If you're going through menopause and you don't feel like cleaning your house, what
are you supposed to do?
We're going to talk about that today.
Hi there. I'm Angela Brown and this is Ask a House Cleaner.
This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question
and I get to help you find an answer.
Now, today's show is brought to us by HouseCleaning360.com
If you are going through menopause and you need some additional help to clean your house,
there are a bunch of house cleaners that you can find on HouseCleaning360.com
Now, if you are a house cleaner and you don't have your business listed here, run over and
make a listing so the people that need a house cleaner and are looking for someone can find you.
All right, on to today's episode, which is from a woman who says, "Angela, I'm going
through menopause and I wake up in the morning
and I don't even want to get out of bed in the morning.
And so, cleaning my house is this huge extra task that I don't feel like I'm up to.
What do I do?"
All right.
This is an excellent question and I'm thrilled to be answering this question.
Because over the years, I've had the privilege of working with lots and lots of women, some
of which are also going through menopause.
Okay, so there are a couple of things that we know to be true
about menopause and house cleaning.
The very first thing that we know about menopause is that as you are beginning your reproductive
years as a teenager, your hormones completely go out of whack.
At the very end of your reproductive years, usually about a year after that, you go through
what we know as menopause.
Now, as you go through menopause, all the things that transpired in the early stages
of your youth kind of dwindle down and all of your hormones change.
The estrogen and the progesterone are diminished in your body.
So, lots of things start to happen to your body that did not happen before.
Now, this doesn't really have so much to do with house cleaning as it does to do with you
personally that then affects your house cleaning and your chores and the way you feel about
life and other things.
There are symptoms.
Like your fingernails will get really brittle and they will feel like they're cracking.
Your skin will dry out, when you need lots more moisturizer because your body is not
producing the same youthful glow that you had when you were young and all your hormones
were in effect.
Another thing is that your hair will start to thin and maybe even fall out.
So, there are a bunch of body changes that your body goes through.
As you wake up in the morning, there is a lack of perhaps energy.
So, it's easy to wake up in the morning and just kind of be fatigued and exhausted.
Along with that, there are also hot flashes, and night sweats, and just a bunch of other
things that happen like weight gain.
It's just not a very fun time for most people.
Women will wake up in the morning and they just feel like, "Whoa, I've spent my whole
life caring for other people.
It's time for me."
Instead of getting out there and doing something for yourself, you just want to roll over and
pull the covers back over your head and not even get out of bed in the morning.
When you get out of bed in the morning, there's no incentive to pick up after yourself or
to clean house.
Usually you've raised children and you've gone through a whole life of caring for other people.
We call it mom syndrome, where you take care of everyone else first, but you never take
care of mom.
Then you get to this window and you're like, "Why should I even clean the house?
There's no one here to thank me."
It's a very thankless job being on the other end of raising your kids.
So, here you are, fatigued, you're tired, you have hot flashes, you don't feel well,
and then you get up and you have this messy bed that just takes so much energy to make.
All, so the very first thing that we want to do as we're starting through menopause
is we want to make sure that as we get up every morning, and this is not just for menopausal
women, this is for all women and men everywhere, this is a new task I'm going to give to you.
Your mothers gave it to you when you were young, but here's the reason why.
You get up in the morning and you want to make your bed.
It's the very first thing you want to do when you get up in the morning.
Here's why.
You get up in the morning and that sets the stage for your entire day.
So, you get up feeling like crap, you're tired, you're exhausted.
What do you do?
You make your bed.
For the very first thing in the morning, you have a sense of accomplishment.
You have accomplished something.
Something productive.
You have a clean, nice, tidy bed to show for it.
It's a feeling of accomplishment, which is the very first gift that you give yourself
at the top of the day.
Now that your bed is made, you've created a great little habit.
It's not just that you have a clean, tidy bed, but every time you walk back through
that room of your house, there's not this overwhelming feeling of, "I should just climb
back in and pull the covers over my head."
Because now you don't want to mess up the clean, tidy bed, right?
Now, if you take a nap in the afternoon, and part of going through menopause is you're
going to be more tired than usual, so you probably will need a nap in the afternoon.
If you take one, open up the covers again, get in the bed.
When you get out of the bed, make the bed again.
Again, it's a feeling of accomplishment at the top of the day.
Already, you've accomplished something.
Okay, so moving on.
What else do you do at the top of the day?
It is very important to get up and to take a shower.
It is so easy to drift into 11, 12, 1 o'clock in the afternoon and not take a shower, and
not get dressed, not do the things that actually make you feel like a person and feel valued.
So, it's really important that you get up in the morning and you take a shower, that
you get dressed, that you do your hair, and you put on your makeup.
I know that sounds so overwhelming and so exhausting for many people that are going
throughout menopause.
But the reality is this.
Every time you use the facilities during the day and you walk past that bathroom mirror,
if you look in the mirror, what you see back is a reflection of who you are.
So, if you haven't done your hair and you have no makeup on, and you look exhausted,
and groggy, and tired, what happens is you're going to feel exhausted, and groggy, and tired.
But if you walk through and you glance at yourself in the mirror and you look like a
million bucks, huh.
Hey, guess what?
I accomplished something today.
So, it's a little boost that you give yourself.
Now, when you look like a million bucks because you've had your shower, you've put your hair
on, you've done your makeup, all these things, now if on a whim you decide you want to go
out and chat with the neighbors, or you want to go to the store, you're all ready to go.
Now, one of the catches that we have with menopause is people don't even want to go
out of their house.
They become reclusive and then the answer is, "Well, I didn't even take a shower today.
I'm not ready to go."
So, you put off leaving and going running errands and doing the things that make you
a whole person because you are not ready.
In order to get ready, we take all this energy.
All right, so if you get up in the morning and you make your bed, you already have a
sense of accomplishment.
When you have that accomplishment, run, go take your shower.
Get dressed, go put your makeup on, and do your hair.
These are just a few simple steps that create a series of habits.
That series of habits then puts you on the right track mentally, emotionally, and physically
for the rest of the day.
Now, there are still a bunch of other things that physically we cannot overcome with a
couple of few simple tasks.
But by putting yourself in the right mind frame, now you're in a different place mentally
to take on your day.
All right.
So, when it comes to house cleaning, there are a lot of little tasks that you can get
in the habit of doing right now.
Little, tiny tasks like when you have a super bowl, it's never going to be easier to clean
than right when you are finished eating.
The food is fresh in the soup bowl.
So, if you hurry and you rinse it out and you put it in the dish drainer, it's done, right?
You don't have to wait until it dries.
There's all this caked on food there and then you have to try to go in and soak the bowl
and all these other things.
You've just created more work for yourself.
So, get in the habit and look around your house of little things you can do as you go
that will make that process go more smoothly.
Then it becomes second nature to you, so that when you hit this weird phase of your life,
that everything doesn't just crumble because you have no systems in place.
All righty.
That my two cents for today.
Menopause and how it affects house cleaning.
Until we meet again,
leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.
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