There is truth in the saying "Your state of mind mimics your surroundings". When your mind is disarrayed and burdened with depression, so too is everything else around you - including the dishes, clothes, papers and everything else.

The reverse is also true in many ways. If you can tidy and clean your surroundings, then it's likely to help your disarrayed and depressed mind.

First off, cleaning the house helps stop some of the self-reinforced cycles of depression. Nothing is worse than thinking how your life is falling apart and how worthless you feel and then suddenly looking around and seeing how your clothes and possessions are everywhere and the dirt is piling up. It makes you feel even more worthless! It makes you feel like you can't do anything right which in turn just fuels the harsh spiral of depression.

Cleaning the house helps alleviate that feeling that everything is literally falling apart around you. If you see your room and house in a mess, it's like the world is literally falling apart. It becomes such an apparent burden because it's right in front of you all the time. The last thing you need when depressed is to feel like more things are going wrong - especially something so visible as a messy house.

Eventually the only real way to crawl of depression is to start fighting again. Cleaning is such a perfect start, because the effects are so visible. It can help alleviate some of the burden and build your confidence back up. Once you start moving again and start feeling like you can accomplish things, it will help propel you to start working on other things in your life.

Maintaining a clean house will help give you some measure of control in your life. Control that is desperately needed to feel like you can succeed if you put some effort into it. Depression hits hardest when you feel like you have no control over the events in your life. We always have control over how clean our houses are and that in itself can create greater stability, control and confidence.

Learn more about this author, Alex Parker.
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