A home is many different things to each individual. It’s a place where you can relax and shelter yourself from the irritations and storms of the outside world. But it’s also the stage for many social gatherings, from barbecues to birthday parties and movie nights. It’s a financial investment for the future. But it’s also a deeply intimate and personal extension of the self. Its value goes far beyond the merely financial.
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Indeed, it’s difficult to understate just how significant our homes are to our lives as a whole, and it’s for that reason that living in a home which makes you uncomfortable and unhappy is a terrible thing to do.
Here are some ways that improving your home can improve your sense of well-being.
3 Ways an Improved Home Improves Your Well Being
It allows you to direct your attention and energy towards a solid, tangible project
Oftentimes, when we’re stressed and battling anxiety, we can feel as though our problems are just too big and too intangible to really get a grip on and wrestle down into submission.
In these cases, it’s important to begin regaining a sense of control and clarity in our lives. And a great way to do that is by tackling projects that will have a direct and tangible impact on us, and which are also solid and clearly defined in and of themselves.
Home improvement is a great example of just such a project. You have to clearly define what it is that’s wrong with the home, and how it should be different. You then need to make a plan for how to tackle it yourself, or else contact a professional in room additions or landscaping to begin the process.
The process itself is solid. This wall needs to be repainted, that wall needs to come down, a skylight needs to be installed in this room. It gives you a sense of drive and purpose.
It creates a positive environment for your mindset to mirror
It’s quite common for people to think about their mindsets as something relatively detached from the external world.
A commonly held belief holds that, no matter how terrible your environment may be, you can be happy if you only keep a positive mental attitude. This may be true — but it’s certainly the case, nonetheless, that our environments drag our mindsets in one direction or another.
If you inhabit a messy, poorly illuminated home, that feels like something between a prison and a cage to you; you will have to fight hard to keep a positive mental frame. If, on the other hand, you turn your home environment into something positive and uplifting, you will find it much easier to maintain a good mood day and night, all other factors being equal.
It helps you to conceptualize your ideal future
Getting involved in home improvement naturally requires that you should have a sense of how you want things to be, in a way that differs from how they currently are.
This may seem obvious, but the ability to conceptualize your ideal future is one of the most important steps in developing a sense of hope and optimism in life.
When you know how you’d like things to change, you can begin taking steps, big and small, to make those changes a reality.
Home improvement can be a great trigger for positive life-change overall, and for a sense of possibility and a fresh start.
Despite freelancing to make a living, her love is "all things home."
Deborah grew up in a family that grew a large vegetable garden and a fruit orchard, helping her parents pull weeds and can home-grown foods as part of her childhood. In fact, she had no idea that she could purchase veggies and fruits in pre-packed steel cans until she went to college and made a food run.
Today, she lives in Bertie County, North Carolina, an agricultural rural area with more chickens than people. She lives with her husband and two rescue pets a sweet toy fox terrier and a cat who showed up one day and moved into the house. Together, they enjoy DIY projects, furniture refinishing, gardening, and canning.
This blog celebrates all things home.
