Tips To Prioritise Your Mental Well-being When Moving Home
Moving house is up there as one of the most trying life experiences a mind and body can withstand. This is no exaggeration, with research out there telling us that one-third of the British public believes it to be more stressful than childbirth. In 2021, Gov.uk found that 50% of private renters move every three years or less, meaning we experience this heightened stress more frequently than ever.
Here we look at ways to streamline the ordeal, with a focus on prioritising your mental well-being when it comes to those big moves.
Using a forward-thinking estate agency
The traditional home-buying process, made for previous generations who moved once or twice in their lives, is falling out of fashion. Now, innovative ways to sell property fast are gaining ground.
Drawn-out valuations, lengthy price negotiations, and property chains falling through are less of an issue as they once were, as sites like Sold.co.uk turn the old estate agency model on its head. Attractive to the 25% of homeowners who also move every three years, tech-savvy online agencies like these work instead by purchasing the seller’s home from the outset. This leaves the agents to deal with the all-consuming burden of finding a buyer, allowing you to focus on your future move ahead.
Storage
The act of getting rid of excess stuff can benefit your mental health by clearing your thoughts, focusing on what means the most to you, and unfastening yourself from materialistic crutches.
Self-storage offers a perfect compromise. If you don’t have enough free days for that all-important declutter, self-storage can keep it all in one spot, and more importantly, away from your new place.
Empty space is a precious commodity in a country where £366 buys you one square foot. And a home free from clutter can enhance concentration and improve sleep quality. Using self-storage services like safestore.co.uk can house this extra stuff for you and free you from transporting it every time you move.
Reframing Your Expectations
Stress, or rather our anticipation of a high-stakes event like moving home, releases cortisol into our bloodstream. It works to help us deal with these episodes. But prolonged over time, cortisol puts strain on the cardiovascular system, leading to heart disease and stress-related illness.
In his book, The Expectation Effect, author David Robson shows us the astounding results of countless studies on the power of mental expectation on our physical wellness. By simply reappraising stress in a positive light before a tough event, participants were found to have muted fluctuations in cortisol levels similar to that of healthy exercise.
Seeing stress as a “good thing” is, of course, easier said than done. But take solace in Robson’s claim that it only has to be said, not done, for the benefits to take effect. While it may not lower your heart rate, simply saying something like “moving house is on my mind because it’s important to me” will prompt your body to return more quickly to its regular functions and minimise the damaging effects of prolonged stress.
Preparing for a move, you can prioritise your mental well-being by opting for services that free your mind from the burdens of selling a home and organising its contents. Some stress is inevitable, however, but reframing the feeling as something beneficial to you will only strengthen your body’s resilience as you make it through to the other side.
