It’s that time of year again when we start to feel that unstoppable urge to clear the old clutter from our homes and dust away the cobwebs as we prepare for the warmer days again! However, don’t let your enthusiasm get the best of you, and take on board our timely tips to help avoid injury
when you get the need to spruce up your home and garden.
- Don’t RUSH! Take your time – doing whatever chore it is SLOWLY and “mindfully” is likely to save you stretching too far with the duster and pulling a muscle or tripping over something and jarring your back…
- Avoid the blitz! Break up the task into bitesize, manageable chunks
- Take a MINI-BREAK every 10 minutes – shoulder shrugs, gentle neck rolls, hip circles (to music?!)
- CHANGE POSITION regularly – one of the worst things for your back is leaning at that 30-degree angle over a hoover or scrubbing a bath.
- DON’T BE A HERO! Be careful about moving heavy furniture, get help! Sharing the chore makes it more fun anyway!
- DON’T TWIST & LIFT! keep that heavy bit of furniture or garden pot CLOSE to you and facing you, hips aligned with your gently bent knees.
- Sort out the contents of that dusty old drawer while sitting comfortably at a TABLE rather than leaning over a bench or sitting on the floor
- WATCH YOUR STEP: Don’t balance on furniture, use a steady step ladder and don’t overstretch your limbs.. keep as CLOSE to the task as possible.
- NOTICE if you’re feeling any even slight ache or strain in any part of your body, particularly if doing something repetitive, such as polishing windows or scrubbing an area and STOP! If you can, gently stretch out the muscle/area concerned and REST for a few minutes. Consider if you are using too much effort or tensing muscles where you could actually do the same thing in a more relaxed way? Perhaps use the other hand/arm etc if possible when you resume the task, or even completely change the task for a while and return to it later.
- PUT YOUR FAVOURITE MUSIC ON! This won’t work for everyone, but as well as making you feel good, it can help add rhythm to repetitive tasks like sweeping, so that they become more like a dance, using crossbody movement and exercising both halves of the body equally.
Other thoughts – clearing out stuff can sometimes be a frustrating process and get you flustered and downhearted, as it seems neverending. Tips 2 and 3 can help make it less so, but another site worth checking out is www.mygreenandtidylife.co.uk for lots more tips on decluttering!
It can also be an emotional process, as so often clearing things out is associated with memories of the past, both happy and sometimes sad. This in itself can be overwhelming. It’s important to acknowledge this and not just pretend it’s not happening! Make sure you have support if you need it, whether that is a friend or family member to help you tackle the task, or professional help (eg counselling/therapy/hypnotherapy) or even just your favourite activity or sport (or a me-time massage!) booked at the end of the day.
We hope these tips help and that you’re soon revelling in the calm of a beautifully sparkling, clean and decluttered home! They do say that a calm environment helps to calm the mind. And we hope that that’s what you’ll find at SOC too.
Of course, the team at SOC is here to help if you do (despite best efforts!) get into a fix, so just get in touch anytime.
