Clutter and Mental Health

Welcome to another Mental Health Monday post! Today’s topic will probably resonate with most of you based on the statistics in the graphic below I found on social media. Since my goal here is to share information to help you live your very best life, it’s worth looking into – the relationship between clutter and mental health.

I have been a Licensed Mental Health Counselor since 1997. I do not currently practice as I work in school counseling but I’ll never let my license expire. My Monday posts have a little more of a mental health theme designed to help you think a little differently. While I am certainly not dispensing advice or treatment, I do hope these posts help you. Initially I started blogging as a creative outlet and as a way to empower women in midlife and beyond to dress and feel like the best version of themselves everyday. I have come to realize that a big part of that is how we feel about life circumstances. Hence the reason for these posts!

Clutter can impact many areas of your mental health but for today’s post I want to address anxiety specifically. Lately anxiety has been given a lot of attention. In a lot of ways it’s nice to normalize it since so many of us deal with anxiety. It used to be a taboo subject. If you mentioned you had anxiety, there was an assumption that you couldn’t function. It would be fair to say we all feel anxiety but it’s how we handle it that matters. Is it paralyzing? Does it keep you from performing daily tasks, jobs, and responsibilities? How much does anxiety affect the overall quality of your life? As a counselor that’s how I assess the degree to which anxiety is an issue.

Can You Control Anxiety?

Anxiety medication is over prescribed in our country. While it can be very helpful, it doesn’t solve the problem. To control our anxiety we have to look at the source. Is it because we have poor coping mechanisms? Did we learn how to handle life’s problems by stewing in them rather than tackling them head on? Do we come from a long line of worriers? Were we labeled “nervous nellies” and the term became a self fulfilling prophecy?

The thing is we need to really LOOK at how we live. Anxiety is worry about the future – what are we worrying about? Everything? One thing? Do we feel overwhelmed by it all?

Medication can be extremely helpful but it needs to accompany behavioral change. Whether it’s silencing the negative self talk or clearing out the clutter, when we change how we do things we experience the biggest difference in the quality of our lives. Bottom line: there are things you can do to help control your anxiety.

Clearing the Clutter

Clearing the clutter can help us to feel a sense of control over our circumstances. We waste less time searching for things and we can think more clearly when there’s a sense of order. Believe it or not your brain is constantly trying to make sense of things and organize thoughts which is why you feel so overwhelmed in a messy environment.

If you really want to get a handle on your anxiety try this: look at the spaces where you spend the majority of your time. Start with one area and define what the space is intended to be used for. Take your car for example: it’s intended use is to get you where you want to go. But what is in your car? Clothes, receipts, paperwork, make up, hangers, trash? When you are driving somewhere, are you calm and peaceful amongst the mess? Or are you sidetracked by it? Do you feel jumpy? CLEAN THE CAR OUT and see how you feel.

Do the same thing in other areas of your home or work environment. Start slowly – it might be a drawer or cabinet at a time. Eventually you’ll get to all of it. Look at projects you started and never finished – let them go or finish them if you want to. Years ago I thought I’d learn to knit. I bought a bunch of supplies, a teacher I worked with showed me what to do and I thought I was ready to go. Except I wasn’t. I stunk at it and I didn’t enjoy it. I set it in a basket in my family room. It taunted me. It had to go. Bottom line: I CAN learn to do anything I want to do but if I’m not invested in it and I don’t enjoy it, I need to let it go. Finally I donated my knitting supplies to someone who was glad to get them and I freed myself from the burden of looking at something I wasn’t finishing. I know, that’s a very simplistic example but it’s the cumulation of all these little things that impact us. If everywhere you look you see half finished projects, what message are you telling yourself?

Please know that I am not saying you can cure your anxiety by clearing the clutter from your car or home. It’s a start and whether you feel your anxiety is a problem or not, less clutter can help many areas of your life. What do you think? Are you ready to clear the clutter?

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Clutter and Mental Health