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The very natural desire to create
pleasant surroundings in the home, and to run it smoothly and
efficiently, is exploited quite ruthlessly by the advertising
industry, very often by use of the 'keeping up with the Joneses'
principle. The home, which should be one of life’s great pleasures,
can all too easily become a source of dissatisfaction and a hotbed
of stress instead.
Trying too hard to live up to what
the media tell us we want and should expect of ourselves is one of
the most common causes of stress in many people’s lives. The
adjustment between what you feel you are actually capable of - or
what you can afford - and what you feel you should aspire to, can be
painful or even impossible, and the cause of quite unreasonable
feelings of inadequacy, envy and resentment. The following pointers
are designed to help you avoid these as far as possible.
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Don't be too much
of a perfectionist. Home is a place to live in. It's
always entertaining to look at other people's living
spaces as featured in glossy magazines, for example, and
these are often great sources of ideas for decorating or
furnishing your own home, but trying to create an
identically immaculate home environment in real life can
be just another way of building up stress for yourself.
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Get your priorities
right. Draw up a list of the things that really matter
most to you in your home life, discuss these with the
other people you share it with, make any necessary
adjustments and use the result as a working guide for
unstressed everyday living.
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Share
responsibilities, and make sure each person involved
knows what these are: for example, who pays the
household bills, who makes sure the dustbins get taken
out on collection days, whose turn it is to cook.
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Share household
chores like cleaning, shopping and cooking. Very few
people can honestly say they enjoy housework, but
dividing it up sensibly, so that one person is
responsible for hovering once a week, say, another for
cleaning the kitchen and bathroom, makes it much less of
a drag. And a home that is kept reasonably clean and
tidy is more relaxing to be in, and can do a lot to
relieve stressful feelings in other areas.
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Shopping, too,
benefits from sharing. Many people find a big weekly
shop at the supermarket the most economical way of
stocking up. Well-run and designed supermarkets, with
clearly identified aisles and plenty of room to move
between them, make shopping an easier and pleasanter
experience: if you can shop at off-peak times - avoiding
Saturday mornings for example - and if there are two of
you, one to offload and one to pack, you can take a lot
of the stress out of queuing up at the check-out till.
Obviously, avoiding taking very young children with you
keeps the shopping stress levels down, as can writing
out a well-thought out list beforehand - this does away
with indecision and dithering when faced with a barrage
of supermarket choices, which can be stressful.
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Cooking, which
should be a pleasure, is much less likely to become a
chore on a day-to-day basis if you share it, perhaps
alternating evening meals during the week if you both
work, and doing some more inventive cooking together at
weekends.
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On the same
principle, encourage children to help. Sell them ideas
rather than nagging at them: for example, explain that
if they retain responsibility for tidying their own
rooms on a reasonably regular basis, they will know for
themselves exactly where everything is kept and will not
have to waste their time (and yours) by asking.
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Labor-saving
devices can take a lot of stress out of running a home,
although this doesn’t mean you have to buy every gadget
in sight! Instead, choose equipment that will best help
you with jobs that need to be done on a regular basis:
for example, a dishwasher means not only that you won’t
need to waste valuable time at the sink, but also helps
keep the kitchen clear of accumulated washing-up. A
good-sized freezer means that you can keep a supply of
pre-cooked dishes ready for emergencies or those times
when you’re so tired that cooking a meal from scratch
seems too much like a stressful ordeal. Certainly a
well-designed and fitted kitchen can be an invaluable
practical aid to coping with domestic stress.
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Even if you can’t
always eat together because of different timetables,
make sure you get together for meals regularly as
opportunities for conversation, talking about things of
interest and concern to all the family, and generally
keeping in touch.
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For the same
reasons, try to make sure the whole family shares some
leisure activity, such as a combined trip to the local
swimming pool once a week, or a walk or picnic at
weekends.
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Always try to get
off to a good start in the morning - prime time for
stress in many families! For example, if you share one
bathroom, make sure this is done on a simple rota basis.
Or if packed lunches are required by some members of the
family, try to get these ready the night before.
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