Every person has walked into a house and immediately known whether it was a peaceful or chaotic environment. The environment of a house has a much greater effect on a person’s mood than one might realise. While a cluttered environment appears to be nothing more than a pile of papers, toys, or laundry to be folded, there has been considerable research to demonstrate that it has a definite effect on a person’s mental state. Over the course of the last few years, there has been considerable evidence to demonstrate that a cluttered house has a definite effect on a person’s life satisfaction, causing a person to be more stressed out than they would be in a clean environment. There has also been evidence to demonstrate that, on average, a woman would experience this stress more so than a man, but the reasoning behind this would be a combination of social, practical, and possibly even psychological aspects of the way humans have evolved as a species.
How a messy space starts affecting mental health
A 2025 study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology found that individuals who viewed their homes as cluttered reported lower levels of well-being and life satisfaction. They were also more likely to experience negative emotions and felt less emotionally attached to their living spaces. The findings suggest that physical surroundings play a meaningful role in shaping psychological health.However, clutter is not limited to the home domain. Research on the work domain has also found that cluttered environments can lead to increased emotional exhaustion and decreased productivity. For instance, individuals working in cluttered offices experience increased feelings of being overwhelmed by work and decreased job satisfaction.The gender difference is further explained by another famous study published in 2010, which recruited 30 middle-class, dual-income families living in a large United States city, all of whom had at least one young child. The participants were asked to create video tours of their homes, talking about their rooms, belongings, and the meaning of the belongings they had gathered. The language they used during the video tours was analysed, and words that were related to clutter or unfinished spaces were combined into the “stressful home score.” Words that were related to restfulness, nature, and peaceful environments were combined into the “restorative home score.”Additionally, the participants provided saliva samples that could be analysed for cortisol, an indicator of stress patterns in the body.The results showed a clear difference between husbands and wives. For husbands, neither the stressful nor restorative home scores significantly affected mood or daily cortisol rhythms. For wives, a higher stressful home score was associated with worsening mood over the course of the day and cortisol patterns linked to chronic stress. Women who described their homes as more restorative tended to show healthier cortisol rhythms.
Why cluttered home cause more stress to women than men
A possible reason lies in the realm of the social domain. Women often have a higher burden of household work, even if both partners work full-time jobs. This can give way to a sense of personal responsibility for the state of the home.A more complex psychological reason has been given by evolutionary psychologists, however. They have argued that humans have an innate sense of well-being in a given environment. Spaces with trees and water have historically meant security, as these resources would be readily available to our ancestors.Conversely, a messy environment can be a source of psychological distress, as a crowded environment can be perceived as a source of obstacles or hidden dangers. This could be particularly the case if the subjects of the study have young children, as a messy floor could be perceived as a source of potential dangers to children. Women have historically had a high investment in child-rearing, which could be linked to the evolutionary perspective. While these theories have yet to be proven, they do give us an idea of the reason behind the more pronounced physiological stress in the women in the study.
Role of cortisol and long-term health
Cortisol follows a natural daily pattern, typically peaking in the morning and declining throughout the day. Chronic stress can disrupt this rhythm. Flattened or irregular cortisol patterns have been associated with long-term health risks. In the 2010 study, women who described their homes as stressful were more likely to show less healthy cortisol patterns. These patterns did not appear among men in the same households. Even when researchers controlled for personality traits such as neuroticism and levels of marital satisfaction, the results remained consistent.This suggests that the home environment itself may play a distinct role in shaping women’s daily stress responses.
How simple home changes can ease stress
The study does not imply that decluttering is the key to alleviating general life stressors. There are many factors that affect an individual’s well-being. However, the study does suggest that the physical living space does have an impact on the mental and physiological well-being of an individual, especially women.Decluttering and creating space, along with the addition of natural elements such as plants or access to an outside garden, may help to create a more healing environment. It may be surprising how simple changes to the living space can have such an impact.A neat and tidy living space is not just aesthetically pleasing to the eye. It has also been known to have an impact on the way an individual feels and their levels of stress and emotions. A neat and tidy living space may have significant benefits to the mental and physical well-being of women.The smallest change to the living space may have the greatest impact on the way an individual feels emotionally.
