How Does the “Over-Cleaning” Trend Affect Your Mental Health?
In an era where cleaning out your wardrobe has become a legitimate trend on social media, with influencers flooding platforms with millions of CleanTok (cleaning and decluttering) videos amassing billions of views, experts warn that things have gotten “emotionally messy.”
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On this topic, Siân Bileski, president of the Association of Professional Organizers in the field of tidying and organizing, told The Guardian: “The constant need to keep up with these trends in organizing and decluttering creates real psychological and physical pressure.”
She added, “In some cases, people lose the ability to distinguish between a fad and what can truly benefit their lives. They experience burnout and feelings of hopelessness, thanks to all these various organizational trends and methods.”
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Bileski emphasized: “Our goal is to relieve the pressure on people to achieve perfection by highlighting that perfectionism can be exhausting. We want to focus on the importance of addressing basic needs and functions rather than purely focusing on aesthetics.”
For The Guardian, trend analyst Janaye Phillips believes that excessive cleaning and decluttering have become a way for many people to showcase their personality, describing the act as “a means for individuals to express their creativity and values in spaces that may otherwise seem ordinary.”
However, mental health experts warn that people who dislike order may risk causing themselves harm similar to those obsessed with cleanliness. Psychotherapist and psychologist Cassandra Jay, who specializes in organizing for busy women, told The Guardian: “Decluttering to this extent isn’t a conscious act.”
She added: “Instead, the pressure to rid ourselves of all our possessions and organize them into one perfectly color-coordinated box leads to burnout.”
