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Writer's pictureChris Weinkauff Duranso

When your mind is cluttered and chaotic: De-clutter your external world!



This photo reminds me of what many of our lives look like right now. We all have so many stressors to manage with a pandemic, political chaos, and civil unrest at the forefront of our daily existence. So many human beings are struggling to stay healthy and to stay alive right now, with record numbers of COVID-19 cases, continued escalation in unemployment, and more people than ever battling housing insecurity and food insecurity.


Working from home or not, work is stressful right now. Not working is stressful. Everything in our lives takes extra effort now, to protect ourselves from the added dangers of a virus and all the other uncertainties. So, yes, we are all stressed more than ever. The internal chaos we are managing is a huge part of the pandemic fatigue we have all heard about and experienced. It is, of course, the reason I started this blog. Not only to help others with the knowledge I have about psychological interventions, but also to help manage my own stress.


So, today, I am going to write about the balance, or imbalance, between our internal world and external world. Our internal world (thoughts, emotions, unconscious processes, memories) impacts our external world (behaviors, interactions with others, productivity, etc.). Likewise, our external world impacts our internal world.


When we are cranky, for instance, we are likely to become more impatient with ourselves and others, forgetful, less creative, and research suggests we may even make more errors when we are in a bad mood. Some people work faster when they are in a foul mood, which is when errors can increase, while others slow down, negatively impacting productivity.


Those are examples of our internal world impacting our external world. In previous posts, I have written about specific examples of our external world impacting our internal world. For instance, if we smile long enough, we can improve our mood. When we help others or pet a dog, we can reduce our stress perception and improve our mood and feelings of optimism and hope.


Research has uncovered the unsurprising notion that human beings like to feel in control of their lives. To varied degrees, this is true for all of us. When things happen that we feel we cannot control, it is stressful. Take the entirety of 2020, for instance. The 2020 shit show is filled with examples of our lack of control. Research also indicates that when we feel this lack of control, one very common way we work to relieve ourselves of the stress associated with it is to regain control. Sometimes our attempts at regaining control are directly related to the circumstance in which we feel that lack of control. For instance, if you feel out of control of the virus, staying home, or wearing a mask are direct ways of relieving some of the stress surrounding the virus.



Other times, for good or bad, we attempt to control other things or people to alleviate the stress of feeling out of control. Trying to control other people is never really a good thing, so I don't recommend that, but there are some very helpful ways we can exert control over our environment to alleviate some of the internal turmoil.


I am compelled to say that internal turmoil needs to be addressed, not ignored. The tips I will provide today are not designed to replace authentic and honest awareness and attention to our internal strife. We must deal with and resolve, as much as we can, the stress or strife we are experiencing. But, when those internal stressors are the result of circumstances over which we have little control, the next best thing is to activate some behaviors that can take that need to control and redirect it in some healthy ways.


A simple way to think about this strategy is to reduce internal chaos by reducing external chaos. In short, de-clutter your life. Organize your day(s). Organize and prioritize your to do list. Organize your surroundings.


Organizing your surroundings is the topic for today's post specifically, as I have written about the other options in previous posts. There is interesting research about learning and memory that has looked at the influence of learning space (classroom, dorm room, computer lab, or home study area) clutter. One study in particular looked at the decor of kindergarten classrooms and then compared student outcomes in each classroom (for you scientists or research nerds, researchers controlled for different teachers and a host of other variables that might impact outcomes). What they found is that classrooms rich with art work (hanging from the ceiling, posted on walls or billboards), pictures or other distracting clutter was just that, distracting.


I have four grown children, and I remember the sense of pride they, and I, felt when their work was on display in the elementary classroom. And many parents and teachers believe a messy classroom is a sign of creativity. To that, I say, there is a time and place. A place to display work, away from the learning environment in the classroom, and a time for the mess when creativity is the point. Then, it seems it is in our, and our children's, best interest to clean up!

Students in classrooms that were rather bare on the walls performed better than those in the classrooms filled with 'stuff'. These studies were replicated in college computer labs and dorm rooms to see if clutter in either of those environs was predictive of learning, and sure enough, it was. The more clutter around students, the lower their performance was in class assessments. Again, there were controls to make sure the influence was not the other direction (students who perform poorly in class are messy, for instance).


The takeaway from this research seems to be that external clutter can result in internal clutter, reducing our ability to focus, learn, and remember. As a side note, if you have children learning remotely this year, keep this important information in mind! Set up a specific area, if possible, that is designated as the classroom area, and keep it tidy! If you have children who prefer to be 'in class' in their room, then this research is license to enforce some cleaning requirements for their room! You are welcome! Ha ha ha!


As a scientist myself, I would not dare generalize this research broadly, as that is not appropriate. However, I will use this research AND other research about the reciprocal influences of internal and external environments together to support my suggestions today.


If we want to calm our chaotic internal world, one way we can go about that is by reducing the chaos or clutter in our external world. Organize the closet, the kitchen, your work space, your learning space, your garage or storage areas. Been putting off cleaning all that stuff under the bed? This is a great time to do it. Organizing our living space, which for many is also our working or learning space, can go a long way to reduce the internal noise. Controlling the external world, without obsessing over it, please, can help alleviate some of the stress we experience because there is so much out of our control right now.


I am a big fan of rearranging furniture, and I do it more often when I am 'bothered'. My husband is perplexed by this behavior, as his opinion is that once you find a good arrangement in any room of the house, why 'waste' the energy of changing it? This is the same guy, whom I love dearly, that has a very functional approach to his domicile, and a questionable attitude about house cleaning. I will give him some slack, as he raised his son single handed for over 15 years, and there were rare occasions when a woman stepped into the house, so.... yes, I think it was more like a man cave for a long time. I should have known, after we married and I moved into his home, when his band mates would comment on the status of the bathrooms (yes, my husband is in a rock band and they practiced, pre-pandemic, at our home every weekend). I often heard: "Wow, the bathroom is so clean now!" I digress. His cleaning routine is improving, with, *ahem*, 'guidance'. And I still rearrange the furniture. There is something energizing about it. First, I get to clean really well under all the furniture this way. And second, a new arrangement is a fun change. Yes, I stub my toe multiple times when walking through the living room in the dark, but after a while, I get past that and enjoy a 'new room'! The physical change of the furniture 'feels' like a change in my mind. My mood is elevated after I have a new version of the room. This is one anecdote that supports the research: exerting control over our external environment can help reduce the internal stress experienced due to the absence of control over other areas of our life.


Another element of this to consider is that physical movement can help reduce internal chaos. When I was in graduate school, I took up distance running and spent a lot of time running trails in the beautiful San Gabriel mountains of Southern California. The more stress I experienced from graduate school, the more I ran. There is more to it than just 'movement reduces stress', and I have written about movement, exercise, nature exposure, and flow in previous posts that explain that. There is something to movement that helps calm our mind. The something, in truth, is about how movement changes our biology, our hormone production and our brain function. These changes alter how we experience stress. So, the physical act of organizing your home environment really does help reduce the perception of or tolerance for stress.


So, break out the dusting cloth and get busy! Organize those cabinets, closets, and corners! You won't regret it! Science supports this behavior, and for what it is worth, so do I!


Of course, in the mean time....


Be well, stay safe, and take care.





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