Working with the Space You Have to Make a Mental Health Haven
For many people, home is naturally where they feel most comfortable. However, if you find yourself in a position where your own home isn’t as spacious as you’d like it to be, it’s easy to feel as though you’re missing out, with your home being unable to provide the level of relaxation that you’re looking for as a result. This might be due to any number of reasons, but taking another look at your space with an open and positive mindset for mental health could illuminate any number of possibilities.
This is because even with a smaller amount of space, you can create an environment that is beneficial to your mental health and where you always feel most comfortable.
Making it Your Own
When you first move in somewhere, especially a place where you feel as though you’re dealing with limited space. It’s easy to get stuck on what you can’t do with it – what is restricted due to the lack of size. However, you are going to have your own sense of style, your own preferences as far as design go. These go beyond simply incorporating interior design styles (though looking over those can also be useful for understanding what options you have); this is about what makes you feel comfortable in an area. A sizeable window ledge, for example, might just be that – a place to put things, maybe houseplants for decoration. However, with enough space, it could also be turned into a reading nook, giving you a cozy space to unwind and look out the window while getting lost in your favorite books.
On the topic of houseplants, you might be surprised at how much life they can add to an environment. If your home environment lacks natural light or an outdoor space, you might find that your mental health begins to suffer. Therefore, adding your own aspects of nature through houseplants can help to make up for this. While natural light can be more difficult, careful use of mirrors and other reflective decorations can maximize the light that you do have to work with.
Once you’ve established this comfortable baseline, you might feel more confident in adding your own personal flair around the place. This making yourself more settled and allowing yourself to relax into it in a way that might not have been possible when you felt as though it was more obviously temporary.
Ensuring It’s Safe
This can make a world of difference as well; it’s no surprise that living in a place that you feel is vulnerable might not be beneficial to your mental health. There are multiple ways that this feeling can arise – it might come from the physical integrity of your home. If it doesn’t function as intended or is especially susceptible to problems like damp and mold, it can just add yet another worry for you to stress about, on top of the physical health issues that can often come along with that. This can also come up when your home is especially poorly insulated, potentially with cracked windows or other issues that could lead to issues with temperature control.
There could also be structural issues that it’s important to be aware of. In the case of rented properties, you should have a letting company or landlord that you can contact about resolving the issues. But when you own the property, it becomes more directly your responsibility. Finding the right professionals in these situations can be difficult, especially if you want them to pertain exactly to the kind of residence that you live in. You might know where to go for roof repair, should you notice a leak. For example, but if you live in a mobile home, you might be unsure if those same professionals would be able to offer the same service or if you need to go elsewhere.
After some research, you might find that mobile home roof repair professionals not only exist but are well worth contacting if you are in need of that kind of support – a flooded home can be incredibly damaging and it’s better to bolster your home before it can reach that point.
Spending Enough Time Outside
If you do have a small home without any dedicated outside space for you to spend time in, you might find it difficult to actually get out enough to benefit your mental health. Especially if you work from home. Therefore, ensuring that you commit to spending enough time outside becomes an extension of guaranteeing that your home environment is as comforting as it can be. After all, as much as you might realize the potential of the space that you’re working with. It won’t matter at all if you’re suffering from the detriments that can often come with spending too much time inside.
Going for regular runs or long walks can tackle two issues in one and let you get outside while also fulfilling your exercise quota. But this might be more compelling when you have an outside space that you actually want to go to. After all, spending time walking around main roads isn’t going to provide you with the relaxation that you’re looking for, with the fumes preventing the air from actually being fresh. Therefore, looking on maps or using other resources can help you to identify local green spaces like parks and nature reserves. That can let you find moments of calm and surround yourself with nature when you feel as though you need it.
Read More: Reclaiming Calm: How To Make Your Home A More Relaxing Space
Improving Your Sleep
For many people, mental health difficulties can arise from a lack of sleep. For those who struggle with this, they’ll know that it’s not an easy thing to fix, but you can give yourself a fighting chance by improving your sleep environment. The start of this is a comfortable mattress – finding one with the right amount of firmness to be comfortable and simultaneously good for your back health so that you wake up feeling refreshed. Next is to account for all the disturbances that you might feel throughout the night.
For example, if your curtains are too thin and the sun wakes you up early, you might investigate thicker materials, or a sleeping mask. If there is too much noise outside, you might want more insulated windows or ear plugs; if there isn’t enough sound, you might consider a white noise machine. Having herbal sleep supplements can also help some people without becoming something that you rely on if you’re interested in that.
What’s important to know is that you have options, and if you can make this space truly as comfortable and pleasurable to spend time in as possible, you might not even notice the lack of space.
