7 Ways Clutter Affects Your Brain

You may not be the world’s biggest slob, but you do collect quite a bit of junk unnoticed. Those things on the stairs that have been going upstairs for a while, that pile of newspapers and magazines that are really going to be read and those used tea and coffee mugs in the living room. And what about the mess in the fruit bowl, or that one junk drawer in the kitchen? All that junk has more influence than you think. Research shows that clutter affects your emotions, behavior, decisions, and even relationships with others. In addition, clutter causes stress and ensures that you sleep restlessly. And that’s not all: junk also makes you fat. What’s up with that?

1. Junk causes procrastination

Scientists at Princeton University have shown that our brain loves order. In fact, the bigger the clutter around you; the more brains tend to put things off. This procrastination has unpleasant consequences. It not only causes stress and causes you to lose the overview in the long run, but it also causes you to ‘woggen’. For many people, this so-called work-avoiding behavior consists of Netflix binging with the accompanying snacks. The result: your head is still overflowing, but with a bit of luck you will gain a few kilos. In any case, there are several studies that have found a link between a messy environment and bad eating habits. This not only shows that people in a disorganized living environment eat more than people in a tidy house – up to twice as much – but also that they make unhealthy choices much more often. In fact, people who live in an extremely messy house have a 77 percent higher risk of being overweight.

2. You get overstimulated by junk

When there is clutter all around you, a lot is happening in your field of vision. This keeps your eyes focused on new things, information that your brain has to process again. “Clutter bombards your mind with unnecessary stimuli, as it were, causing your consciousness to work overtime and preoccupied with information that is actually not that important,” explains psychologist Sherri Bourg Carter to Psychology Today. In the meantime, your attention is not focused on the things that must be done and the brain continuously receives the signal that things are unfinished. The consequence? An overstimulated brain.

3. Clutter causes stress

It’s been mentioned before, but it also shows from the numbers: clutter causes stress. Junk literally affects your cortisol levels. Women who live in cluttered homes not only produce more of this stress hormone, but cortisol levels no longer drop to acceptable levels at night. This has an impact on your state of mind, but also causes unrest in your relationship with your partner, family and friends.

4. You make less reliable decisions

Because of all the mess around you and everything that happens around you, you are less able to think. According to scientists this makes you more confident than you should and you make less reliable decisions. Your judgment will deteriorate if you are continuously surrounded by junk.

5. Your memory deteriorates due to a messy house

You wouldn’t think so, but too much junk around you even affects how your cognitive memory works. Too much junk around you weakens your cognitive memory, research shows US National Institute of Health. So you already made less reliable decisions because of the clutter around you, but because your cognitive memory is impaired, making decisions at all becomes more difficult. You have trouble concentrating and taking in and processing information.

6. Junk creates more junk

If your home is already cluttered, you also have to be careful that it doesn’t get even fuller, because a cluttered house makes it much easier for you to make (online) impulse purchases, scientists from the Journal of Consumer Research. This will fill your house and make your wallet emptier. Fancy going online shopping? Then you would be wise to clean up first. There is a good chance that your buying need will be a lot less.

7. Clutter makes you dissatisfied

All that junk isn’t good for your peace of mind. In fact: research shows that people with a cluttered house are not only less satisfied with their home, but in the end are even less satisfied with their entire lives.

Cleaning tips

• Set yourself a small, well-defined cleaning goal every day and focus completely on that. So first tackle that junk drawer in the kitchen and only then clean up your attic.
• Don’t keep things because they might come in handy someday. If you ever need something, you can probably borrow or rent it somewhere by then. Something that you haven’t used in a long time and has no sentimental value, can simply go away.
• Give things a permanent place in the house. Not only your keys, but also bills and receipts, for example. Sit down once a week to properly archive this.
• Don’t buy too many new things. Set yourself the rule that if something comes in, something must go out. In any case, think a little longer about purchases, often you ask yourself a day or three later why you wanted it so badly.