Cleaning as a mental strategy

Emptying a closet on a day of low energy is not trivial. Behind this almost compulsive reflex, science sees a real strategy to take back control of one's daily life.

French cleaning habits

According to a Ifop survey, only a third of French people clean regularly at home, with 34% cleaning at least three times a week. The more regular the practice, the more it becomes a source of pleasure: 58% of people who clean regularly enjoy doing so, compared to 38% for the general population.

Clean home and mental health

A clean home for a clear mind is one of the most cited studies in environmental psychology. In 2010, psychologists Darby Saxbe and Rena Repetti analyzed, via a linguistic analysis software, the guided tours of their home filmed by 60 dual-income couples, calculating the frequency of words describing disorder, the feeling of an unfinished home, calming words and words related to nature.

Psychological effects of clutter

Result, published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin: on three days of the week following these visits, women whose speech evoked a home more "stressful" presented flattened diurnal cortisol profiles, associated with negative effects on health, when those describing an interior more "restorative" showed healthier hormonal profiles.

Clutter and mental load

This link between visual clutter and mental load would not be trivial: each object that lingers would act as a silent reminder of an unfinished task, keeping the brain in a state of light vigilance. Conversely, a cleared interior, even modestly, would send a calming signal to the nervous system.

Tidying and psychological well-being

How tidying up alleviates stress? A clue comes from a study published in 2016 in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, conducted on a large heterogeneous sample of 543 people in the Netherlands. Its authors show that active engagement strategies against stress, such as active confrontation, are associated with a stronger sense of control, which is positively linked to psychological well-being.

Tidying as active response

Tidying up corresponds exactly to this type of active response: sorting, wiping, folding, it is acting concretely on a small part of reality when the rest seems uncontrollable. This gesture offers an immediate and visible satisfaction, unlike worries often vague or out of reach.

Meditative dimension of cleaning

Added to this is a quasi-meditative dimension: the repetitive gestures of cleaning, focused on the present moment, divert attention from anxious thoughts. Tidying one's closet, finally, may be first and foremost tidying one's mind.