people,

Doing a bunch of micro content for social media,

All of that stuff.

And I'm going so fast in making things that I end up with,

Like I made a 45 second TikTok for somebody the other day.

But in that 45 second TikTok,

There were 14 videos of B-roll that had been downloaded and five different text formats that had to go on top of it.

So there were nearly 20 files that were then crowding in my computer.

But I didn't have time to organize them.

So they were in my downloads and some of them were exported and then on my desktop and then some of them were in other places and they weren't categorized.

And that's like,

Okay,

So 20 files just happened.

But that was 10 minutes.

That was 20 files that were created in 10 minutes.

And I do that all day,

25 times a day.

So that adds up and like every couple of weeks I look at it and I'm like,

My computer is about to crash because I have completely maxed out the hard drive.

My inbox has 3000 emails in there and like the digital clutter is driving me absolutely crazy.

Yeah.

And that's very stressful,

Actually.

It's super,

It's super,

The digital,

The inbox alone,

Like you know,

Because you've tried to email me.

The inbox alone emails are incredibly stressful and so many people have that,

Especially working from home for the last two years and people communicating even more via email.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And not only email,

But like you and I do through WhatsApp,

Through text message,

Through Messenger,

Through all of these.

And there's all of these different places and all of them need to be organized and it creates a big burnout.

Oh,

Totally.

The email one is one that comes up with all my clients,

Whether they work for themselves,

For the government,

Total overwhelm.

I just cleaned up my inbox and the next day they're like,

I have five,

Six,

700 emails to go through again.

And like you just mentioned,

Like when I last year I created a detox program for every sphere of your life,

One of which was digital.

And in the end,

What you have to learn is to develop systems to streamline everything.

So,

Example,

Instead of communicating through WhatsApp,

Facebook,

Text,

You tell people just WhatsApp or just email so that it's streamlined and you don't have to check that this person emailed me or text me or WhatsApp me.

Because then you waste a lot of time as well,

Which is time you need for other tasks.

So,

Things pile up on top of each other and in the end it's all stress.

And then stress causes secondary problems,

Right?

It causes anxiety for others,

Depression,

For some mental breakdown and they need to be off work.

But the digital one is a big one for most people because if you don't manage your time well,

Especially people who don't work online,

They can waste a lot of time on social media and next thing they know they're behind everything else.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tell me a little bit more about this detox program for every area of your life.

Yeah.

So,

For example,

One day we talk about detoxing in your kitchen.

So,

Decluttering,

Whether it's from a physical perspective,

Decluttering the pantry,

The elements.

Like you don't need 50 versions of one thing,

Right?

You might instead of having 30 pots and pans,

Five blenders,

Unless you're a chef,

Obviously.

But we usually have too many gadgets.

So,

Remove stuff or spices that are 10 years old.

So,

Decluttering the kitchen space and also decluttering from stuff that are not healthy for you and learning how to minimize,

Right?

So,

Shopping with a grocery list because when you shop,

You tend to,

Oh,

I need this and I need this.

And finally,

You come home and you find,

Oh,

I already had three bottles of whatever,

Ketchup.

So,

Organizing the kitchen,

Decluttering the kitchen and your fridge so that you know what's in your kitchen and you can eat healthier.

Then,

For example,

I work on decluttering relationships,

Right?

Sometimes we hang on to relationships just because we've known this person for 20 years.

But really,

Not that the person's bad,

But we really don't get anything from that relationship anymore and it doesn't bring you joy.

So,

Again,

Streamlining without necessarily getting rid of them,

But deciding I only have 24 hours in a day,

A third of which I need to sleep,

The other third I need to work.

Who do I want to focus on in my life?

So,

Maybe the people that are not as important to you,

Maybe you'll see once a year instead of seeing them because you feel obligated.

So,

Relationships that way.

Some are just plain old toxic,

So maybe it's time to cut ties with people.

And decluttering people's schedule.

Basically,

I work with clients so they can make time where there's white space,

Where there's nothing scheduled so that they have the freedom to do whatever.

If they want to do work,

They do work.

If they want to relax,

They relax.

If they want to do exercise,

They do.

So,

Decluttering the schedule by prioritizing based on your values and what matters most to you.

And to do that,

We tackle the fear of missing out.

Well,

You've got to accept you're going to miss out on things.

What are you not willing to miss out on and what are you willing to miss out on?

And again,

What matters most to you is where you're going to prioritize your schedule.

Then the one that's hard for everybody,

Decluttering their minds.

Right?

So,

That's where mindfulness comes in.

We're so caught up in our heads,

We're no longer living in this moment in time.

We're caught up in the past or in the future.

And how many parents do I see their bodies are in the room with their kids?

But they're not there.

They're not connecting because they're caught up in the clutter of their mind.

So,

It's how to clean up that mind of yours,

How to tame the mind and come back to this moment because it's the only real moment that exists.

And finally,

The easiest one I think is decluttering your environment room by room.

Whether it's your car,

Your closet,

Your handbag,

Your computer,

Getting rid of all the clutter.

There's so many books on that,

Different approaches.

So,

People find the one that works for them.

So,

I don't need one,

Two,

Three,

Four water bottles next to me?

Well,

No.

And that's such a good example.

It clutters the environment.

It clutters your room.

I don't know how many tons of plastic doesn't go to recycling every year.

How many tons are in the ocean?

And it's been shown as well that many water bottle companies or bottled water is just tap water.

So,

It's a lot cheaper to buy an environmentally friendly filter.

If you want it to be pretty,

You buy it.

I forget what it's called.

Nutiva or I forget the name.

There are these beautiful water filters and you buy one water container,

Metal,

Glass,

And you refill your own bottle.

So,

You have one bottle instead of 20 bottles.

So,

You declutter the environment,

You declutter your house,

You protect the planet.

And now you know what's in your water because you filtered it yourself.

So,

That was a great example.

Thanks.

I will take my selfish sloppiness as a wonderful example to others to not do that.

So,

Yeah.

But I think that all of these are wonderful points of how minimalism and not even necessarily going to the extreme of minimalism.

Because people think of like,

I'm going to give away all my furniture and I'm just going to sit on the carpet here.

Instead of doing all of that,

It's literally minimizing all of those things.

Finding ways to cut out the excess in all of those things.

And I think that you've given a ton of practical examples in so many different ways.

With your time,

With your schedule,

With your environment,

With your digital life that we all live now.

That's fantastic.

And I think that every time I've made an improvement on any of those areas,

Even if they're not long lasting,

They matter when you're doing them.

Yeah.

And there's tons of benefits when people start minimizing and decluttering.

They sleep better.

They become healthier because they don't have the negative impact that being stressed causes on your health.

Their relationships are healthier.

They have more time for self-care.

They save money.

They make other people happy because they donate.

So,

It's okay if you want to consume.

But example,

You can decide,

Okay,

I have enough clothes,

But I want to buy more.

Okay,

The condition if I buy one more of this,

I need to donate two that I already have at home.

Or you know,

Some people like to have trinkets.

Well,

Do you have space for it?

If you're going to buy this other decoration trinket,

Then which one are you going to get rid of and donate?

So again,

Not throw out in the garbage because it fills the landfills and it's not good for our kids.

So,

You make yourself happy and you make someone else happy.

So,

Make the effort to donate to someone.

Even donate to charities,

You know,

Battered women or homeless people.

It's also visually appealing.

You have less worry.

You have more positive experiences.

It clears your mind.

You gain clarity.

I could go on and on and on about the benefits of minimizing and reducing excess and consumerism.

I love it.

I'm going to donate this shirt.

Awesome.

I know.

I genuinely am because this thing is too big for me now.

And it's like the shoulders are driving me crazy.

And I'm like,

I got to get rid of this shirt,

But I'm not going to go throw it away.

No,

Donate.

Because it's perfectly good.

I mean,

I think I've only worn it like six times in my entire life.

Speaking of making other people happy,

Gina,

It has made me incredibly happy to restart this show with you today.

What are some final thoughts on minimalism for mental health before we head out?

Well,

I would challenge everyone.

Pick one.

Even if it's small,

Women,

If it's just your handbags,

Start with that guy.

If it's your car,

Start small.

It becomes contagious because you see how good it feels.

Then you want to keep on doing it.

That's a wonderful point.

All right,

Everybody.

Well,

You can find all of the links for how to contact Dr.

Gina and follow her and get all of the up-to-date information.

By the way,

In the last year or so since we've done a show,

You have just been churning out gold and doing so many things without me that I'm a little jealous,

But it's fine.

And I love that.

So there is a plethora of Dr.

Gina content out there for you to go find and to contact her.

And all of those links are in the description of this video or podcast wherever you're watching or listening to this.

Gina,

It's always a pleasure.

And I'm so grateful to be back and to discuss more ways of living simply with you every week.

Same here,

Ben.

Super happy.

All right.

We'll see you next week,

Guys.

Thank you.

Bye.

For more information or to book an appointment with Dr.

Gina,

Go to drmandragrano.

Com or click the link in the description of this episode.