If nothing else, decluttering can help your stress and anxiety because it makes managing your home super easy. When you declutter, you have less stuff to pick-up and put away. You can see your counter-tops, you have systems in place, and everything seems to have a “home”.
How does decluttering help reduce stress?
If you're looking for an easy way to reduce stress, decluttering your environment may be a good place to start. Getting rid of excess stuff can benefit your mental health by making you feel calmer, happier, and more in control. A tidier space can make for a more relaxed mind. Untidy environments often increase stress for most people.
Is clutter causing your anxiety?
Of course, no one is suggesting that clutter itself can cause someone to develop an anxiety disorder, nor is getting more organized going to be a cure-all. But research suggests that clutter has a real impact on mood.
What is Declutter Your Life?
Declutter Your Life is a month-long initiative to help you manage stress and boost your health by learning the principles of banishing clutter and restoring a sense of order to your world. For four years, when my anxiety was at its peak, I let my house transform from a spotless retreat into a maze of junk.
Do clutter and disorganization make you stressed?
In fact, when working couples gave tours of their homes, women who used more words describing clutter and disorganization also tended to show levels of the stress hormone cortisol, suggesting chronic stress.
How decluttering improves your mental health?
“Decluttering allows mindfulness. Giving your mind a chance to wander and reducing your mental load can help you generate further insights into whatever you are working on,” says Dr Barmi. After a few months of practising decluttering, you'll most definitely feel less stressed, less overwhelmed, and more in control.
Can a cluttered house cause anxiety?
Clutter can affect our anxiety levels, sleep, and ability to focus. It can also make us less productive, triggering coping and avoidance strategies that make us more likely to snack on junk and watch TV shows (including ones about other people decluttering their lives).
Does a clean room help with anxiety?
Improve Your Mood Additionally, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America indicates that the physical activity of cleaning coupled with the end result of a cleaner home helps reduce stress, feelings of anxiety, and depressive symptoms. 8 Cleaning can also reduce fatigue and improve concentration.
Why does decluttering make you feel better?
The decluttering process creates physical space and calendar space, and as a result it creates mental space. The simplified corners, shelves, and closets represent opportunities for your energy to flourish in new directions. Perhaps you'll start reading more.
Can a dirty house make you depressed?
A messy room can be a sign of depression or another mental health issue. Clutter affects your mood and can cause more anxiety or stress.
Why does stuff give me anxiety?
No matter the ways, reasons and means by which the creep of stuff exceeds our ability to mentally and physically manage it—all of it amounts to stress. Clutter can trigger the release of the stress hormone cortisol, which can increase tension and anxiety and lead to unhealthy habits.
Why do I feel anxious when my house is messy?
A cluttered, untidy environment actually generates more of the stress hormone cortisol in the brain. So, if your home and living spaces are clutter-free, tidy and clean then you can assume you'll generate less cortisol and reap the rewards mentally.
Why does my house give me anxiety?
Clutter makes us anxious because we're never sure what it's going to take to get through to the bottom of the pile. Clutter creates feelings of guilt ("I should be more organized") and embarrassment, especially when others unexpectedly drop by our homes or work spaces.
What clutter does to your brain?
But research shows disorganisation and clutter have a cumulative effect on our brains. Our brains like order, and constant visual reminders of disorganisation drain our cognitive resources, reducing our ability to focus. The visual distraction of clutter increases cognitive overload and can reduce our working memory.
Can decluttering help stress?
If you're looking for an easy way to reduce stress, decluttering your environment may be a good place to start. Getting rid of excess stuff can benefit your mental health by making you feel calmer, happier, and more in control. A tidier space can make for a more relaxed mind.
What should you not do when decluttering?
Decluttering Mistakes: What Not to Do When DeclutteringStarting a Major Decluttering Project Without a Plan. ... Not Using a Sorting System While Decluttering. ... Hanging On to Donate/Sell Items Too Long. ... Trying to Organize Before Decluttering. ... Trying to Declutter Everything All At Once. ... Getting Wrapped Up In the Sentimental Items.More items...
What does the Bible say about declutter?
Ephesians 4:31-32 states, "Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you." Dealing with clutter, physical or spiritual, is a life-long endeavor.
How to relax your lower lungs?
Focus on filling the lower lungs. Calming breath: This involves breathing through the nose with a long, slow breath, first filling your lower lungs, then your upper lungs. Count to 3 while holding your breath, then exhale slowly through pursed lips, while relaxing the muscles in your face, jaw, shoulders, and stomach.
Does anxiety interfere with decluttering?
When Anxiety Interferes with Decluttering. Clutter and anxiety often go hand in hand. It’s a frustrating reality, but the link between clutter and anxiety is really no surprise. Clutter is a major stress for many.
What are the benefits of decluttering?
Benefits of decluttering include: Better focus. Clutter makes it difficult to find what you need. It may also distract you. Getting rid of visual clutter can help you focus better on any task at hand. Higher self-esteem. When you have trouble staying organized, you may feel out of control.
Why is decluttering important?
For most people, decluttering can promote productivity and improvements in mental and physical health. Benefits of decluttering include: Better focus. Clutter makes it difficult to find what you need.
Why don't older people get rid of clutter?
Sometimes, older adults don't get rid of clutter because it requires a lot of physical effort. In such cases, family members can help. It's better to handle clutter before ill health or death makes it urgent. Hoarding disorder.
Why is it important to declutter?
Decluttering can prevent pests and reduce dust, mold, and mildew, which may trigger asthma and allergies. Improved lifestyle and well-being. It's easier to prepare healthy meals in an orderly kitchen. And most people sleep better in a neat room with a tidy bed.
Why is it important to improve your living space?
When you have trouble staying organized, you may feel out of control. Improving your living space can restore feelings of competency and pride. Better relationships. Conflict with family or roommates often occurs when one person can't control clutter.
Is hoarding disorder a psychiatric disorder?
Decluttering can be especially hard for people with hoarding disorder, which affects about 2.5% of Americans. Hoarding disorder was officially recognized as a psychiatric disorder in 2013.
Do you need to hide things when decluttering?
There's no need to hide items that you use a lot. Also, try not to judge your spaces against those of other people. Difficulties With Decluttering. Getting rid of possessions can be hard for anyone, especially as we get older.
Can clutter give you anxiety?
Clutter is visual chaos. It usually looks like a giant mess, even if it’s organized into piles or has some “system” assigned to it.
Clutter reflects how we feel inside
Often, our physical environment reflects how we are feeling internally. If you have a cluttered, stressful home, chances are you feel stress and disorganized inside as well.
Clutter wastes money
The most common stressor for many families is money. Clutter wastes money, which creates more anxiety and stress for people.
Decluttering to reduce anxiety and stress
What does one do to conquer clutter and reduce their anxiety and stress?
Decluttering can feel therapeutic
For an entire year, decluttering was my therapy and self-care. It was actually therapeutic to go through my belongings and take back my home.
Decluttering can give you a sense of control over chaos
Sometimes life throws us fastballs, and we aren’t quite sure how to deal with what comes our way.
Decluttering makes managing a home easier
If nothing else, decluttering can help your stress and anxiety because it makes managing your home super easy.
How Clutter Contributes to Anxiety
Clutter distracts us by drawing our attention away from what we need to be focusing on.
Five Ideas for Low-Stress Decluttering
I usually recommend starting with the area that gives you the most anxiety.
Needing Inspiration?
It helps to encourage yourself with a picture of the living room, kitchen, or bedroom when it was tidy, if you have one. (Try going to the real estate listing for your home to access some great pictures.)
Know that the feelings will pass
According to Harvard brain scientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, it takes 90 seconds to have an emotion, identify it and choose to diffuse it.
Small steps make the change
Pretty much all of us know the changes that should be made. We know we have things to get rid of, but it all seems overwhelming.
Nutritional helps
Please know that I am not a medical professional in any way, and I recommend you seek a professional opinion before making changes related to your health.
Decision fatigue
This isn’t necessarily anxiety, but often we can mistake decision fatigue FOR anxiety.
What hormone does clutter and disorganization show?
In fact, when working couples gave tours of their homes, women who used more words describing clutter and disorganization also tended to show levels of the stress hormone cortisol, suggesting chronic stress.
Is hoarding a mental health condition?
And while experts have long recognized a link between insomnia and mental health conditions like depression and anxiety, another link is emerging in research: hoarding. Hoarding disorder, which affects just 2 to 6 percent of the population, goes far beyond disorganization or a garden-variety tendency to accumulate stuff.
Why is decluttering important?
Why Decluttering Is Important for Self-Care ( and When It Isn’t) Tidying up can help you de-stress, gain a sense of control, and improve your state of mind in numerous ways. The process (and results) of putting things in their place can improve your mood and state of mind. If it puts you at ease, it can be an important part of self-care.
When decluttering is self care?
When Decluttering Is Self-Care and When It Isn’t. Of course, you can take anything to an extreme level, so if decluttering becomes an obsession or you become super strict about having everything in a specific place, you can go overboard.
Why is it important to remove clutter?
Removing clutter also takes away visual interruptions. It’s an easy way to cleanse the palate and have a fresh start.”. Paring down and getting organized also promotes greater productivity, a sense of order, and feelings of self-efficacy, as well as improving your mood.
What does it mean to declutter?
Saxbe explains. “Decluttering allows you to cross things off the to-do list, which gives you a sense of accomplishment. Removing clutter also takes away visual interruptions.
Is clutter a spectrum?
According to Roster: “Clutter is a spectrum — some people with extreme amounts of clutter may think they don’t have a problem with it at all, while others can be quite distressed by it when there really isn’t much there.”.
Is clutter a good thing?
Though “home” is typically considered a safe and secure place, clutter compromises some of that security, according to the survey responses. “When there’s lots of clutter, you lose control over your physical environment, which is very defeating and can bring on stress, depression, or anxiety,” Roster says.
Is decluttering good for you?
But it’s worth the effort to find your personal sweet spot, because in the right amount, decluttering can be good for your mental and emotional well-being in many ways. And in that respect, decluttering can certainly be a form of self-care.
