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verywellmind.com
article
https://www.verywellmind.com/how-mental-health-and-cleaning-are-connected-509…
Research has found that cleaning can have a number of positive effects on your mental health. For instance, it helps you gain a sense of control over your environment and engage your mind in a repetitive activity that can have a calming effect. [...] If you've ever felt stressed, frustrated, or overwhelmed by a messy house, you likely understand the link between cleanliness and mental health. Cleaning up and decluttering can feel satisfying and even therapeutic.
When some people feel overwhelmed or stressed out, they might try yoga, mindfulness, or even a massage. For others, giving the shelves a quick dust, wiping down the kitchen, or even organizing the closet is just as beneficial for their mental health as using a mindfulness app. [...] For instance, a study published in the journal, Mindfulness, found that people who were mindful when washing dishes—in other words they took the time to smell the soap and to take in the experience—reported a 27% reduction in nervousness, along with a 25% improvement in "mental inspiration."
Moreover, having clean sheets and making your bed may also help you get a better night's rest. When you get more rest, that provides a whole host of mental health benefits including an improved mood.
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medium.com
article
https://medium.com/@RationalBadger/find-calm-through-cleaning-44d62e206392
Open loops of items. As you clean and tidy up, closing these loops helps bring down your level of anxiety. Cleaning thus has a soothing effect
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oxfordcbt.co.uk
article
https://www.oxfordcbt.co.uk/stress-management-cleaning
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 [...] Can cleaning help you reduce stress? There are lots of different ways that we can manage our stress. We each have our routine that we reach for when we feel overwhelmed. Some may try yoga, or mindfulness exercises, maybe even head to the hairdressers or for a massage. For others, dusting shelves, wiping down the kitchen or organising is their way to deal with stress. Cleaning is just as beneficial for our mental health as mindfulness related activities. For some people, coming home to a clean [...] ## How to Incorporate Cleaning Into Your Life
1 Start small and do a little bit each day. The thought of having to clean your house from top to bottom in one day can be daunting and will only add to any stress or anxiety you are feeling. Don’t make your to-do list bigger than what you can handle mentally. To begin with, choose one thing to do today, and then something else tomorrow and so on. You won’t then be faced with a daunting feeling when you come to cleaning.
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rightasrain.uwmedicine.org
article
https://rightasrain.uwmedicine.org/life/leisure/cleaning-and-mental-health
The one really important thing to remember during your cleaning and sorting: Be kind and patient with yourself. Especially when it comes to those really dark and difficult times, it’s important to allow yourself a little grace and stop carrying all the guilt and shame about not having the perfect space.
“Keep your expectations reasonable and your goals small,” says Burns. “And when all else fails, toss things into the nearest obliging closet. You'll get to it later ... you always do.” [...] There’s no sense in spending hours cleaning your closet if your living room (the first thing you see when you walk in) is a disaster. Organizing the spaces you spend the most time in first will help you feel a sense of accomplishment.
### 3. Spend just 15 minutes on your room of choice, five days a week [...] It’s not only about your eyeballs! A tidy room is great for your mental health, but one that also smells great may be even better.
“No need to splurge on expensive diffusers; some orange peels or fresh herbs can go a long way,” says Burns.
## Cleaning pitfalls to avoid
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namimaine.org
article
https://namimaine.org/spring-cleaning-for-mental-health
Let in the Light: Open your curtains and blinds to bring in natural light, which can improve mood and energy levels. Spring Cleaning for Mental
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mhanational.org
article
https://mhanational.org/resources/creating-a-healthy-home-environment
Keeping your living space clean is shown to promote calmness and a sense of control over your day-to-day life. Your home environment doesn’t need to be spotless, but clutter can be harmful to your mental state – contributing to depression, trouble focusing, confusion, and stress. Not only can clutter be distracting, but it has been shown to actually make it harder for your brain to think clearly. Neatness also provides predictability, which can cut down on brain fatigue and anxiety. Less time [...] A big part of a mentally healthy living situation is feeling like your space gives you comfort, support, and calming energy. This could look like keeping comfort items around. Your favorite blanket, a meaningful gift, or a candle in your favorite scent can go a long way in helping you feel more at home. Your home can also impact your mental health based on colors, natural light, and set-up. Appropriate light, furnishing textures and patterns, and room organization can help reduce signs of [...] Celebrate BIPOC Mental Health Month Image
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# Creating a healthy home environment
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Optimizing your space to improve your mental health is something that anyone can benefit from. For those living with mental health conditions, it is one tool of many that can be used to improve and support your mental well-being.
## Practice tidiness
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pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
official
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11925691
others; Tesser, 2000). Paralleling such mental mechanisms, we observe that cleaning can attenuate the effects of psychological threats to one’s self—as moral (West & Zhong, 2015), as rational (Lee & Schwarz, 2010), as competent (Kaspar, 2012), and as socially accepted (the present findings). This opens up a broad and exciting avenue for future research: Daily cleaning behavior, mundane as it seems, may serve supplementary coping functions that not only attenuate stress but also sustain positive [...] Either way, the potential utility of cleaning for coping with stressors such as physical risks and psychological threats bears theoretical and practical importance. Hygienic care is a human universal (Brown, 1991) and a part of our everyday life, for good reasons. Cleaning behavior confers significant personal and public health benefits (Boyce & Pittet, 2002) and is one of the most recommended daily routines by the World Health Organization for reducing pathogen risks (Pittet et al., 2009). [...] of physical or psychological stressors, even when they have nothing to do with contamination or disease and would not be resolved by cleaning. Daily cleaning behavior may facilitate coping with stressors like physical risks and psychological threats to the self.
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youtube.com
video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvGdA39KA_8
welcome back to Mayo Clinic radio I'm dr. Tom shives and I'm Traci McCray it is a craze that's sweeping the country thanks to Marie Kondo and her konmari method of cleaning clutter people are taking their belongings one-by-one and deciding you better do this by yeah they just want to know does it spark joy hold the thing and if it sparks joy you keep it if it doesn't it's time to set it aside but beyond the physical act of cleaning clutter are there any mental health benefits to tithing up as [...] you think of the stimulation that goes in through your eyeballs and into your brain that can help calm things down so actually it really does have that that way of calming ourselves and it also reduces some unintended problems - like where my keys where's my wallet where's that thing I'm looking for we're doing through like a pile of clothing that in and of itself is very stressful and unintended ly create time pressures in their lives so really what you see in your environment if it's less [...] that so far why does decluttering help your mental facility when I'm when I'm feeling just terrible and scattered and overwhelmed if I clean something I feel a lot better yeah well in one way sometimes it's just a way to like regulate emotion so a way of just dealing with distress but we think of almost any time in our lives where we've put a new coat of paint in a room reorganized something got our closet to a bear place it just physiologically feels better and more relaxing you think of the