Whether it be physical or mental, healing is not always linear. Just like a rollercoaster that’s filled with ups and downs, you might experience extreme highs and extreme lows. The trick is that through each up and down you learn something new and move past it. That’s how to get through life. Ashkay Dubey puts it this way: Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls your life.
If you are trying to heal at home, then you might want to make a few changes to the environment in which you are in. The truth is, what we see, hear, feel, touch, and taste has a direct impact on our emotions. The external influences the internal. With this in mind, you might want to ensure that your environment is conducive to your healing process.
Here are a few ways to ensure that your environment is conducive for healing:
- Declutter
Back when I was in high school, we had regular checks of our desks to ensure that we kept them neat. At the time it made no sense, but years down the line you realise how much clutter affects you mentally. A teacher of mine would say that the state of your personal spaces (your wardrobe, bedroom, and desk) is an accurate representation of the state of your mind. She was right to some extent.
In fact, clutter is a great obstacle to healing. Mess equals stress. A study conducted proved that clutter triggers the release of a hormone called cortisol which is linked to stress and leads to an increase in heart rate and blood pressure. Decluttering is therapeutic and lack of order may just be a reason for emotional conditions such as anxiety, shame, embarrassment, depression, and family stressors.
- Enhance the light in your house
There’s just something about light that makes a person feel energized. A dull house with limited light may affect your healing capabilities. You might just want to draw the curtains, open your windows, and use brighter bulbs at night. Just like how plants need sunlight to photosynthesise and grow, humans need sunlight to thrive and be happy.
How does this work? Light triggers the body to release a hormone called serotonin which is a happy chemical that boosts mood and makes you feel happier. Interestingly, light therapy is a concept where specialized artificial light is used to treat mood disorders, shift one’s biological clock, or synchronize one’s sleep-wake cycle with the day/light cycle. It may also be useful in normalizing sleep and behaviour in people with dementia, although more research is needed.
6 Health And Mental Benefits Of Sunlight
- Bring nature in
Nature is essential in healing. It can help to reduce stress, elevate your energy, and induce feelings of happiness and wellbeing. A stroll in the woods has been shown to help combat depression, and even just the view of the forest from a hospital room helps patients who are feeling down. Nature helps us cope with pain.
A study was conducted among a group of people who went through gallbladder surgery. Half had a view of trees and half had a view of a wall. According to the physician who conducted the study, Robert Ulrich, the patients with the view of trees tolerated pain better, appeared to nurses to have fewer negative effects, and spent less time in a hospital.
The thing is, you might not be in the correct disposition to leave the house, and that’s where bringing the nature in comes in. You can bring in a few plants to the house, and while they’ll be decorative, they will also go a long way in your healing process.
Physical And Mental Benefits Of Reconnecting With Nature
- Reduce the noise levels at home
I am one of the people who can’t stand noise. There is a sort of unexplainable comfort that is found in silence. It’s meditative and therapeutic. When someone experiences a stressful noise, the amygdala, an area of the brain that contributes to emotional processing, sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus immediately signals the adrenal glands to pump adrenaline into the bloodstream which is an evolutionary measure to react rapidly in life-threatening situations. This can lead to increased anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke.
On the other hand, silence really is golden. It boosts the immune system, decreases stress by lowering the hormone cortisol levels, and lowers the blood pressure. But over and above all of this, just like sleep restores the body, silence restores the mind, the emotions, and the soul.
Read about The Concept Of Self Healing
