Decluttering for Mental Health

Decluttering for Mental Health

Decluttering for Mental Health – decluttering and tidying up has become increasingly popular in recent years. You may have heard of Marie Kondo from Japan who is a tidying expert and asks you to consider whether your items “spark joy” before you decide whether to keep them or discard them. (Her website has a lot of videos which are great resources if you want to explore this further.) Tidying up and decluttering is great to keep our homes clean and tidy but the act of decluttering and tidying can be good for our mental health too.

Is clutter really bad for us?

Research has determined that there is a direct link between the stress hormone cortisol and clutter. Clutter can stop us doing what we really want to do in our lives by distracting us and keeping us paralysed. We become overwhelmed by the task in front of us so we do nothing. Sometimes our clutter and our inability to deal with it can be a coping mechanism, or way of coping with life, protecting us from feeling and living. If you think that this is true for you, you might want to talk to someone about what is going on for you and get some formal support in understanding what is behind your clutter. If you would like to make an appointment with Paul please contact him via the contact page.

Decluttering for Mental Health

Why do we accumulate things?

We accumulate stuff because of that primitive drive to hoard food or resources that we eed for survival. Couple this with the consumer society we live in, where we are pressured to buy and collect and acquire things, it is no wonder that many of us are drowning under our possessions.

What are the benefits of decluttering?

  • Gets us to focus on what really matters to us
  • Encourages us to make active decisions
  • Practices letting go of physical items and the emotional clutter linked to them
  • Gives us a sense of accomplishment
  • Increases our Self Esteem as we achieve our goals
  • Reduces anxiety – please read our blog on Managing Anxiety – 3 Quick Tips
  • Help us practice problem solving as we work out what we want to do with our things and how we want our environment to look

Decluttering for Mental Health

How do you declutter?

Clam Moment suggests

The Evening 15 Decluttering Method

The 10 Decluttering Commandments

If you want to make decluttering a practice please have a look at our blog on Micro Habits – Small Steps Eqaul Big Changes.

If you would like more formal help in decluttering your life and would like to make an appointment with Paul, please call Paul on 07843 813 537 or fill in the form on the Contact Page, if he doesn’t answer he is probably in a session, please leave him a message and he will call you back as soon as he can.