How Does Clutter Affect Your Health with Julie Barton

How does clutter affect your health? Has this question ever crossed your mind? Please welcome our guest, Julie Barton, author of the book, The Clutter-Health Connection, as she unravels the impact clutter could be having on your physical and mental well-being.

It’s not just about wanting your house to look beautiful so you can have people over. It’s about being healthy in your space. Feeling like you can do what you need to do without feeling the oppression or claustrophobia that can come with having too much stuff in your space.

Clutter in your home is an ongoing stressor that you can’t escape. When we are under a lot of stress, our cortisol levels rise. When these levels stay high for an extended period of time, we are going to start having physical health issues. The clutter can also affect your mental health as well. It may be causing you embarrassment or shame. It may be causing you to lose sleep, feel depressed, or over-eat. It can cause fogginess in your mind. There are countless health effects both mentally and physically that this clutter could be having on you.

If you don’t think your clutter is causing you stress, find a cluttered area in your home and stare at it for 5 minutes. Write down how you feel. Then clean up that same area and organize it, remove the excess, and put everything in its home. Now be in the space for 5 minutes and write down how you feel.

Clutter is a huge energy drain. It is a never-ending narrative in your mind telling you, you should do this or, you should do that. You feel exhausted in your own space. Your clutter is telling you that you don’t follow through on things, you don’t complete tasks. Over time you start believing this. You start to feel like a failure.

Even though it is so hard at times, it is worth putting in the effort to feel the healthful benefits; being able to breathe, and not having your stuff be another thing on your list to manage and take care of. And when we are constantly letting stuff dictate how we feel every day and dictate our thoughts and energy level, we have very little to put into our everyday life. We are not being intentional. We are being a slave to our stuff and that is not any way to live.

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1. If you are ready to clear the clutter and organize your life, check out Jennifer's website for tons of resources including her monthly membership: The Created Order Neighborhood. (use code MAKEROOM for 50% off)!
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