I know, I know, decluttering has been making headlines for a few years now, some claim it’s even… magical 😉 But I don’t want to talk about how you can keep up with decluttering trends.
Instead I want to share with you why you should consider decluttering your space, in the first place.
It’s good for your brain. But you don’t need to trust Marie Kondo, or the Minimalists, or even me.
Researchers at Princeton University published a report that confirms that a cluttered environment hinders your brain from focusing.
The report “Interactions of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Mechanisms in Human Visual Cortex” concluded that chaos restricts your ability to focus and process information. When you’re surrounded by clutter, it makes you distracted and you’re not as sharp as you are in an uncluttered, organised, and serene environment.
So, will you give it a try?
Decluttering Gives You More Space
Too much stuff? Not enough room to store it? Not enough calm?
With modern life, things flood into our homes all the time, particularly if you have children. So it’s no surprise we find ourselves slumped under things we neither love, need or want. So creating space by addressing that clutter is an essential activity for everyone.
Whether physical or mental, clutter takes up a lot of space. The more stuff you need to move around, walk past, the more cramped and anxious you feel. The more you have to search to locate things.
Decluttering has been making a name for itself almost as a decorating trend. But it’s much more than that. It’s an important tool for self-care. And look, I get it, it’s not always easy to avoid clutter when you have children, but recruit them to help you out. Explain to them how it works in our brains, and they will see it.
Clutter essentially is a sure way to foster stressful and anxious feelings.
Decluttering Forces You to Decide What’s Actually Important to You
Whichever way you approach your decluttering, it will force you to do something important: to choose, to decide what’s important to you. You might start with kitchen utensils you don’t use, or the kids old discarded toys, but it won’t stop there. This way of thinking, of prioritising what’s important and removing what is not, will very likely spill into other aspects of your life.
After all, why waste time reading a book that doesn’t interest you, or spend time with someone who sucks your energy.
Decluttering gives you freedom
Well, maybe not it’s decluttering itself, but I’m thinking getting rid of things, becoming less attached to things is certainly freeing, as the two minimalists’ stories can attest. We don’t need that much, we humans. And while I want my aesthetic sense to thrive and still enjoy things with no other purpose than decorative, each to their own. Whatever works for you.
Over to you?
Does decluttering give you feelings of clarity and focus, why or why not?
Please comment below and let me what you think. 🙏Thank you for being here and for adding your perspective.
Blessings, Hiddy xx
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