Written by Paul R. Burghardt, PhD

A recent article in the New York Times by Tara Parker-Pope delves into the potential health risks of clutter. I was skeptical at first, but sadly as I read on, I started to recognize some of those traits…..in myself!

How did it come to this?

Well one thing is for sure, it is partially due to genetics. If my parents are reading, I’m sure they won’t protest too much, since they were put at a genetic disadvantage as well. As for my grandparents, I knew my great-grandmother on my mother’s side, and well, my grandparents were pretty screwed too. Now I want to be clear, this is clutter, not filth. Things are moved, dusted and vacuumed, but there is a lot of stuff. Hopefully my family won’t hold this against me.

That being said, science has shown us again and again that much of behavior (as well as disease) is also due to environment. This is a pretty complex aspect and may be related to the people that are around you and how they handle clutter.

Current social issues probably play a large role too, from my interactions with people that lived through the great depression I’ve noticed that they tend to be very thrifty and don’t like to throw things away.

Another thing that I’ve noticed is a lot of people tend to “fill the space.” You move to a bigger house or apartment and something has to go into the corner, and your current couch and recliner just won’t do the trick.

How does this tie into health and brain fitness?

Well, the article mentioned “hoarding,” and it got me to thinking… ‘hey, I know animals do this and most of them don’t use coffee mugs all that much.’ But they do eat food. One of the behaviors that animals will exhibit if there is a potential lack of food, or if it is something particularly tasty, is (drum-roll)….hoarding!

In fact, the brain appears to default towards hording for food and energy stores (i.e. fat). The general consensus is that the wiring of our brains, particularly the hypothalamus which is one of the main areas where energy management is controlled, is weighted toward storing energy versus expending it. So it makes sense that other things that we view as resources or that have emotional value to us would also be potential candidates for hoarding.

Why would we do this to ourselves?

Although this is problematic for us now, it helps to step back and view this from a historic reference….even a recent perspective sheds light on the issue.

Currently, we live in a time of relative bounty (at least in the US and other industrialized nations) where we don’t have to work as hard to obtain our food. I would also argue that for the average Joe (or Josephine) we don’t have to work as hard to obtain the money to buy our food. I always try to imagine what people had to do 50-60 years ago on a daily basis. Now, a greater proportion of the population is sitting behind a computer at a desk, as opposed to smelting iron, digging ditches or whatever else went on in the early to mid 1900’s. Technology has reduced the effort required for a lot of manual labor.

A few decades ago even meal preparation required significantly more time and energy. Use of the microwave oven wasn’t widespread until the 1970’s, a pretty recent social development.

So historically things like food were (comparatively) more difficult to come by, but in general energy expenditure was a part of daily life for most people. It’s probably fair to say that in the past a lot of other things were not readily available (tools, books, hairbrushes, etc), and so people tended to hang on to them, but things have changed. Today these things are easy to come by, but we still don’t want to throw them away when they are no longer of use to us.

Unclutter your environment, unclutter your mind!

The NYT article mentions compulsive hoarders, which is an extreme behavior. But is moderate clutter a result of a bigger health problem? I don’t think there are any data to support that claim, so we don’t really know and I wouldn’t get too worried.

Could control of clutter and better organization help improve our health? I would bet yes. Actually the article hinted at this point when it mentioned “How are you going to shoot a couple of hoops with your son if you can’t even find the basketball?” This is a great point.

Organization would also help reduce stress. Ever had to quickly find a receipt that you set down somewhere only to spend an hour and a half (and expend lot of patience) searching for it? Not so good for the stress level, and it takes up a lot of time that could be spent relaxing, exercising, or learning something new.

So there isn’t a lot of advice on this post, but I thought the NYT article was interesting. Plus this is a worthwhile personal aspect to consider working on. Just remember that you may be battling against some inherited tendencies, but you can ultimately turn something that requires effort and thought into habit. For me this will be a priority for the new-year (a sort of resolution if you will), to organize and simplify… for clarity and my health.

Paul Burghardt, PhD
Brain Fit For Life