When you just can’t wait for spring to start the purge.
It was probably around the month of January when I started to feel it: an uncomfortable blend of antsy feelings overlaid by this humming undercurrent of irritability and restlessness. I’d pace around my house, searching and rummaging without knowing what I was looking for.
Nope, it wasn’t to get more plants – I have plenty of those, and I think I need to finally admit that maybe I don’t have any more space (logically, the next phase is to colonize the ceiling). It wasn’t another cat, because as much as I’d love to blame the squirminess on my insatiable desire to foster more cats, I promised my partner that we’d take a break from fostering animals (except he doesn’t know how soon I’ll get them back… just watch me). And we didn’t have any holiday decorations except for some lights around one of our windows, so nothing to do there…
The truth is, these past winter months have been so cold and dark here in Canada. We’ve had to live through pandemic curfew and isolation again. Our day-to-day pace has been a molasses kind of mellow. By virtue of us working from home, I’ve ascertained that our home feels more lived-in because it feels stuffy and cluttered, even if we keep a clean home. That’s just the reality of living in a home in winter. So, what can be done?
The pre-spring Cleaning phase
Before I get into strategies to give your home a spring-like makeover in the dead of Winter, I’ll point out how this differs from the traditional concept of a “Spring Cleaning.” The reason why spring is such a popular time to do major cleaning overhauls is because you can make use of the balmy outdoors and the sudden spurt of energy that you’ve derived from having more than your cheeks and nose exposed to the sun. In spring, you can get rid of furniture and leave it outside for someone to grab without breaking their back on a patch of ice. You can air out your rugs without freezing, or clean the outside of your windows without them turning into ice. You get the picture.
In the middle of winter, however, my ideal weekend is not hauling furniture to the sidewalk, but rather, putting on multiple layers of wool over my entire body and snuggling up in bed with a cup of tea and a book… where one witnesses me as a mere mound of woollen softness wearing glasses and a top bun.
And now to de-clutter
Outside of those big cleaning and furniture-discarding tasks, there are plenty of things that you can do to freshen-up your living space, and actually improve your health while you’re at it. Below is a list of key strategies to maintain a healthy home through the winter, and all year long. My most important point, however, is this: do things one step at a time, in feasible chunks, within your budget. As a fellow Spoonie warrior, I know what it’s like to get overzealous with my projects – and those include cleaning and organizing my home.
But if I go too hard for too long, even if it’s just a single day, I end up worn out. It’s okay to break up your projects over a few weeks, or a few days, and even to get help from friends or family. On that note, I have hired a professional cleaner once or twice to help with the workload – boy was it worth it! So do what is feasible for you, and don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Open your windows once a week for 15-20 minutes, even if it’s cold out. Heating a home is expensive, so you can do one room at a time and close the door, to not cool the entire home at once. We need fresh air to circulate in our home, because indoor air is shown to be 2-5x more polluted than outdoor air. Our home can contain the following: dust mites, molds, formaldehyde, dander (as in, all of your dead skin cells. All of them.), carbon monoxide, flame retardants, remnants of laundry detergent or fabric softeners and the microfilaments from our clothing, contaminants from cigarettes, and VOCs or volatile organic compounds. Oh, and odours, but you can use your imagination for that.
Clean your windows from the inside, as well as walls, doors, and other surfaces. It’s not just about dusting. We unconsciously touch so many surfaces in our home without necessarily having clean hands. And even with clean hands, we are still leaving imprints and oils behind. As for the windows, cleaning them at least from the inside can help to increase the amount of light let into the space – trust me, I’ve been pleasantly surprised before.
Ditch the scents and clean the air you breathe. Artificial fragrances contain a host of harmful ingredients such as flame retardants, petroleum and benzene derivatives, aldehydes, and so on. Many of these are known to be endocrine (hormone) disrupters and some are linked to various cancers and neurological diseases. Instead of fragranced sprays, wall inserts or those scented sticks and candles, I suggest using a diffuser with essential oils or candles made of beeswax or soy wax. Personally, I love beeswax candles for their honey smell and beautiful glow – but even candles emit some smoke and can pollute your air, so be sure to open your windows once in a while.
Use technology to filter all the “bugs.” I also recommend getting an air filter, the most ideal being HEPA filter technology to help remove contaminants, air-born pathogens, dust and dander, and so on. I particularly like the brand Blueair for top quality filters that are quiet and filter for pathogens, not just dust and dander, and have linked one of their models (for small apartments or a large room) below. For anyone with serious allergies or asthma, this is the brand for you.
This year I finally bit the bullet and invested in a Dyson vacuum. They’re amazing for their suction and filters to clean both floors and, to my surprise, the air in my home. Even if you don’t own a vacuum, just be sure to sweep and wash the floors on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. I’m referring less to having a “clean-looking” home, but rather a home that is benefitting your health by removing aggravating factors such as indoor pollutants and debris (I guess I could call dander and dust and such a form of “debris”).
Finally, a humidifier in the winter can also assist in keeping some symptoms at bay such as with dry eyes, dry cough or asthma, and dry skin and hair. Personally, I have enough of those essential oil diffusers to humidify the air in my apartment! It’s not perfect but it seems to be all that I need for now.
Natural cleaning products are not limited to white vinegar
The products that we use tend to stick around. What I mean is their ingredients stay on surfaces and linger in the air, and come into contact with your lungs and skin – both of which will absorb said ingredients into your body. Some will be easily disposed-of because our liver and other systems are awesome, some of the ingredients will get stored (mostly in fatty tissue) – often for decades. So, I believe that that products that you use in your home and the ingredients that are in them matter.
I’ll definitely make a longer post about products in the future, but here are a few suggestions for now:
- Use or make cleaning products that contain simple and few ingredients. That doesn’t mean being limited to vinegar, baking soda, soap nuts and essential oils. But those are good, too.
- If you are to use essential oils, make sure the oil you choose is safe for the surfaces you’ll use them on (eg. wood vs ceramic vs a painted wall). Choose inexpensive oils that won’t irritate the skin when diluted, such as lavender, lemon, cedar, pine, or peppermint.
- If you use stronger more noxious products, use them only if necessary. Wear protective gear like gloves, a mask and even eyewear if the product is very harmful. In fact, even “natural” cleaning products may warrant wearing gloves depending on the list of ingredients and/or how sensitive you are to them.
- If you’re unsure of how “clean” a particular cleaning product is, you might be able to find its health and safety score on EWG’s Guide to Healthy Cleaning page (or, at least find scores and explanations of use on a particular ingredient found in your product).
- If you want to make your own products, there are lots of cleaning recipes to choose from online, and you can purchase items in bulk at stores such as Bulk Barn, or online on Amazon, Well.ca, and others. If you’re looking for pre-made natural products, my absolute favourites are the ones made by Nezza Naturals on Vancouver Island.
Focus on what matters
The point of a de-clutter project is not to exhaust yourself, it’s not to pile on more chores, and it’s not to have a spotless, perfect house. It is your home after all, and a home gets lived in. The intention behind this blog post is to help with health promotion by focusing on the environment in which you live in most days.
And if you appreciate these sorts of tasks but have difficulty sustaining them on a consistent basis, or if you are looking for tips on how to keep up other health-promoting habits, check out my blog post Sustaining Healthy Habits.
As always, thanks for reading, my fellow Spoonie. 🙂
