Home and health

Home means different things to us at different times in our lives.

Our childhood homes can evoke both good and bad memories in various proportions. Where we lived as a young adult has different connotations. For some it was a crash pad and a headache of bills and dirty dishes, for others a place to retreat from the world while we found our way and for many more somewhere inbetween.

As we grow older a place of our own can bring a whole new world of pleasure and pain. You may want a safe haven to raise your kids. A love nest. A dog friendly paradise. Somewhere to show off to your friends or just for you.

Older still (inevitably) and yet another range of concerns rush in.

It’s hard to make the best decisions all the time. This is particularly the case when things go wrong. Burst pipes, leaking roofs, mice infestations (yes we are going there), burgalary, over enthusiastic consumerism, relationship breakdown, debt & other money worries can all make home a tense and difficult place to be.

This impacts your health and in turn your health impacts your home.

Damp

Living in a damp environment can be very unhealthy, the NHS state that you may have more respiratory problems and it can have an impact on your immune system Consider also the affect this would have on your mental health, then the impact of your mental health on successfully getting the route cause of the damp fixed. Situations like these can lead to a spiral in both mental and physical health.

Overflowing Stuff

A similar cycle can occur with something that seems as simple as having too much stuff. ‘Stuff’ is bought, potentially for an emotional reason or perhaps it just turns out not to be useful. It takes up room in the home. Repeated often enough, a home becomes full and unpleasant to live in which has a negative impact on mental health which can in turn make it so much harder to deal with the stuff. You see how this can work!

Both of the issues mentioned above lead me on to 2 rants - 1 about the quality of housing stock in the UK in general and another about the availability of mental health services on the NHS. For the moment though, let’s leave it here.

If you got this far here is some voluntary homework:

How is your home impacting your health, positively or negatively?

Is your health impacting your home?