How Clutter Affects Focus, Stress, and Well-Being

Owning less liberates time and energy we can use to connect more deeply with ourselves, others, and our faith.

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The past 20 years have seen the minimalist movement flourish, with many embracing a life of intentional ownership, uncluttered spaces, and the calm it creates in their bodies and psyches.

However, clutter remains a significant problem. Although it has negative consequences physically and psychologically, when we intentionally begin removing it from our lives and environments, our mental health improves, and we create space to connect more deeply to ourselves, others, and the divine.

“Clutter is an overabundance of possessions that collectively create a chaotic and disorderly living space,” Joseph Ferrari, a psychology professor at DePaul University, told The Epoch Times.

Ferrari, who studies the psychology of clutter, distinguishes it from hoarding, which he says, in addition to being a psychiatric disorder, involves obsessive accumulation of the same items, whereas clutter is broader and more general.

“Hoarding is very vertical—you have lots of the same thing,” he said. “Clutter is more horizontal—its breadth. Hoarders have clutter, but clutterers are not necessarily hoarders.”

Your Brain on Clutter

The items around us affect the brain in ways most people never consider. Clutter makes our environment visually and mentally complex, forcing the brain to process information that has nothing to do with the task at hand. The result is increased cognitive load, reduced focus, impaired decision-making, and chronic mental fatigue.

Research conducted by the Princeton University Neuroscience Institute found that visual clutter competes for our attention, making it harder to think clearly and efficiently.

A University of California–Los Angeles study, observing families in their homes, found that cluttered living spaces were associated with higher cortisol levels, especially in women, who saw clutter as a constant visual reminder of unfinished tasks.

Ferrari, a community psychologist, and his colleague Catherine Roster, a consumer psychologist, have studied the concept of “psychological home”—the sense that your living space reflects who you are and provides genuine comfort.

“The more clutter you have, the more possessions you have, the lower your sense of home,” Ferrari said.

In his research, Ferrari consistently finds that those living with more clutter report lower happiness and a reduced quality of life. More stuff, the data show, does not make people happy.

Why We Keep Buying

The roots of modern clutter are relatively recent. Author and minimalist Joshua Becker notes in his new book, “Uncluttered Faith: Own Less, Love More, and Make an Impact in Your World,” that consumerism, at its root, began in the post-World War II 1940s. He wrote that our homes have grown bigger, families have grown smaller, and that we now have so much stuff that the average American home is estimated to contain a sobering 300,000 items.

“Material goods are more affordable than ever, because material goods are more accessible than ever, and I think technology has made the allure of possessions even more attractive than ever before,” Becker told The Epoch Times. “Social media algorithms are very good at telling us what we want and when to feed it to us.”

The mechanism is, in part, neurological. Much of modern consumer culture is built around the brain’s reward system. Buying something new triggers dopamine, the neurotransmitter linked to feelings of pleasure, motivation, anticipation, and reward.

However, the effect is short-lived. The brain quickly adapts, satisfaction fades, and we seek our next purchase. Psychologists call this pattern hedonic adaptation, and it helps explain why no amount of buying ever feels like it’s enough.

Improving Mental Health

Some reasons minimalism can improve mental health include the fact that it allows us to take back control—not only of our physical environment but also of our energies, resources, attitudes, and choices, Becker said. Rather than aimlessly drifting through life, we can make decisions that lead us in the direction we want to go.

Shifting the focus away from acquiring possessions also frees up energy to figure out what makes us happy, what’s important to us, and how we want to live our lives—and pursue those goals.

Perhaps some of the less expected benefits of owning less are that it allows us the time, energy, and resources to give more freely, build connections with people in our lives, and find meaning and purpose.

Although it may seem counterintuitive, Becker noted that when we own less, we tend to give more.

“One of the great joys I found after becoming a minimalist was finally being able to give like I wanted,” he wrote in his book.

Clearing out clutter creates space, both externally and internally. It also reduces the physical and mental fatigue that results from caring for all the things we possess.

“Every item in our home requires attention,“ Becker wrote. ”It must be cleaned, maintained, organized, repaired, stored, moved, and eventually removed. But when we clear the clutter, something shifts. The house feels lighter, and so do we.”

Connecting to What Matters

For Ferrari, who is also a Catholic deacon, the impulse to give away unneeded possessions rather than discard them carries its own reward.

“There are people who don’t have anything,” he said. “If your family doesn’t want it, OK, create a legacy. Pay it forward, because the world isn’t about me, it’s about we.”

In addition to the mental health benefits, having fewer possessions can help us focus on what’s important to us. So many of us think that having more is what we want and will make us happy, but we never quite get there. When we remove “things” from our lives, what’s really important begins to emerge.

For Becker, minimalism has allowed him to connect more deeply with his faith, which he discusses in his recent book.

“Anyone who wants to grow in their faith, owning less will help them do it,” he told The Epoch Times.

Becker, who has written about minimalism for nearly two decades, suggests that the goal is not to eliminate desire but to redirect it away from objects and toward things that matter, including love, justice, compassion, and faith.

“When consumerism becomes a part of our heart and life, we lose the opportunity for solitude and quietness and meditation, because solitude is the exact opposite of striving for more,” Becker said. “It’s when I can be content with what I have that I can withdraw a little bit and be quiet with myself and find that peace.”