Spring Cleaning

As we approach the Spring Equinox we take some time to discuss doing a bit of Spring Cleaning. From deep cleaning our living environment to creating a new wellness routine, there are many health benefits to be gained by physically and mentally "Spring Cleaning" our lives.

Transcript

Hello and welcome.

My name is Sean White and I'm a certified health coach specializing in lifestyle medicine.

As we are approaching the spring equinox,

Today I would like to spend some time speaking with you about doing a little spring cleaning.

As much as I enjoy summer,

I have to say that spring is really my favorite time of year.

That's because I view it as a very transitory time that just invokes change.

As the temperatures start to increase,

Animals come out of their hibernations and plants and trees begin to grow and bloom.

And this is true for us as well.

Once it starts getting warmer out,

You know,

We want to get outside more,

Essentially coming out of our own winter hibernation.

We shed our heavy winter garments for lighter spring clothing.

And in general,

I would say for a lot of us,

We just feel more positive and happier once spring arrives.

This is why I think that this is a great time of year to make changes in our lives.

So let's talk about doing a little spring cleaning,

Both physically and mentally.

So what is spring cleaning?

Well,

Let's start with a textbook definition.

Spring cleaning is a thorough cleaning of the house or room typically undertaken in spring.

Well,

We're going to go a little deeper than that today,

Because it can be a little bit more than just that.

We might go and do that deep cleaning that we've been meaning to do for a long time,

Or we might also let this be the time that we do a bit of spring cleaning in our lives.

So let's start with that textbook definition first and discuss some of the health benefits of spring cleaning.

Well,

The first one I'm going to mention is improving our immune system.

As we do a deep cleaning,

We're getting rid of a lot of the dust and the toxins that might be in our environment.

There could be other stuff too,

Pet dander,

Mildew in some cases.

There's a lot of this stuff that ends up in the air,

And then we end up breathing it in,

And then our body has to try to,

You know,

Fight that and fix that.

So by keeping a cleaner environment,

You're just going to be healthier overall,

And that's going to improve your immune system.

So that's,

In and of itself,

That's a great reason to do it,

And maybe a reason why we should not just wait till spring to do good deep cleanings.

Maybe we should do it a few more times throughout the year,

And I'll admit I'm also guilty of that.

A good spring cleaning also can decrease your stress and depression levels.

When you're in a clean and organized space,

You know,

When that environment is not chaotic,

It's a lot less stressful for us.

So that will decrease our stress levels.

You know,

Anytime you're in a room that's just filled with clutter and messy,

And it just creates anxiety.

So by cleaning and organizing,

That's going to help reduce our stress levels.

And I would say once you start cleaning,

The next benefit I'm going to mention is encouraging a healthier lifestyle.

Because once you clean one aspect of your life,

It encourages you to clean another.

It kind of has like this little bit of a domino effect,

Where you go,

Okay,

Well that that room's really neat,

So now I want to make this room neat.

Maybe I'll go clean the kitchen,

And maybe I'll go clean the fridge.

And as you look through things in your fridge,

You're like,

Well maybe I shouldn't be eating this.

It can kind of like steamroll through.

So definitely doing a good spring cleaning has the potential of encouraging a healthier lifestyle.

And the last one that I'm going to mention is helping you to get a better night's sleep.

Now I do workshops on sleep management,

So this is a very important topic to me.

But one of the things that I was mentioned in those workshops is making sure that your bedroom is an inviting area.

So in keeping it clean and organized.

So it's the same thing like we're talking before,

Clean and organized spaces promote less stress.

The less stressful you are,

The better you're going to end up sleeping.

So you always want your bedroom to be nice and neat and clean.

Anyway,

But I would say if you're doing spring cleaning,

I would start there.

Because you spend a lot of time in that room,

So you'd want it to be free of dust and toxins,

And less stressful and everything.

So let's start our physical spring cleanings in our bedrooms,

I would say.

But that's just my opinion.

You can start wherever you'd like actually.

So beyond just cleaning and those health benefits that we just mentioned,

This is now also a great time to take stock in what you have.

I'm talking physically right now.

We have the ability of simplifying and organizing our life now because as we're cleaning,

We're also organizing and we're going through things.

So I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Marie Kondo method,

The life changing magic of tidying up.

If you've ever read that book or watched a Netflix series or seen her on various,

Various talk shows and whatnot.

But one of the main principles of it is picking up every single item and addressing on whether or not it sparks joy and do you need it anymore.

And then if you don't,

You can put it in one pile and if you want to keep it,

You put it in another pile.

So being that we're going to be going through a lot of stuff,

Now's a really good time to want to do that.

We can look at what can we get rid of?

What can we donate?

What can we have a yard sale?

How can we simplify things?

And I'm not talking about going minimalist,

Although that's a trend that's obviously been getting a lot of traction.

I'm not saying you need to get rid of everything in your house,

But if you're the type of person that changes out your clothing,

If you take all your winter coats and you put them in the attic and you take out spring clothing and summer clothing,

Now's the time that you can look at that stuff.

As you're putting that winter coat away,

You go,

Do I really like this coat anymore?

Do I want to get another coat?

Do I want to donate this one?

Usually what ends up happening is I take like my winter coats,

I don't see them until it gets cold and then it's too late,

Right?

Like I'm like,

Oh,

I need this coat now.

I should have thought about this in the spring.

So if we're doing a good spring cleaning and we're doing that,

You know,

We can look at clothing that we have.

Maybe,

You know,

It doesn't really fit right anymore or it's not a style that makes us happy anymore.

And we can also do that with things that are on our shelves,

On our tables,

On our bookshelves,

In our kitchens.

You know,

Look at things and go,

Do I use this anymore?

Do I need this anymore?

You know,

Maybe it's time to get rid of this.

My wife and I did that last year.

I did a lot of cleaning and we just had so much stuff,

So many books that we were never going to reread again.

So many little tchotchkes that were just hidden in boxes we weren't using.

And I was like,

Let this bring happiness to somebody else.

I don't really want to use this anymore or need this anymore.

So take a look at things as you're going through and maybe you can use this point in time to simplify your life and to,

You know,

Eliminate some things that you don't really need anymore.

So besides our living spaces being cluttered,

How about our minds?

How many of us have,

You know,

Just thoughts running through constantly and stress and,

You know,

Just an overall mental mess,

If you will.

So a great definition that I came across in psychology today,

They said that stress creates a mess by clogging up your psyche with anxiety,

Worry,

Depression,

Irritability,

And anger.

So that's a lot.

And I would say,

You know,

Particularly over the past couple of years,

You know,

I think we recently just passed the two year anniversary of the pandemic lockdown.

That was a tough time for a lot of people,

You know,

Being in isolation,

Stress,

Anxiety,

All this is just problematic.

And it has a lot of negative effects on us,

Including high blood pressure,

Poor eating and sleeping habits.

I think that was a big one for people the past couple of years.

Gastrointestinal issues,

Which also stem a lot from poor eating habits,

Muscle aches and headaches,

Which we get just from carrying stress with us all the time.

You know,

I mentioned anxiety,

I mentioned depression.

So these are things that we might want to address and figure out a way of how to clear out this mental mess that we have going on.

And how do we begin to do this?

How do we start doing a bit of mental spring cleaning?

Well,

The first thing that you're going to need to do is you're going to need to restructure your time,

Right?

Because you're going to need to make sure that you're scheduling time for yourself.

This way,

You have the time to do all the things that you need to do to take care of this.

A lot of times,

We put ourselves second,

Third,

Fourth,

Particularly if we are a parent,

You know,

Work takes over a lot of stuff.

Friends and family take over a lot of stuff.

But rarely do we,

You know,

Carve out time just for ourselves to make sure that,

You know,

We're taking care of ourselves.

We're the most important person.

You know,

I always say you can't,

You know,

You can't draw from a dry well,

Right?

So if you're not the best person you can be,

If you're not,

You know,

Mentally,

Physically,

Emotionally,

Spiritually stable,

It's kind of hard for you to be that person for other people as well.

So let's start by figuring out how we can schedule some time for ourselves.

And then once we do that,

There's going to be some things that I would say right off the bat,

We kind of need to look at.

You know,

The first is it's cutting out negativity from our past,

Right?

We all tend to dwell on things.

I think there was a study that said 47,

I think it was 47% of all of our thoughts are negative thoughts.

So let's take a look at things that we can just clear out from our from our past.

We'll clear out complaints and,

And drama that we might have,

You know,

Maybe give up some bad habits that that we've just had.

And try to start with a little bit more of a clean slate,

If you will.

And in doing so,

I'm also going to say,

If you're the type of person who,

You know,

A self-proclaimed perfectionist,

Let go of perfection.

I was that way for many years.

What I found is it tends to create more problems than not.

I'm not saying to,

You know,

Not try to do the best that you can do.

But the whole concept of perfection is,

Is really kind of problematic in a lot of ways.

Because you can just end up spending more time in creating more worry and anxiety and depression by trying to be perfect than just being.

So once we figured out some time for ourselves,

What can we start doing?

So you can start with doing a new wellness ritual of some sort.

And this can be anything that works for you.

You know,

There's a lot of times people will tell you what's great.

Here's the things that you should do.

You should start journaling.

Journaling is amazing.

I don't journal.

I like the concept of it.

I just don't do it.

So anything that I mention here,

These are all things that are just suggestions.

But it's up to you to figure out which one works best for you.

Because what works for me may not work for you.

So I will start with journaling because it does have many,

Many great benefits of being able to get things out and,

You know,

Get it down and whatnot.

I've just never been able to get into a routine of it.

But journaling is really great.

Practicing gratitude,

Especially for yourself.

Being appreciative of what you have is always a good thing.

Meditation is really something that's kind of important to me.

I'm not great at it.

A lot of people,

You know,

Will sit there and say,

I can never meditate just because my mind wanders too much.

Yeah,

That's what happens.

Your minds wander.

It doesn't mean that we,

You know,

Don't try it anymore.

So I use something called inside timer,

Which has a lot of great,

You know,

Meditations.

You might be listening to this,

To this talk on on inside timer,

Actually.

But meditating is it can be a very,

Very great thing for you.

Something that can alleviate some stress and clear out some,

Some of that mental mess.

I like just going for walks.

I mean,

I prefer hiking in the woods,

But even just going for walks is great,

Because it gets you outside,

It kind of gets you into nature,

It gives you a little bit of moderate exercise,

Gets the blood moving,

There's a no downside of it.

And if you have dogs,

And if you have to walk your dogs,

And you already know all this,

But going for walks is just a great thing.

I would say,

You know,

We talked about cutting out all the negativity and drama and stuff from from our past.

But maybe taking this time to prioritize positive friendships and relationships that we have in our lives.

Maybe taking some of that time that we've carved out and,

And doing that,

Because I,

I feel like a lot of times we focus on the relationships that aren't as great for us,

Rather than the ones that are.

We want to fix the ones that are bad,

And we neglect the ones that are good.

So take some time,

Prioritize the positives,

And,

You know,

Spend some time,

Spend some more time with those people.

I would also say tackling projects that you've been putting off is a great thing to do.

I am the king of procrastination.

Procrastination leads to stress and anxiety,

And all this other terrible stuff.

Because then you're just constantly worrying,

Oh,

My God,

I gotta do that.

I gotta do that.

I gotta do that.

Once you once you tackle those projects that you've been meaning to do,

That weight gets lifted,

That to do list gets smaller,

And you just feel better.

Right?

Because that's,

That's what we're trying to do here is we're trying to feel better and reduce stress and anxiety and worry and depression and all this stuff.

So if you have things on your to do list,

Projects that you've been meaning to get to,

Just start doing them.

And if they're large projects,

Just break them down.

You know,

Just figure out what that first step is.

And,

You know,

Do that first.

You know,

Not everything has to get done all at once.

So just,

You know,

Break it down into smaller,

Manageable pieces,

And then move forward from there.

And with any of this,

What I'm going to say is a nice trick that I do is to set reminders.

Right?

You know,

It's a step becomes a habit becomes a routine,

Right?

It's like the more you do one thing,

The you know,

The more you'll end up like doing it if you continue to do it.

But sometimes you just don't remember me,

It's not a routine yet,

Right?

You don't think about,

Oh,

My God,

I need to do such and such thing at 12 o'clock,

Like every day,

Unless you set a reminder.

So that tends to work well for me.

And I even do that to on certain people,

Like certain friends that I just want to make sure that I keep in contact with.

Sometimes I just set reminders in my phone to,

You know,

Say hi to so and so.

It works out well for me that way.

This way,

This way,

I have no one no reason,

You know,

Not to do it when the the alert goes off.

This is your smartphone.

It can be very,

Very useful in this regard.

And I think we're going to end it here today.

On that note,

I hope you found this discussion useful.

And I hope you're encouraged to start doing a bit of spring cleaning in your own lives.

If you'd like to hear more discussions in workshops,

Please follow me.

And then this way,

You'll know anytime anything new comes out.

If you're interested in learning more about the one on one or one on group coaching that I do,

Or if you'd like to sign up for an interactive workshop,

Go to Meditate.

Com forward slash connect.

That's M-E-A-T-I-T-A-T-E dot com forward slash connect.

You can get all of my information there.

You can sign up for a consultation.

You can follow us on various social media platforms.

And I would like to thank you all for listening today.

And until we meet again,

Please be well and be safe.

Reviews

Outside walking the puppy on a beautiful Spring Equinox in Maine and this adds to it, thank you!:)

I really appreciated you're talk, it was inspiring. I especially enjoyed you being open about not doing all of the tips yourself too, for instance the journaling or how you also find meditating sometimes hard. This made it more relatable for me and less of a trigger for the perfectionist inside me. I felt like just do my best and it is good enough. That's quite a rare message a talker gives, so you should be really proud. Thank you and best wishes!