2 unknown things you can do right now to reduce your anxiety levels

For some people, a quick cleanup or organizational project can be beneficial for their mental health after an exhausting day. 

Even though there are many ways to deal with stress in our modern world- it is possible that seeing your home filled with order and cleanliness will help you relax more than any app on the market could!

According to verywellmind there is lot of negative impact on clutter and mess laying around you

Negative Impact of Clutter and Mess

Keeping your home clean and engaging in the cleaning process is good for you. In fact, research shows that cleaning—or the lack of cleaning—can have a direct impact on mental health.

Clutter May Contribute to Depression

For instance, a study published in “Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,” found that women who described their living spaces as cluttered or full of unfinished projects were more likely to be fatigued and depressed than women who described their homes as restful and restorative.1 Researchers also found that the women with messy or cluttered homes had higher levels of cortisol.

Clutter May Lead to Decreased Focus, Confusion, and Tension

Meanwhile, a study by Princeton University researchers discovered that clutter can make it difficult to focus on a particular task. More specifically, they discovered that a person’s visual cortex can be overwhelmed by objects not related to a particular task, making it harder to focus and complete projects efficiently.2

In some ways, clutter and mess is linked to negative emotions like confusion, tension, and irritability while an organized home tends to produce more positive emotions like calmness and a sense of well-being.

To the brain, clutter represents unfinished business and this lack of completeness can be highly stressful for some people. This fact is especially true when people have significant concerns pressing in on their lives.

Clutter and mess can create more stress and anxiety, but by cleaning, organizing, and reducing the clutter, people are able to take control of their environment and create a more relaxing environment that helps them focus better on the more pressing issues in their lives.

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In a recent study, it was found that washing yourself can also reduce anxiety. Scientists at Toronto University conducted the research, and they attributed this to cleaning being related to lower stress levels in people who suffer from obsession-compulsive disorder (OCD).

The discovery is among many pieces exploring how personal care habits like showering or bathing may be personally and psychologically linked – which has implications for your day to see you through tricky times!

But why were scientists interested in examining the link between self-cleaning and stress? “Blame it on my probably subclinical obsessive-compulsive personality,” explained study author Spike W. S. Lee, an associate professor of management and psychology at the University of Toronto and director of the Mind and Body Lab.

“I’ve always been fascinated by the psychology of cleaning behavior. Why do purification rituals exist across religions? Why do stressful situations elicit cleaning behavior in a number of non-human species? Why do we have expressions like ‘wipe the slate clean?’”

Lee and his research team recruited 1,150 adults via Prolific and had them watch a brief video clip of a terrified woman standing at the edge of a bungee jump station. The video had previously been shown to induce anxiety, tension, and uneasiness in viewers. The participants were then randomly assigned to watch a video showing how to properly wash one’s hands, a video on how to draw a circle, or a video on how to peel an egg.

Those who watched the handwashing video tended to subsequently report lower levels of anxiety compared to those who watched the two other videos. The researchers then replicated the findings in a second experiment that included 1,377 individuals recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform.

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Keeping a tidy house is not only good for your physical health but also your mental well-being. If you feel anxious, try taking some time to clean up your surroundings and see if it doesn’t make a difference.

And don’t forget to give yourself a break, too – a little self-care can go a long way in reducing anxiety!