Restore a sense of balance and order to your life by learning the benefits that decluttering can have on your stress levels and overall well-being.
Do you have items in your home that you no longer use, want or like? According to feng shui philosophy, clutter stops the free-flowing energy throughout your home. The free-flowing energy creates wealth, love and health for those who take it in. With clutter in the way, you have a house filled with exhausted and stagnated energy.
By clearing clutter, you open up the blocked streams allowing the free-flowing energy to be just that; free-flowing.
Decluttering has many benefits for your mind, body and environment:
- Reducing stress and anxiety
- Improves your quality of sleep
- Energy-boosting
- Surrounds you with things you love
- Boost your creativity and productivity
- Minimises allergens
- Encourages you to make healthier food choices
Reduces stress and anxiety
According to the Journal of Neuroscience, clutter can often make it hard to focus as there is too much stimuli in your environment.
A research article by Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin suggests that clutter can also result in the homemaker feeling depressed. The article uses linguistic analysis to analyse 60 dual-income spouses giving a self-guided tour of their homes and focuses on the words they use to describe clutter.
After three weekdays their cortisol levels were measured, and those with a higher stressful home score a flatter diurnal slopes of cortisol, known to be associated with adverse health outcomes. In contrast, women with lower stressful home scores had steeper cortisol slopes.
With the excess stimuli clutter creates in your home, it can manifest as chaos in your mind; there is too much sensory information. Our brains are already over-taxed by daily responsibilities, so this is where anxiety is likely to kick in. “How do I start?” “Where should I put things?” the list goes on. Simple tasks such as where you left your keys can become difficult.
In some cases, clutter can become part of a shame spiral; feeling inadequate with how you run your household. This shameful spiral increases your already stressed self; you become embarrassed by your clutter or ashamed, which creates more stress — a never-ending vicious cycle.
Surrounding yourself in clutter can also be harmful to your self-esteem. Everything pretty explains that homemakers living in a cluttered house may view mess as a sign that they are doing a poor job.
To overcome the anxiety and stress of living in a cluttered home, start small by throwing away items you no longer need, love or want. Toss out the junk mail, hang your clothes instead of leaving them on the floor, tidy the clutter on your large surfaces.
Pro tip: do not hang on to items because they might be useful one day – this is how hoarding starts!
Improves your quality of sleep
If clutter plagues your home and is a cause of stress, you may find it difficult to wind down before bed and fall into deep REM sleep. REM sleep helps your brain and its performance. Including decision making and memory processing., amongst many more.
To clear the clutter from your bedroom allowing you a restful sleep, remove any trigger items; such as your laptop, work projects; such as laundry that needs folding, and clear the clutter on your bedside table and dresser.
Energy-boosting
When we make a series of quick decisions and utilise our problem-solving skills, we put ourselves in a get things done mode. This mode boosts our energy levels to start ticking off tasks on our to-do list.
Surrounds you with things you love
Decluttering allows you to keep and surround yourself with items you love – displaying only the items most valuable to you. No longer will you have to search through things that you do not like, want or need. No more forgetting or losing your favourite items at the back of the cupboard or the bottom of the drawer.
What is the point of saving your favourite things for a special occasion? Every day is a special occasion when you surround yourself with items that bring you joy.
Boost your creativity and productivity
Have you noticed that all your best ideas come to you when you are in the shower or driving or cleaning? Not while you are concentrating on hard cognitive work?
A wandering mind, away from deadlines and stress from other colleges, has the opportunity to wander over previously unexamined solutions to any current problems you may be facing.
When removed from the pressures of the tasks at hand, you allow your mind to wander. By doing so, you help generate further insights into the project or tasks you were working on.
Physical activity can also help boost this process. When you declutter and clean your home, it usually involves a little physical activity, so look out for those light-bulb moments!
Minimises allergens
Decluttering will significantly reduce allergens in your home for those who suffer from allergies. Clutter creates spaces for dust, dust mites and mould – increasing the number of allergens in your home. When your house is full of clutter vacuuming and dusting your home frequently can feel like tedious tasks, therefore, you avoid doing them.
You end up forever moving all your clutter out of the way to clean around them and then placing them back. Doing it this way you usually leave dust and dirt behind.
Once you declutter, you are left with significantly fewer items to clean around, allowing you to minimise the causes of allergies and live in a clean environment.
Encourages you to make healthier food choices
Sparefoot explain that people who have clean, tidy and clutter-free kitchens are more likely to choose healthier eating choices than those who are overwhelmed in a kitchen full of clutter.
Being in control is the basis for feeling focused and motivated, meaning having a clutter-free kitchen enables you to make nutritious choices instead of opting for take out.
Ready to declutter?
Start with an easy task such as decluttering your coffee table or dresser, and you will be surprised with each victory how motivated you will become to declutter the rest of your house.
Decluttering is the first step in a lifelong journey. Like most healthy choices, keeping your home clean and organised is a lifestyle change; not a short-term solution. You will start carefully consider all new purchases and make a habit of regular tidying. Stay on top of dishes, empty the rubbish bins regularly and do a bit of tidying up each day to keep the clutter from creeping back in.
It is easier to take care of today’s mess than a week’s worth of stuff. By adopting decluttering as a part of your daily routine, you will see some significant changes in your mental health, stress levels and productivity.
The Wellness Blogger x
Thanks for sharing the benefits of decluttering. I’m also a Virgo, so I am obsessed with being tidy but didn’t realize it had so many benefits. Thanks for sharing 🙂
You are most welcome, thank you for reading 🙂
I am a huge fan of decluttering! I’m a typical Virgo and love to keep things tidy. I’ve found that decluttering has improved my sleep and made me more productive overall! Thank you for sharing all the benefits. Great post!
That is so great to hear! Love that you enjoyed the post x
So many benefits to decluttering! Thanks for highlighting them.
My pleasure, thank you for reading 🙂