Mental Health Benefits of Being a Minimalist During a Pandemic
I’ve experienced a plethora of mental health benefits during my journey to become a minimalist, but I’ve never felt so grateful to have adopted this mentality than I’ve been during the past couple weeks of this pandemic.
Minimalism requires a paradigm shift for most people. It’s about letting go, evaluating, adapting, reevaluating, sifting, and intentionally deciding what to bring in. This mindset applies to our physical items, but also heavily involves shifting our mental, emotional, relational, and digital processes. In a world filled with uncertainty, minimalism helps people get through the unexpected crises easier and more securely.
Don’t get me wrong, minimalists will still feel all the feelings. Practicing minimalism or living simply will not rid you of normal reactions and emotions. It’s normal to feel scared, nervous, sad, grief, distracted, etc., but living with intentionality and having the ability to slow down and regulate can help you move through this pandemic feeling less panicked and more capable of making good decisions. In fact, minimalism has better prepared you to deal with these normal feelings so that you can move forward and thrive.
Here are some of the reasons minimalism specifically benefits your mental health during a pandemic:
Minimalists Understand What’s Truly Valuable
When you get rid of 80% of your stuff within a year, you gain insight into what’s actually valuable and what’s fluff. In a time like this, we need to be able to quickly sort through the things that will add value to our lives as opposed to extra noise. The news and social media can be filled with junk and information that adds to your anxiety and panic, but social media is also an amazing place for connection and exposure to new ideas for instilling hope and positivity that may uplift you or give you exactly the right tool at the moment you need it. Social media itself isn’t the enemy, it’s the inability to discern how to use what you’ve been given that’s holding you back. Minimalism helps you sort and sift until you’ve paired it down to only what brings you value and let go of anything that doesn’t.
Minimalists Know How to Live With Less
Minimalists are already used to living with less or waiting to obtain something, so the panic mode that sets in for others about being without doesn’t hit us as hard. The anxiety surrounding not having toilet paper or enough supplies is something that minimalists can handle well because there’s usually a way to get what you truly need. As certain types of food are running low or completely out at the grocery store, minimalists can feel confident that they will be able to piece together other meals or get creative. Knowing you will not starve and truly trusting in that can be comforting in times of fear, and having less options isn’t scary to minimalists. There is beauty in knowing how to use what you have and innovating how to get things done in an unconventional way.
Minimalists Have More Awareness of Discomfort and How To Regulate
In reality, practicing minimalism is uncomfortable. Not having things to pacify your mind and your time, not buying stuff to deal with your stress or discontent, and not using consuming to fill voids are difficult choices and certainly not the norm. Minimalists are quick to recognize when things feel uncomfortable, and we have practice sitting with those emotions and regulating them as opposed to finding the first satisfying thing to minimize our pain. This pandemic is painful. Minimalism allows you to find the quickest path to recognizing your fear and grief, accepting it, and moving forward.
Minimalists Understand How To Reduce Analysis Paralysis
One of the biggest challenges in adjusting to our new normal has been around having to make a million decisions. People are trying to figure out how to work from home, how to integrate CDC recommendations, and what to do with their kids all day. There’s a million choices involved in running our current lives and participating/connecting with others while getting our work done. Minimalists are excellent at eliminating the amount of choices as the brain can only handle making so many decisions in a given day before becoming exhausted. Ever have a closet with so many clothes that you have no idea what to wear? The best way to deal with that problem is to let go until you are no longer overwhelmed with choices. During this pandemic, find ways to minimize your choices (like implementing a schedule for each day) and options and give your brain a break.
Minimalists Experience Less FOMO
What is FOMO anyway? It stands for the fear of missing out, and people use it to describe the feeling of anxiety, sadness, or discomfort experienced when they are not able to do something others are doing. It’s that twinge inside you when there’s something out of reach or that’s not right for some reason. FOMO usually happens when the event or project is something that would make you feel good temporarily or that works for someone else’s life but not necessarily yours. Minimalists know how to say no to things, and have practice missing out. There’s grief during this pandemic for all the things we are missing, like trips or weddings or graduations; that can’t be denied. Let that grief be seen and known, but know that those experiences and celebrations can still be felt or will happen at some point. It sucks to miss out for now, that doesn’t have to take away from the joy you’re able to experience now and later.
Minimalists are Able to Expand Their Creativity
If there’s anything that’s been challenged in the past week, it’s creativity. We’re all making huge adjustments to how we do this thing called life, and it’s going to require us to get creative. Therapists are moving to teletherapy, churches are streaming online, teachers are converting all their lessons for the next few weeks so parents can help their kids stay on track, and finding ingredients is becoming interesting. Being a minimalist and working with less allows your creativity to expand immensely. Our creative muscles are already flexed, which makes going through this pandemic more manageable. We’re used to thinking outside the box, which has come in handy a million times already!
Minimalists Feel More Secure
In my first post exploring minimalism, I wrote about my definition of minimalism which is “the art of knowing you’re enough without your stuff.” I’ll expand my thoughts to include that minimalism is about knowing that you are enough, you will have enough, and trust that things will be ok. Fear alerts us that dangers are present, but our minds can take that and run with anxiety about worst case scenarios. I can’t lie, my mind has gone there too. But I feel calm and serene in knowing that I will be ok at the end of this, even if something terrible happens.
Minimalism provides security and awareness; there’s an understanding that all the things we thought we needed to be full and happy didn’t really work. It was a facade, and the things and thoughts people are clinging to now aren’t going to help in reality. Focusing on what’s valuable, regulating yourself, being ok with having less or missing out, reducing choices and lessening anxiety, and opening up your creativity are some of the processes that will get you to the other side of this more resilient and having grown as a person. Minimalism is the perfect vehicle for getting there.