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depression

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A hoarder's home.

Sometimes, it simply starts with one pile. Some receipts, pay stubs, and bills. Then another pile forms—a shirt you meant to hang up, some workout gear. The piles begin to multiply, and before you know it, they've erupted like tiny volcanoes spewing lava (and junk) around your home. If you don’t even know where to begin in terms of clean-up, you're not alone.

cleaning, clutter, piles, hoarding, hoarderCleaning Hoarding GIF by 60 Second DocsGiphy

Mai Zimmy, on the TikTok page Mom Life & Cleaning, knows this feeling all too well. With over 400,000 followers and 9.1 million likes, she's living proof that an inability to organize is more common than one might think. In one post, she confesses that she was once a hoarder while showing screenshots of her cluttered house in 2020. Her voiceover exclaims, "I was literally drowning in clutter" as the camera pans over a junk-filled bathtub she dubs the "trash tub."

Now, just a few years later, she has helpful tips on how to remedy the situation. She mentions, right off the bat, that she learned the fundamental methods from "Queen" Marie Kondo. Questions like "Does it spark joy? Have you used/worked with it in the last year? Remove duplicates" and more, made famous by Kondo, help her begin. This leads to the truthful realization, "You can't clean clutter."

The first step, she says, is to "Learn to let go." Per Kondo, she shows how to put things into categories and work through them one step at a time.

@maizimmy

Ok. Maybe I was 1% of the problem 😆😅 people ask me all the time how I got my house in order when it was SO FAR GONE. The decluttering and cleaning schedule was HUGE. But even more than that was how my life has changed and just gotten easier over time. The babies aren’t helpless babies forever. It gets easier there for sure one they are in grade school. Plus, the obvious elephant in the room 😅 being a divorced mom in MY situation is about 100 times easier than what I was going through as a “married single mom”. I by no means want to promote divorce, but I do want to promote healthy marriages. No marriage counselor would have ever said my marriage was healthy and that is abundantly clear with how stress free life feels after leaving. #momlife #motherhood #cleantok #cleaningmotivation #cleanwithme #declutter @Procter & Gamble @Clorox

Step two is to "Implement a cleaning schedule." The idea is for that decluttering becomes an actual habit, etched into your mind. She urges people to "find cleaning schedules that work for you." She writes over a cleaning video, "I personally aim to do a nightly reset of the kitchen and living room before bed because these are the most-used parts of my home." She adds, "Then I have my weekly 1.5-hour reset and the occasional 'panic clean' before people come over lol."

Zimmy tells us that the third step is the most important to remember: "Give yourself some grace." She confesses, "When my home was at its worst, I was a 'married single mom' of three kids, two and under." She further relays that she had a full-time job, only to come home "to the second shift of taking care of everything for everyone." She then, adorably, throws some clothes into drawers, writing she still believes in the #NoFoldMethod.

She stresses the idea that "sometimes we're just in the thick of it. Things won't be so crazy forever, and to make the effort to do what you can in the free moments you have." She jokes, "As kids grow and life sorts itself out, you'll realize you were never the problem. Everyone else was." (She then notes in her TikTok description, "Okay, maybe I was ONE percent of the problem.")

Many in the comments seemed to really connect to her use of the phrase "married single mom." Zimmy also writes, "I by no means want to promote divorce, but I do want to promote healthy marriages. No marriage counselor would have ever said my marriage was healthy, and that is abundantly clear with how stress-free life feels after leaving."

In Zimmy's vulnerability, she gets to the root of what was or wasn’t working for her without vilifying anyone. Decluttering is so much more than tidying up, and many therapists explain what it can do to lift depression and anxiety. In her piece "The Many Mental Benefits of Decluttering" for Psychology Today, Diane Roberts Stoler, Ed.D. writes, "Excessive clutter often leads to feelings of shame, hopelessness, and guilt. The feelings can spiral, making it difficult to find the motivation to address the clutter. If someone is already suffering from depression, a cluttered home can worsen that depression. It is often a cycle. The more depressed you get, the harder it is to clean and organize."

Big and small changes, with a game plan and grace for yourself, can help break the shame spiral and get your living space actually "livable" again.

Four young people glued to their phones.

A little over a decade ago, people began celebrating Dry January to get their drinking under control after the holiday season. It’s so popular that these days, it's customary for people to say they’re not going out to the bar or a club because they are taking a month off of the sauce. It’s a great excuse for people to stay sober, and most friends won’t give y a hard time for taking a month off.

A similar sentiment surrounds smartphone use, and with the advent of Phone Free February, nonprofits are now encouraging people to take the month to either drastically reduce their phone usage or refrain from using it altogether. For some, putting the phone away for 28 days is hard because they need it for work, but they can create strategies to curb their use of social media apps or texting during their free time.

What is Phone Free February?

“While phones help us achieve many important tasks, they are also designed to keep us hooked. This highly addictive design has us checking our phones an average of 221 times every day,” the Global Solidarity Foundation, an organization promoting Phone Free February, notes on its website. Jacob Warn from the organization told the Washington Post that the month is an opportunity to “get you to question what you need your phone for."

phone-free February, smartphone addiction, mental healthA couple glued to their phones.via Canva/Photos

Organizers hope that if people take some time to live phone-free, they can realize its grip on their lives. When people call giving up their phones or reducing their use a digital detox, they’re not wrong; every time we swipe through a social media app, we get minor hits of dopamine to the areas of our brains that respond to drugs like cocaine. Withdrawal from social media and other dopamine-creating apps is akin to getting off of a drug, so Phone Free February participants should consider that when deciding how they want to reduce their use.

“There is some benefit in a hard stop for some people, but I’ve also seen it backfire on people, so it depends on the person and what they want to accomplish,” Emily Hemendinger, MPH, LCSW, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, writes. Particpaints should also use the month to consider long-term smartphone habits.

“Are you wanting to just take the time off and go right back to interacting with it in the same exact way after a day, or week, or month, or is there a way that you can change moving forward? There are plenty of ways we can work on improving those habits, so they don’t drag you down,” Hemendinger adds. “Digital detoxes are fine, but if you’re going back to the same behavior, you may find yourself needing more and more of these detoxes.”

Are smartphones bad for your mental health?

Another great reason to take some time off from your smartphone is to improve your mental health. Excessive smartphone use has been associated with higher rates of anxiety, depression, sleep problems, and social isolation. It’s also thought to be one of the main drivers of the recent rates of self-harm in teens and young adults.

phone-free February, smartphone addiction, mental healthA family glued to their phones.via Canva/Photos

If that’s not enough for people to reconsider their relationship with smartphones, Dino Ambrosi, founder of Project Reboot, says smartphones dominate all our free time. If you assume that the average 18-year-old today will live to the age of 90, after calculating the average time they spend sleeping, going to school, working, cooking, eating, doing chores, sleeping, and taking care of personal hygiene, today’s 18-year-olds have only 334 months of their adult lives to themselves. "Today, the average 18-year-old in the United States is on pace to spend 93% of their remaining free time looking at a screen,” Ambrosi told Upworthy.

Just as Dry January is a time to recommit ourselves to healthy drinking habits, Phone Free February is a moment to step back and reconsider our relationship with technology. Most of us joined the smartphone revolution nearly 2 decades ago, and since then, they have had an increasingly tighter grip on our lives. But the convenience of having a smartphone also comes with a cost, and that’s the most valuable thing we have in our lives: time. How much should we spend staring at a screen instead of enjoying the real beauty surrounding us?

Representative Image from Canva

Wondering where she got that rested glow? She hurkle-durkled.

Hurkle-durkle might be the silliest word ever, but it could be the missing step in your self-care. Hurkle-durkling simply means to linger in bed long past the time when you “should” already be up. It’s a Scottish term dating back to the 1800s—-originally having more to do with sitting in a crouching position either for warmth or secrecy, but eventually taking on a more relaxed and positive connotation.

It’s a word that only the biggest etymology enthusiast would know, had it not been plucked from obscurity thanks to TikTok. The viral trend seems to have started with actress Kira Kosarin sharing it as her “word of the day,” joking that “I do be hurkling, and I do be durkling and once I’ve hurkled my last durkle in a given morning I will get up, but I’m a big fan of a hurkle-durkle."

@kirakosarin

hurkle-durkle, u deserve it <3

♬ original sound - Kira Kosarin

Kosarin’s clip prompted others to share videos of themselves enjoying a good hurkle-durkling, blissfully wrapped in their sheets, basking in the sunlight, leisurely reading, etc.

One woman hailing from Scotland even joked, “[The Scottish] knew it was so critical to well-being they made a whole term about it. So no I’m not being lazy or wasting my life. I’m practicing an ancestral right of passage. I’m connecting with my culture and heritage.”

At this point you might be thinking, wait, isn’t this just bed-rotting?

Bed-rotting, another TikTok trend about lying in bed, and hurkle-durkling are similar, but have very different contexts. Bed-rotting has more to do with symptoms of burnout and fatigue, whereas hurkle-durkling is a bit more hygge, if you will. It’s seen as a pleasurable activity meant to promote rest for overall well being. Plus a hurkle-durkle has an end in sight, whereas bedrotting can take up an entire weekend, or longer.

And now matter how silly hurkle-durkle sounds, it could be seriously good for us. Research has shown that sleeping in, even a couple days a week, reduce the chances of a heart attack or stroke by 63%, especially for folks who get less than 6 hours of sleep through the rest of the week. (So, everyone, basically). Not only that, but getting those few extra minutes of shut-eye from hitting the snooze can help increase alertness and boost our mood.

Really, as with any self care practice, balance is key. Experts warn against staying in bed as an everyday practice or to avoid responsibilities an uncomfortable feelings, especially as too much inactivity can worsen feelings of depression. But when done mindfully and moderately, it can be the rejuvenation we long for, that so many of us don’t grant ourselves.

In fact, Kristin Wilson, a licensed professional counselor and chief experience officer, told Yahoo Life that perhaps so many people are leaning into silly, catchy terms like hurkle-durkle because they make rest and self-care, activities many Americans "are hesitant to celebrate and fully embrace,” more accessible.

"Sometimes our bodies just need a break, and we don’t want to feel guilty about taking time to rest," she explained. "Giving this behavior a clever social media name can make it feel more socially acceptable and when it trends and becomes popular, it normalizes the need for relaxation within the community of followers."

So with that, show yourself some love with a little hurkle-durkle. It’s fun to say, and oh so important to do.


This article originally appeared last year.

Health

Her mother doesn't get why she's depressed. So she explains the best way she knows how.

Sabrina Benaim eloquently describes what it's like to be depressed.

Sabrina Benaim's “Explaining My Depression to My Mother."

Sabrina Benaim's “Explaining My Depression to My Mother" is pretty powerful on its own.

But, in it, her mother exhibits some of the most common misconceptions about depression, and I'd like to point out three of them here.

Misconception #1: Depression is triggered by a single event or series of traumatic events.

Pillows and comforter in a blue wash behind words

Depression isn’t just over sleeping.

Upworthy Canva

Most people think depression is triggered by a traumatic event: a loved one dying, a job loss, a national tragedy, some thing. The truth is that depression sometimes just appears out of nowhere. So when you think that a friend or loved one is just in an extended bad mood, reconsider. They could be suffering from depression.

Misconception #2: People with depression are only sad.

Packed suitcase in blue wash behind words

The obligation of anxiety.

Upworthy Canva

Most people who have never experienced depression think depression is just an overwhelming sadness. In reality, depression is a complex set of feelings and physical changes in the body. People who suffer from depression are sad, yes, but they can also be anxious, worried, apathetic, and tense, among other things.

Misconception #3: You can snap out of it.

Party supplies in blue wash behind words

Making fun plans not wanting to have fun.

Upworthy Canva

The thing with depression is that it's a medical condition that affects your brain chemistry. It has to do with environmental or biological factors first and foremost. Sabrina's mother seems to think that if her daughter would only go through the motions of being happy that then she would become happy. But that's not the case. Depression is a biological illness that leaks into your state of being.

Think of it this way: If you had a cold, could you just “snap out of it"?

No? Exactly.

Woman speaking behind words.

Oftentimes, depression is hard to understand for everyone.

via Button Poetry/YouTube

These are only three of the misconceptions about depression. If you know somebody suffering from depression, you should take a look at this video here below to learn the best way to talk to them:

This article originally appeared ten years ago.