10 Reasons We Love to Clean Our Home

No matter how you feel about cleaning, science tells us that keeping everything clean and organized is good for us. It helps us feel better about ourselves, reduces stress, improves our productivity, boosts our mood, and is a great way to stay physically fit.

It’s true that cleaning your house helps you feel good and is more than simply a chore.

In this article, we explore the benefits of keeping your home clean and organized, including the top 10 reasons why we love to clean our homes.

Why It’s Important to Have a Clean House

Before diving into why we love to clean our home, we want to quickly share with you a few positive effects of cleanliness and why it’s important to have a clean house:

Avoid allergies and reduce dust by regularly cleaning your home.
It keeps you productive to know where everything is and have nothing in your way.
Catch illnesses less often by keeping your house clean to reduce the spread of germs.
Physical and mental health benefits of tidying up have been found in numerous studies.

🩺 In one study, participants who were at a higher risk of heart disease but cleaned their homes regularly tended to be healthier and more active than those who didn’t.

Whether you loathe cleaning need some inspiration or you’re someone who proudly says “I love cleaning” and are looking for validation, here are reasons to love keeping a clean house.

1. It’s an easy goal to accomplish.

We love the instant gratification of cleaning; when you clean something, it immediately looks better. Cleaning has a process, an end goal, and a result. It’s something you can accomplish in a short amount of time and once you’re finished, you have something visually appealing that you have the satisfaction of knowing that you did.

Even something as simple as organizing the junk drawer or cleaning out the refrigerator leaves us with a sense of accomplishment. That feeling gives us a boost to our confidence in our abilities, which can carry over into other areas of our lives.

That boost in your confidence that you can succeed will make you feel like you’re ready and able to tackle other challenges in your life as well, improving your success at work, in your personal relationships, and other areas.

2. Cleanliness is a mental health barometer.

A messy house can be both an indicator of mental health issues as well as a contributing factor. Because people tend to neglect the care of their surroundings when they don’t feel good about themselves, someone having a dirty and disorganized living space can be a sign they’re suffering from mental illness.

On the flip side, a dirty home can also cause a decrease in the quality of one’s mental health. When someone’s environment is cluttered and chaotic, they start to feel ashamed and overwhelmed by a messy home, internalizing those emotions into feelings of worthlessness about themselves.

3. A messy house means a messy mind.

When you neglect responsibilities in one area of your life, you tend to do it in other areas as well. This means that the state of your home and its cleanliness are direct indicators of what’s going on in your mind. Because cleaning is one of those small, day-to-day tasks, it is a part of our lives.

When we stop attending to the task of cleaning and keeping everything organized, that’s a sign that our lives are out of order as well. Similarly, if you’re going through a rough patch in your life, paying more attention to the cleaning can make you feel more competent and accomplished, helping you to get back on track.

4. Cleaning is free therapy.

Cleaning your surroundings can trick your brain into thinking you’re cleaning your mind. Many people prefer to do their weekly cleaning tasks on the weekend or their days off because it gives them a sense that the rest of the week will go more smoothly with everything fresh and in order.

If you’re ever feeling depressed or overwhelmed by what’s going on in your life or if you’re feeling overwhelmed with a messy house, cleaning something can give you a sense of control while also improving the environment you live in.

People who love to clean also find it to be very therapeutic. When you’re cleaning, you have the opportunity to let go of your day-to-day worries and sort of let your mind wander while doing something productive, which can be very calming and another reason to love cleaning.

5. A clean home just feels better.

The act of cleaning and having a clean, organized environment also gives us a sense of control which brings us comfort. You may not be able to control your partner’s reaction to that time you left the stove on or your boss’s feelings about that big report you flubbed, but at least you can create order in your home and make it an inviting space.

6. Cleaning is a great stress buster.

A great perk of having a neat freak personality is you can turn to cleaning for a distraction from events and circumstances that may trigger anxiety.

Because cleaning is a relatively mindless activity, it allows us to turn off our brain for a while and give it a rest. So the next time you’re feeling stressed at work, do the dishes or tidy up the break room. Not only will you feel less anxious but you might get a few brownie points from your boss too.

7. It gives your brain a break.

Cleaning is pretty much mindless work, which can make it pretty calming for some. There are no important decisions to make, no critical thinking required, no feeling of the need to impress, and (usually) no deadline.

There’s been an increased interest in mindfulness and meditation in general in recent years, due to their positive effect on mental health and stress levels.

Cleaning activities have been found to have a similar effect and are actually part of religious practices in Zen Buddhism.

Because the act of cleaning is a simple task that requires repetitive physical motion and zero critical thinking, it allows your brain to take a break from the everyday thoughts of our busy, work-focused lives and instead to just “be here now” and relax for a moment.

8. It’s cheaper than a gym membership.

We like to really get into cleaning and scrubbing because it’s a good workout and feels a lot better than lying on the couch watching TV.

When doing moderate to intense housework, cleaning can be a form of exercising. Your heart rate is increased, you engage several muscle groups, and you easily burn calories.

Because cleaning can be good exercise, it releases those feel-good chemicals in the brain we know as endorphins, the same chemicals responsible for producing what is called a”runner’s high”. One study showed that even a mere 20 minutes per week of cleaning around the house can improve overall mood and increase resistance to stress.

9. A clean house keeps pests away.

This benefit of cleaning up regularly is a pretty obvious one, but it’s one of the most important and often gets overlooked. Insects, rodents, and other unwelcome critters don’t need a whole lot to live off of in order to get by.

Leaving out dirty dishes or garbage, as well as rarely sweeping, mopping, or wiping down surfaces means you’re basically inviting pests into your home, and I don’t mean your mother-in-law. Not only is having an infestation of some sort gross and disgusting, but it’s also a serious health hazard.

10. Cleaning affects other areas of your life.

Especially when your home is cluttered and disorganized, you’re wasting a whole lot of time on finding things when you need them that could be better spent on other activities. You also cost yourself more money by buying things you already own when your home is a mess.

If you have children, it’s doubly important to keep a clean and tidy household and to get them involved in doing so. Children need to learn early on how to care for their surroundings. This lesson is further enforced when they see regular cleaning and organization being modeled by their parents and other trusted adults.

Your kids need to learn how to keep a clean house to prepare them for when they have their own, and this kind of life skill gets taught by parents early on.

So there you have ten great reasons to keep your home clean, organized, and clutter-free. We hope this article helped you learn some benefits of cleaning for your life and your health.

An added bonus to cleaning is discovering belongings you really love but forgot you had.

You may not love cleaning and it may not be an enjoyable task for everyone, so it’s important to remeber the benefits from time to time and to keep your goal in mind while cleaning.

It may also make the task faster and more enjoyable by creating a playlist of your favorite songs to play while you’re cleaning. You might also invite a friend over to help you get started or just to keep you company while you clean and make it a bit more fun.

Let Us Worry About the Clutter

If you find yourself with a lot of clutter and feel overwhelmed by the stuff you know you need to get rid of but have no idea where to begin deciding what to do with it all, stop worrying!

You’ve got LoadUp on your side. You don’t have to worry about all the logistics and leg work of getting rid of your old, unwanted junk items when you book a pickup with LoadUp, the professional, licensed junk removal experts.

If you’ve got some stuff to get rid of after cleaning and decluttering, whether it’s a little or a lot, choose LoadUp for exceptional junk removal service with honesty and transparency.

Related Articles from the Trash Talk Blog:

• Cleaning up (Your Home) For Love
• Why We Love a Clean House, and You Should, Too
• How to Clean a Couch: Fabric, Leather & Microfiber
• Why You Should Start Death Cleaning at an Early Age