Jul 28, 2024 — There is a clear connection between cleanliness and mental health. It reduces stress, a cluttered and messy home can cause stress and anxiety.
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. Cleaning can also reduce fatigue and improve concentration. ### Cleanliness and Focus [...] Research has shown that living in a cluttered environment increases stress. In the study, young women cared for an infant in either a normal or cluttered environment. While chaos didn't seem to affect mood or responsiveness, physical stress levels were still higher for women in the cluttered homes. Such findings suggest that parents should consider how cleanliness and clutter in the home may impact their stress levels. [...] Saxbe DE, Repetti R. No place like home: home tours correlate with daily patterns of mood and cortisol. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2010 Jan;36(1):71-81. doi:10.1177/0146167209352864. PMID: 19934011. Indiana University. Tidier homes, fitter bodies. Lang M, Krátký J, Shaver JH, Jerotijević D, Xygalatas D. Effects of anxiety on spontaneous ritualized behavior. Curr Biol. 2015 Jul 20;25(14):1892-7. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2015.05.049. PMID: 26096971.
of the manipulation check items (how clean the visualized experience felt and how much it involved touching oneself), only clean feelings significantly predicted lower anxiety (β = −0.1215, _SE_ = 0.0353, _t_(295) = −3.437, _p_ = .0007) and lower tension (β = −0.1693, _SE_ = 0.0344, _t_(299) = −4.924, _p_ = 1.41e−06), whereas touch involvement did not significantly predict anxiety (β = 0.0550, _SE_ = 0.0375, _t_(295) = 1.469, _p_ = .1429) and predicted higher tension (β = 0.0759, _SE_ = 0.0369, [...] Visually simulated experience of cleaning behavior reduced residual anxiety from a stress-inducing physical scene. The manipulation involved mere visual simulation, with effect sizes (_d_ s = 0.205 and 0.141) in the expected small range by traditional standards (J. Cohen, 1988) and comparable with those in contemporary preregistered between-subjects research (Schäfer & Schwarz, 2019). The effect was observed and replicated on a pictorial measure of anxiety derived from basic emotional [...] Did visually simulated cleaning produce different effects from visually simulated touch or no simulation? As predicted (Figure 2), anxiety differed significantly between the three conditions (_p_ = 1.106e−06). It was lower after simulated cleaning than simulated touch (_p_ = .0011) or no simulation (_p_< .0001) or both combined (_p_< .0001). It was also marginally lower after simulated touch than no simulation (_p_ = .0629). Tension showed a similar pattern. It differed significantly between
Jan 20, 2022 — Doctors, mental health experts and a large body of research support a relationship between cleaning and stress relief, improved mood and overall health.Read more
Research published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology found that clutter has a negative impact on overall well-being. It also increases stress, decreases productivity, and leads to unhealthy habits. But science doesn’t tell us which came first — the clutter or the stress. Read on to learn more about clutter’s impact and what you can do about it. ## Never Miss a Beat! ### Subscribe to Our HealthBeat Newsletter! (Tap to Join!)(Click to Join!) [...] Share this on:FacebookLinkedInPinterestX (formerly Twitter)")EmailCopy URLCopied! Messiness in our physical space, and how it impacts the way we think and feel, is getting quite a bit of attention. If you’ve ever looked around your cluttered home — or your messy desk — and felt anxious, you’re not alone. Science supports a link between feeling overwhelmed and having an overwhelming number of things in your environment. [...] Sometimes, living with anxiety, depression, or stress brings on clutter. If you’re overwhelmed by sadness or other negative emotions, you might not have the energy to clean and organize. Or, you might use shopping or accumulating things to manage your feelings. If the way you feel makes it challenging to keep your environment clean, you should:
Clutter and mess can be linked to negative emotions like confusion and tension. Whereas a clean and tidy home leads to positive emotions such as a sense of calm and well-being. By sorting and organising the clutter and mess around you, you can reduce any stress or anxiety you may be feeling and this will help you feel like you are taking control of your life. The physical activity of cleaning combined with the result of a cleaner home helps reduce stress, feelings of anxiety, and depressive [...] Whether you think of cleaning as a meditative task, or an energetic throw yourself into it task. Either way, any form of exercise releases endorphins. Endorphins send messages to your brain that changes your perception of pain and will trigger positive emotions in your body. Regular exercise has been proven to reduce stress and reduce anxiety, along with preventing depression. Cleaning will also have these effects on your body and mental health as long as these chores require some physical [...] There is a well known and long-established link between smells and scents and mental health, such as aromatherapy helping to reduce anxiety and stress. Particular smells can have a specific impact on your mind as well as your body, for instance, lavender is known to act as a sleep aid and would be a perfect scent for use in bedrooms. A musty and dirty smelling room is not going to have a positive effect on your mental health. Other scents that are linked to mental health are:
βmeaning = −0.19, p < .001; βachievement = −0.13, p = .017) except the relationship dimension that was approaching statistical significance (βrelationships = −.10, p = .054). In the present research, the five dimensions of the PERMA-Profiler were defined as indicators of a latent variable, termed psychological well-being (Cobo et al., 2020; Rogers and Hart, 2021). Likewise, anxiety and depression were defined as two indicators of psychological distress (Jiang et al., 2022; Molnar et al., 2023). [...] well-being (i.e., positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and achievement), and psychological distress (i.e., anxiety and depression). Participants (_N_=388) reported their conspiracy mentality at Time 1 and then completed measures assessing perceived control, insomnia, psychological well-being, and psychological distress 1 month later at Time 2. We conducted regression analyses, structural equation modeling, and bootstrapping analyses to test our predictions that conspiracy [...] Food Microbiology, Volume 79, 2019, pp. 85-89 Nigel Cook, …, Martin D'Agostino ### A randomized control trial investigating high-intensity interval training and mental health: A novel non-responder phenotype related to anxiety in young adults Mental Health and Physical Activity, Volume 18, 2020, Article 100327 Kristen M.Lucibello, …, Jennifer J.Heisz ### Hereditary and environmental factors of the Five-Factor Model traits: A cross-cultural study
If a messy room has ever made you feel anxious or stressed out, you’re not alone — and there’s a biological reason for it. Clutter can trigger a stress response in the body. For example, a study found women who described their homes as “cluttered” had significantly higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol throughout the day. Your brain releases cortisol when you’re under pressure; consistently elevated levels suggest the untidy environment genuinely taxed these women’s brains and bodies. [...] The bottom line: Clutter isn’t just a visual nuisance — it affects your brain health. Research shows clutter can overwhelm your mind, drain your focus, heighten stress and disrupt sleep. But don’t let clutter clutter your thoughts: By clearing your space and calming your thoughts, you can boost your attention, lower anxiety and have better cognitive and emotional well-being. ### Work with us [...] In short, clutter competes with your intended focus. Your brain’s attention system must constantly decide what to tune out and what to concentrate on, and the more clutter in the visual field or in your mind, the harder that job becomes. Over time, this can lead to reduced productivity and feeling you “just can’t concentrate.” ## The neuroscience of clutter and anxiety and stress