Clear Your Home’s Clutter to Lower Bipolar Stress

An uncluttered, tidy environment lowers stress, improves well-being, and helps maintain bipolar stability. Here’s how to open up your living space and give yourself more room to breathe.

Stress and Finding a System for an Organized Living Space

Emily L. has no patience for clutter. She gives away shoes and clothes she hasn’t worn in a while, and once passed along a meditation cushion because she wasn’t using it.

“I think a lot about intentionality,” says Emily, who lives in Michigan and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder many years ago. “Even if I decide to keep things, at least I know I made that choice consciously, and that I know I want them where they are.

“It’s about creating a beautiful space around me, because then there’s more openness, more light coming in, more room to breathe.”

The Health Benefits of a Tidy Living Space

Research has shown that having a more open environment elevates mood and leads to feelings of freedom. High ceilings and more natural light make a difference, but so does well-arranged furniture that allows you to move around easily.

In contrast, UCLA’s Center on Everyday Lives of Families documented a relationship between depression and clutter among women (men didn’t seem to mind a mess).

Shopping sprees during manic highs and lethargy during depressive lows can contribute to ever-deeper layers of stuff accumulating around us. Simplifying our living spaces may not come easily — it may even be emotionally paralyzing — but experts say once you develop a meaningful system to clear out clutter, it becomes easier to keep up.

How Start the Decluttering Process

Internationally renowned organization guru Julie Morgenstern, author of the New York Times bestseller Organizing from the Inside Out, promotes a three-part action plan for getting things in order: analyze, strategize, attack.

For planning purposes, she suggests thinking of your living space as a kindergarten classroom, “a model of organization,” that has a reading corner, arts-and-crafts area, dress-up cubbie, and so forth.

“If you’re 5 years old and find a tambourine in the middle of the floor, you know exactly where it goes,” she says. “The space works, it flows, it makes sense. It lifts you up and supports you.”

When it’s time to declutter, Morgenstern explains, a common blunder people make is zigzagging around the house: “They start out in one room going through drawers, then find papers that need to go into the office. They take the papers into the office, realize there’s no place to put them, and think, ‘I’ve got to get these files together.’ While doing that, they find their children’s memorabilia and say, ‘This belongs in the children’s room,’ so they go in there. It’s a classic mistake.”

Assessing Your Emotions About Your Material Possessions

Laurene, a professional organizer from Ontario, notes that traditional organization strategies assume that people are generally dispassionate about their possessions, and that doesn’t always work with those who have mental health conditions. Instead, she helps clients tap into their emotions.

Own too many jeans? “Instead of deciding which ones fit you, are still in style, bag at the butt — those very objective kinds of things — you might view them as ‘friends’ and ‘strangers,’” she says. “Which ones make you feel fabulous when you’re wearing them? Which ones don’t you need in your life?”

If You’re Overwhelmed, Start With the Smallest Task

Laurene, whose certificates of study through the Missouri-based Institute for Challenging Disorganization include one in basic mental health conditions suggests placing a (real or imaginary) Hula-Hoop over the space you want to clear, such as a bedside table. Once that area is done, you’ll get “completion energy” that’ll help you move on to the next spot. It might not be that day, or even that week, but little by little, as long as you maintain each space, the clutter will eventually disappear.

“Someone once coined the definition of clutter as postponed decisions,” she says. “If you take advantage of small chunks of time, things become more manageable. Put on a couple of songs and spend the time they’re playing picking up one room. Commit to do a small bit every day and build an awareness that your actions have an impact.”

Sticking to a Cleaning Routine

To that end, every night before bed, Natasha T. of Vancouver cleans her kitchen.

“It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something, and I feel prepared for the next day because I know I can do something healthy for myself, which is cook,” says the editor, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder years ago.

Natasha sticks to this “strict routine” even when she’s depressed, when she can’t find the energy to pick up couch pillows from the floor or put her nail polish away, and during hypomanic phases when “art becomes something I see everywhere all the time.” (Papers get thrown across the room because she likes the way they move through the air, for instance; once, she arranged hundreds of CDs on the floor to create a colorful collage that remained a couple of weeks).

Natasha notices a shift in her brain when her small apartment is tidy. “When your physical space is in order, it’s more reasonable to think that your mental space is in order,” she explains.

The Best Tactic — Preemptive Clutter Prevention

“We’re attacked at every turn to buy more stuff than we’ll ever use or want,” says Barry Dennis, author of The Chotchky Challenge: Clear the Clutter from Your Home, Heart, and Mind. “Unless we’re really aware that that’s what’s going on, we’re suckers for it.”

Among his tips for creating that awareness is to “build in a pause.” This is designed to halt the rush of adrenaline that comes with wanting something you’ve just seen, which can be particularly powerful when you feel the desire to overspend during a manic phase. Stop, breathe slowly, clear your mind, and consider whether the item will bring you peace and fulfillment, or add more stress in the long run.

Another tip is to “invest in your soul.” Every time you walk away from objects you don’t need, tally the amount you save by doing so. Put that money in a fund for something that truly lifts your spirit.

“All of a sudden, you have the money to invest in something you’ve always wanted,” Dennis says.

Emily says the empowerment that comes when she feels in control of her space is worth much more than any boost she’d get from a new purchase.

“I don’t want to hang my hat on what I have,” she says. “I feel very free when I simplify.”

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Making SPACE: Creating a Clutter-Free Environment

Morgenstern offers an easy-to-remember acronym for creating and maintaining a nurturing, clutter-free environment: SPACE.

• S is for Sort. Group similar items together. At this stage, don’t think about throwing anything out.
• P is for Purge. It will be easier to part with things once you see how many redundant, ruined, or obsolete things you own. “You don’t need six spatulas,” Morgenstern says. “Nobody does.”
• A is for Assign. Give everything a home, whether it’s a particular drawer, shelf, or section of the closet.
• C is for Containerize. Shop for containers after you know where your things are going to live, not before (a common error), because then you know the sizes and quantity you’ll need.
• E is for Equalize. This is about daily maintenance. Before you leave a room or at the end of the day, put everything back in its place. At least once a year, modify your system. You’ll likely have acquired things that don’t fit into a designated spot.

UPDATED: Originally printed as “Rules of Order,” Spring 2013