One study found that 80 percent of Americans experience prolonged periods of stress. Did you know that one of the benefits of decluttering is stress reduction?
In this article, we discuss the impact of clutter on your health as well as the psychological benefits of decluttering. Continue reading to learn how you can improve your health today.
How Does Clutter Affect Your Health?
Before discussing the benefits of decluttering and cleaning, it's important to understand the impact of clutter. It's not just unsightly to look at, but it's also negatively affecting your physical and mental health.
Clutter can include both physical objects around you and digital objects. It can affect your ability to perform your job well and can leave you feeling overwhelmed.
What Are The Benefits Of Decluttering
It's hard to realize the full impact of clutter until it's gone. Once it's gone, you'll immediately start to experience the declutter benefits. This includes decluttering health benefits.
Improves Your Focus
Looking at the clutter accumulating in your home, in your office, or on your digital devices is distracting. It's a physical reminder of everything that you've been putting off dealing with.
Poor focus affects your ability to produce quality work and to meet deadlines. It can also impact your relationship with your friends and family if you're constantly worrying about your unfinished responsibilities.
Reduces Anxiety And Depression
Clutter can be a sign of mental health problems including anxiety and depression. Therefore, one of the psychological benefits of decluttering is the ability to reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety.
One study found that clutter can trigger unhealthy coping strategies or strategies used to avoid tasks. This is because clutter makes us feel as though our work is never complete and we feel as though we can't get through it.
Prevents Missed Deadlines
Clutter can affect your attention span and lead to missing details you might not have missed otherwise. You're more inclined to produce low-quality work in a cluttered workspace than a clean one.
In the case of digital clutter, you could easily miss important or time-sensitive work emails. If you don't address the problem you not only won't experience the benefits of decluttering but you could risk losing your job.
Calms Your Mind
When you're constantly worrying about all of the tasks you have to do and whether you've missed something important, you can't fully relax. Even if you've visually scanned your emails only to find junk, your mind is unlikely to relax.
By decluttering and cleaning your home and workspace, you are effectively clearing your mind of some of these worries as well. This can help calm your thoughts and help you stay in the present moment when you're home and at work.
Boosts Your Mood
If your clutter is in your home or your at-home office, this can also affect those you live with. A messy living space can increase tension and anxiety, which can cause problems in your relationships.
The process of decluttering and cleaning allows you to feel more in control of your life and responsibilities. You feel less like you need to 'catch up,' and more like you're on top of everything. This translates to a mood boost.
Helps You Sleep
All of the anxiety and overwhelm associated with clutter can make it difficult to unwind at the end of the day. It's especially difficult to sleep if your sleeping area is part of the problem.
With reduced anxiety, improved sense of calm, and better mood you get the decluttering health benefits associated with a better night's rest. This can improve your performance and mental state in other areas of your life as well.
How To Avoid Clutter In The Future
Once you've addressed the clutter in your home, work, and/or digital devices, you still need to consider prevention. If you want to enjoy decluttering health benefits, then it's essential to learn how to avoid clutter in the future.
Make Decluttering And Cleaning A Habit
Clutter has a way of sneaking up on us. You can spend time decluttering and cleaning only to find an overwhelming mess a few months later. For that reason, it's essential to make decluttering and cleaning a habit.
Set a time every month or two (or every week for digital files) to go through your belongings and get rid of what you don't use or need. The more you do it, the less clutter and stress you'll have in your life.
Invest In The Right Resources
Don't underestimate the value of the right resources to help you stay organized. Programs like Mailstrom can make managing your inbox much less stressful and give you the psychological benefits of decluttering.
For your home and workspace, bins and desk organizers can help prevent lost belongings and general chaos. These can also help keep minor clutter out of sight between declutter sessions.
Don't Procrastinate
One of the reasons that clutter occurs is due to procrastination. Instead of thinking, 'I'll get to it later,' try to deal with issues as they come up. This can help keep you focused later instead of worrying about remembering all of your tasks.
With digital clutter, you can use bulk actions to organize your files and/or organize files as they come in. Organizing your documents and emails with subfiles can make them easier to go through later.
Create A System
The key to enjoying decluttering health benefits is to find a system that works best for you. However, what's even more important is to stick to your system. The best organizational system in the world is ineffective if it isn't used.
Start Enjoying The Benefits of Decluttering
The health implications associated with clutter can affect the way you perform at work and your relationships with your loved ones. The benefits of decluttering include reducing your stress and improving your performance, so why wait?
If you're ready to declutter your digital files, start your free trial today.
