How Clutter Affects Your Health And Why It's Time To Get Organized!

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We talk about organization a lot around here, but for good reason! Recent studies have shown a significant relationship between clutter and overall health and well-being. Let's take a closer look.

Feelings of Displacement

An article by Psychology Today discussed the findings of Catherine Roster and colleagues from the University of New Mexico. They identified a sample of 1,500 adults with mild to moderate cluttering problems. Each participant rated their own clutter-related behaviors, in addition to other (seemingly unrelated) factors including the extent to which they felt attached to their homes and felt their home gave them psychological comfort. After analyzing the correlations between responses, the researchers concluded,

“Clutter is often an insidious and seemingly harmless outgrowth of people’s natural desire to appropriate their personal spaces with possessions … when [clutter] becomes excessive, it can threaten to physically and psychologically entrap a person in dysfunctional home environments which contribute to personal distress and feelings of displacement and alienation.”

Higher Stress Levels

Researchers at UCLA's Center on Everyday Lives and Families discovered, among other things, a link between high cortisol (stress hormone) levels in female home owners and a high density of household objects. They also determined that women associate a tidy home with a happy and successful family.

Physical Health

Marie Kondo, a Japanese cleaning consultant, shares her observations after years of helping clients tidy up. In her book, The life-changing magic of tidying up, Kondo explains

"Once the process of tidying is under way, many of my clients remark that they have lost weight or that they have firmed up their tummies. It's a very strange phenomenon, but when we reduce what we own and essentially "detox" our house, it has a detox effect on our bodies as well."

Another study showed that people are more likely to eat junk food in an environment that is chaotic. In an experimental kitchen that was disorganized and messy, participants ate twice as many cookies as in the standard, non chaotic kitchen!

Take a mental inventory of the items you use when you are creating. Are they strewn all over your house in various bins and boxes? Do you forget about what you actually have to work with because things are shoved in the back of your closet? Your creativity knows no bounds, but clutter and disorganization can make it hard to feel inspired and can actually inhibit your ability to do your best work.

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