The Therapeutic Benefits Of Washing The Dishes

Learn on the therapeutic benefits of washing the dishes. Check out the article we found over at Mercola.com.

By Dr. Mercola

In a survey of the most-hated chores in the US, washing dishes ranks near the top. Only cleaning the bathroom was more despised than doing the dishes, for kids and adults alike.

Yet, this simple, mundane activity can offer you actual therapeutic benefits, provided you adopt the right mindset before doing it. The key is to wash your dishes mindfully, which has the power to turn a detested chore into a powerful stress reliever.

Why Doing Your Chores Mindfully May Be Good for Your Mental Health

Unless you’re one of the privileged few with full-time help around the house, you’re going to find yourself faced with chores… often.

You can begrudge those chores and do them in a frantic, anxious state, perhaps while fretting over all the other responsibilities (work deadlines, dinner, homework help, etc.) you have to get done as well.

However, this will only serve to increase your overall state of anxiety. On the other hand, you can choose to do your chores, like washing dishes, mindfully, which can offer your racing mind some much-needed respite.

Practicing “mindfulness” means you’re actively paying attention to the moment you’re in right now. Rather than letting your mind wander, when you’re mindful, you’re living in the moment and letting distracting thoughts pass through your mind without getting caught up in their emotional implications.

You can add mindfulness to virtually any aspect of your day simply by paying attention to the sensations you are experiencing in the present moment. Techniques sometimes used to become more mindful include:

• Paying focused attention to an aspect of sensory experience, such as the sound of your own breathing
• Distinguishing between simple thoughts and those that are elaborated with emotion (such as “I have a test tomorrow” versus “What if I fail my test tomorrow and flunk my entire class?”)
• Reframing emotional thoughts as simply “mental projections” so your mind can rest

Read This Mindfulness Passage Before Washing Your Dishes…

In the case of washing dishes, researchers from Florida State University (FSU) had 51 students read either a “descriptive” dishwashing passage or a “mindfulness” dishwashing passage prior to carrying out the chore. The mindfulness message read, in part, as follows:

“While washing the dishes one should only be washing the dishes. This means that while washing the dishes one should be completely aware of the fact that one is washing the dishes. At first glance, that might seem a little silly. Why put so much stress on a simple thing? But that’s precisely the point.

The fact that I am standing there and washing is a wondrous reality. I’m being completely myself, following my breath, conscious of my presence, and conscious of my thoughts and actions. There’s no way I can be tossed around mindlessly like a bottle slapped here and there on the waves.”

The study’s lead author noted a particular interest in how the mundane activities in life could be “used to promote a mindful state and, thus, increase overall sense of well-being.”

And it turned out that by washing dishes mindfully – focusing on the smell of the soap, the feeling of the warm water, and touching the dishes – led to significant improvements in well-being.

Specifically, the mindful group increased their feelings of inspiration by 25 percent while lowering their level of nervousness by 27 percent. The “descriptive” control group experienced no such benefits.

The implications of the study are vast, as it suggests applying mindfulness to virtually any common activity might serve as a simple way to reduce stress and improve your mental health.

Another Often-Overlooked Benefit to Washing Dishes By Hand…

While this doesn’t apply to your mental health, it’s worth noting that washing your dishes might be good for your physical health as well. In a study of more than 1,000 Swedish children, those with increased microbial exposure were less likely to develop allergies… and this included potential exposure through hand-washed dishes.

In households where dishes were always washed by hand, rates of allergies in the children were half those from households that used dishwashers. The children using hand-washed dishes were less likely to develop eczema, asthma, and hay fever. According to the researchers:

“We speculate that a less-efficient dishwashing method may induce tolerance via increased microbial exposure.”

On the other hand, because dishwashers use very hot water (water typically too hot for human touch), they kill far more germs, and leave your dishes cleaner, than ordinary hand washing. Ironically, this purported benefit may actually be a disservice to your health.

Mindfulness Can Calm Nerves at School and Work

Mindfulness is a technique that offers benefits virtually anywhere you apply it. So you can certainly harness it while doing chores around your home… but don’t stop there.

For instance, mindfulness programs are popping up at schools and workplaces across the globe to help students and employees manage stress and anger and improve focus.

“Mindful Schools” is one such program. It has trained close to 10,000 adults across all 50 US states and more than 100 countries to conduct mindfulness programs that impact more than 300,000 children and adolescents.

At Robert W. Coleman Elementary School in Baltimore, Maryland, for instance, students can take part in an after-school program to learn mindfulness through a series of breathing exercises, yoga poses, and meditation. Principal Carlillian Thompson told Medicine Net:

“I started to see a difference in the students’ behaviors… Instead of fighting or lashing out, they started using words to solve their problems. Those students who began in the program, who are now middle-school students, are very successful, and they come back and participate in the program also.”

To date, research has shown mindfulness training leads to a number of benefits among children and adolescents, including:

• Improvements in attention and social skills
• Decreased test anxiety
• Drops in aggressive behavior among adolescents with a series of antisocial behaviors known as conduct disorder
• Improved classroom behavior, such as paying attention, self-control, participation in activities, and caring and respect for others

Further, in a study of college students who took either a mindfulness class or a nutrition class for two weeks, those who took the mindfulness class improved reading-comprehension test scores and working-memory capacity, as well as experienced fewer distracting thoughts. Researchers noted:

“Improvements in performance following mindfulness training were mediated by reduced mind wandering among participants who were prone to distraction at pretesting. Our results suggest that cultivating mindfulness is an effective and efficient technique for improving cognitive function, with wide-reaching consequences.”

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Read full article: This Often-Loathed Household Chore May Enhance Your Well-Being