One of our most favorite things ever is that glorious evening sit after you’ve deep cleaned the entire house and lit a candle. Everything is where it needs to be, surfaces are shiny, there’s no more clutter, and the house smells magnificent. It came as no surprise to us that cleaning and having a clean house have a direct correlation to your mental health, so let’s go ahead and look at what real-life researchers have to say about that.
First up, let’s talk a little bit about the negative effects clutter has on our brains.
- Having clutter in your home means you’re more prone to depression versus those that have a home they consider relaxing.
- Clutter always makes it difficult to focus on a single task. A person’s visual cortex becomes overwhelmed by things that are otherwise not related to the task at hand.
- Clutter leads to anxiety and the feeling of not being in control. (And who needs all that?)
Now that we know what clutter in our homes leads to psychologically, let’s look at the flip side and see what organization and cleanliness do to our brains.
- Cleanliness is next to healthiness. Basically. Researchers at Indiana University found that people with clean homes tend to be healthier than those with cluttered homes. This can be a helpful tip if you’re looking to hit the gym more or just make overall healthier choices.
- Gain control of your environment, gain control of your life. Well, kinda. Most of us have something going on in our lives that probably makes us feel a little out of control and that feeling alone can get overwhelming quickly. By controlling what is happening around us, in the sense of how cluttered our home is, we gain that sense of control back which can be especially important during chaotic times.
- Cleaning can improve your mood in a lot of different ways, a study found that while cleaning people became more mindful and took time to stop and smell the soap (literally!)
- And just like clutter makes it difficult to focus on a task, cleanliness, and organization in your home improve your focus. So if you find yourself having a hard time focusing, look at your surroundings and devote a few minutes to getting yourself and your things organized before trying to tackle your task again.
So why is it so hard to simply stay clutter-free? Well, there are a few reasons.
- You have too much clutter. Hey, it piles up fast, we get it. Start small with little sections at a time and decided whether it needs to stay or go.
- You’re crunched for time. Life happens. Start by giving yourself 30 minutes of an evening to clean and you’ll notice a big difference.
- You forget how good it feels to be clean. We think a quick Google search of organized rooms will help you remember.