Decluttering Your Life: How Cleaning and Mental Health Are Connected | Dawn Potter, PsyD
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Feeling anxious, stressed or unable to focus? Take a look around you. Clutter, mess or an untidy work area can make some people feel overwhelmed. In fact, research shows that cleaning (or a lack of cleaning) can have an impact on your mental health. Clinical psychologist, Dawn Potter, PsyD, discusses tips for decluttering, how mess can contribute to depression and tension and hoarding disorder.
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30 Comments
People used to have wood stoves and they burnt coal. It makes a mess. Soot and ash. When it got warm they didn’t need the stove so they cleaned everything. Spring cleaning. Then it started again in the fall. I think spring cleaning is a habit passed down.
Very true
I was raised this way, military style
Works for my family
Thank you xo
I can't do it physically and HATE IT!
In my family we have a few that lean in the other direction – where there can't be even one extra thing in the home or one thing out of place
Why was this so comforting 😶🌫
Yeah, none of this helps, it doesn't tell us how so this is useless
totally 👍 agree, I could not live in a messy or dirty home.
Have you ever heard about Obsessive Decluttering? Be careful about the unintended consequences of an imbalanced viewpoint.
Boring
ADHD is a pharmaceutical invention.
Lots of energy and outside distractions keeping for you from task = ADHD.
I'm frustrated with it constantly.
I feel when I have my depression episodes I clutter a lot and once it feel somewhat better I like decluttering, I am grieving a pet I had to give him away due to medical concerns because I couldn’t afford it financially so I gave him to a friend who rescues animals at the vet she works at so he can get the right help, he was my baby, & I’ve been trying to change up my my apartment and decluttering today to help me alittle in the grieving process. 🥺
Commit to 5 minutes a day which usually becomes 20. It actually an important part of self care aside from combing your hair and going to the doctor etc..I realized it too late.
Thank you for helping me
Ive realized that with my experience having bouts of depression and anxiety with my place ultimately ending up in total chaos, I start with the rooms that are used for essentials needs… those two being the Bathroom and Kitchen; which also tends to require more deep cleaning and disinfecting as well.. Once those two spaces are done, I feel an instant sense of relief knowing that even if the rest of my home is still a mess, I can now clean as little or as much with taking as much time needed, as long as those two rooms are cleaned and clear for me to tend to my important everyday living needs
I need help, I work 40 hours a week, 10k-15k steps average work day. When I get home I might cook supper or we get something quick and by the time I eat I'm exhausted. Then on my off days my autistic child is a handful, constant needs, I get the dishes done and laundry washed and dried then I'm exhausted again. Cleaning does help my anxiety but I can't do it sometimes and I have no " me time". I'm in survival mode, I can't relax anymore even if I tried
I have to be frank here. There appears to be a fairly strong bias amongst mental health professionals on this subject – one that matches the general cultural bias in favor of certain notions of dimestic tidines. But i have to tell you that, as a cultural historian, i can point to a great deal of evidence that these cultural norms are fairly recent, encouraged by modernization by both negative and positive historical events such as19th century fears of contagion and the 20th century invention of domestic technologies.
Its very possible that what psychology is really describing when claims are made about tidiness being correlated with positive emotions is, in fact, nothing to do with cleanliness itself, but rather the satusfaction that can come from confirming to a cultural norm or avoiding potential criticism.
If the psych research has ruled this out somehow, i would like to know how.
In my case, i can assure you that i experience no positive emotions from tidiness or the achievement of a cleaning goal. In fact i find the entire business very distressing and seem to thtive most in an untidy room.
I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression.
If my home is turned upside down I start to flup out and i cry 😢
It's insane.
I've always been a tidy person never left to wk without making my bed, or going to bed without doing the dishes, But that's just the way my mom brought us up.
It stayed with me thank God, but why do I flip out when I let my house chores go and that only happens when I'm not feeling good.
Cleaning your home is essential to a free mind.
But how do you make your self to start doing it ?
My home is a tip and I am very unhappy but I just can’t face it !
How do I make myself make a start doing it ?
Every time I put a day aside or book time off work to do it…I never do it !
I’m just so overwhelmed!
I am realizing more & more messy house has a lot to do with emotional issues but it may have started with physical illnesses .
What when your doctor says you do not want to get a diagnose (because it "would make no difference" or maybe she thinks this would be like annoyncing it aloud?)? How far should one go struggling alone?
Bro what were these questions
cleanliness is next to godliness..who said that?
I know when my flat is untidy I have no motivation to do anything. I’ll sit on YouTube on all day, drinking alcohol and eating junk food.
Eventually, I’ll have enough and I put on Jordan Peterson’s “clean your room” speech on my AirPods and I start in the kitchen, doing the dishes. The hot water is relaxing and helps me move on to the next thing. Getting a bin bag and just dumping all the rubbish into it. By that time, I’m on a mission and I don’t stop till my whole flat is spotless. Then I go healthy food shopping, go for a long walk and I make something healthy to eat when I get back.
I feel 100 times better mentally than if I had left it messy. Getting started and not having a plan is the hardest part; and doing it yourself is so much more rewarding than if someone had done it for you.
09:39 “burp”
I'm and was a messy person my entire life with no problems at least I thought so, I'm 34, I think I was always way less productive due to how my home was and still am. RN around me theres pure chaos and I needed some mood change to adress it, I feel like cleaning up this time will have a different impact since I feel surpressed with all the dirt around lol and it's not a peak of dirt, it's just a standard amount of it. Seems I got more sensitive over the years
Thanks for the video, it is very useful!
thank you.
Currently working with my therapist on cleaning/trauma… I hope I get better ❤