A Surprising Way to Soothe Your Anxiety
I’m a nester. Always have been, always will be. It’s just in my nature to love cooking beautiful pots of soup, roasting chickens and baking muffins for those I love. Same goes for fixing little things, arranging flowers, making beds. Growing up the daughter of a vowed nester, this is not surprising.
Mom was, in fact, ‘The Happy Housekeeper’, the title of a column she wrote for House & Garden Magazine for 18 years. She was basically the first Martha Stewart. So maybe I’ve been channeling my mother when I dug into cleaning and cooking with more zest than usual during the pandemic.
Cooking and nesting are my safe zones—a way to feel nurtured and cared for, even while I’m nurturing others. Researchers have verified this. A 2019 article in Good Housekeeping reports that a full 70% of Americans report that cleaning house offers them ‘a feeling of accomplishment’. 54% even call it “relaxing”.
A small study in Mindfulness reports that some added benefit can be found in how we actually wash those dishes. If we do it mindfully, i.e. smelling the detergent, really getting into the action of the sponge on the dish, we can experience a 27% reduction in ‘mental nervousness’. And a serious boost to our overall motivation and inspiration. Experts tell us that these tasks give us a sense of control. Of being able, even for just a few moments, to cope.
All I know is that when I’m cleaning, I do feel in control of my environment. And I do experience that satisfying, tidy sense of accomplishment mentioned above. I feel good about myself, my home, even my life for a little while.
As for cooking, the same applies. When I make a lovely tray of cookies, I’m creating something delightful in my domain for a while. And I’m not alone. The urge to ‘stress bake’ has been well documented by everyone from Stephen Colbert (who even profiled an apple tart –Look at that flake!”–on one of his early pandemic broadcasts) to university researchers. They found that baking supplies surged in sales in the week following the 911 attacks in 2001.
Baking allows us to worry less, to park our anxiety elsewhere. And then to follow up with some lovely comfort eating.
Now, in the aftermath, we’re all working on losing our ‘COVID 15’, which is evidence of how widespread this need to bake actually has been.
Just for fun, I’ve added a recipe below that I absolutely love, originally shared with me by my late daughter Teal. I got it from a great big compendium of family recipes I keep in a binder that I put together last year. And why do I have them all in a binder? Because so many of them were written out on paper over the years.
It was comforting to go through the old files of family recipes during the pandemic—it made me feel closer to my father and mother, both now dead. I even found a love note written to my father by my mother when they were dating. Not surprisingly, it’s at the end of a recipe for her broiled chicken thighs.
And there were the drawings, too. My father, an artist, used to make little pencil sketches of my mother making dinner every night on the pad she kept for the grocery list. She’s the one pictured here, waiting for the pressure cooker to finish. I believe my mother was the one who originally taught me that cooking was a way to de-stress, for she suffered from anxiety as well.
The process of cooking or cleaning raises the vibration in your home. Moreover, it creates a sense of possibility. After all, what can possibly go wrong when there’s a lovely Beef Stroganoff cooking in the slow cooker or a chocolate cake in the oven? Or even that piney, fresh scent coming from a well mopped floor?
It’s like we push the reset button on all that has troubled us lately, and so we get to begin again. Perhaps the results won’t be quite as special if you’re cleaning and cooking every day. And I do acknowledge that this form of self-care isn’t a fit for everyone. The world is full of people who “don’t cook” and hate cleaning.
And yet consciously contributing to the nurturing in your home—even if you’re cooking for one—creates that extra sweet sense of safety, or wholeness that we all crave.
It’s like you just changed the sheets on your entire life.
May you cook or even clean with ease and self-love.
TEAL’S KALE SALAD
1 head of curly or dinosaur kale
1 TBS Coconut oil
2 TBS Lime juice
½ – 1 tsp salt
Scallions
Mandarin oranges
Avocado
Can also use cherry tomatoes, or any combination of tart and sweet ingredients
In large mixing bowl combine lime juice and salt. Mix. Add washed, dried kale that’s been separated from stem, and torn into smaller pieces. Melt the coconut oil in a microwave, or by pouring some hot water on outside of closed coconut oil jar. Get your hands coated with melted coconut oil, then massage the kale as you mix in the salted juice from bottom of the bowl. Toss in other ingredients.
YUM!
Serves 4
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