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For a certain type of person, taking a few minutes to whisk the Swiffer Wet across the kitchen floor can feel akin to the soothing effects of meditation. Even the sight of a spotless homeâespecially at the end of a long, stressful dayâcan temporarily seem to blunt whateverâs bothering them.If you're one of those people, there could be a few explanations for why cleanliness translates to lower levels of stress and anxiety for you, says Darby Saxbe, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Southern California. â[Cleaning] gives people a sense of mastery and control over their environment,â she says. âLife is full of uncertainty and many situations are out of our hands, but at least we can assert our will on our living space. Clutter can be visually distracting, too, and serve as a nagging reminder of tasks and chores undone.âSign up for_ Coping,_ Tonic's weekly newsletter about anxiety, depression, and dealing with it all.From a practical standpoint, many people also like the sense of knowing that itâs easy to access the things they need. Itâs frustrating to live in a cluttered space where itâs difficult to find useful objects, she says. Her research even suggests that women who find their home environments stressful have more depressed moods during the day, while those who find their homes to be restorative experience fewer depressed moods.
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Not everyone, however, has the same affinity for cleaningâa fact you may know all too well if youâve ever argued with a significant other about the state of the kitchen sink. Personality may be part of it: Generally speaking, people who like to clean may be more conscientious and detail-oriented, Saxbe says, while people who dislike it may be more spontaneous and less organized.The psychology behind the stress-reducing effects of cleaning could also have an evolutionary basis. People sometimes turn to ritualsâincluding cleaningâto reduce stress stemming from other parts of their lives, says Martin Lang, an evolutionary anthropologist at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic who studies ritualized behavior. âThe human mind likes to predict things,â Lang adds. âWe like to know whatâs going to happen because it allows us to survive in and extract resources from the environment.âWhen we lack controlâor perceive that things are chaotic and unpredictableâwe may experience anxiety. From an evolutionary point of view, that's meant to be a helpful impulse, Lang says. âIt pushes us to take precautions and try to control our environment so there is nothing surprising that could potentially harm us.âThere are other factors at play as well: âIf there is order to the house or environment, we may feel safe and like we can move in the space,â Lang says, which could help explain its anxiety-relieving effects. When you clean, you also move and behave in predictable, often repetitive ways. This alone âcan be a cognitive mechanism that can help people deal with anxiety,â he says. In one study, Lang found that people who were anxious about a public speech ran a cleaning cloth over an object more times than those who were not anxious.At the extremes, however, a personâs relationship with cleaning could be a sign of a more troubling underlying issue. Fear of germs or contamination, an obsession with having things symmetrical or in a perfect order, excessive cleaning, and ordering or arranging things in a particular, precise way, for instance, can all be signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Meanwhile, people who feel perfectly comfortable living in squalor may have decreased activity in the brainâs insular cortex and amygdala, research suggests.But if simply tidying up makes you feel better after a tough day, thereâs no downside to running the vacuum when the mood strikes.Sign up for_ Coping,_ Tonic's weekly newsletter about anxiety, depression, and dealing with it all.
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Not everyone, however, has the same affinity for cleaningâa fact you may know all too well if youâve ever argued with a significant other about the state of the kitchen sink. Personality may be part of it: Generally speaking, people who like to clean may be more conscientious and detail-oriented, Saxbe says, while people who dislike it may be more spontaneous and less organized.The psychology behind the stress-reducing effects of cleaning could also have an evolutionary basis. People sometimes turn to ritualsâincluding cleaningâto reduce stress stemming from other parts of their lives, says Martin Lang, an evolutionary anthropologist at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic who studies ritualized behavior. âThe human mind likes to predict things,â Lang adds. âWe like to know whatâs going to happen because it allows us to survive in and extract resources from the environment.â
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