A messy room can be a sign of depression or another mental health issue. Clutter affects your mood and can cause more anxiety or stress. Your child can get caught in a cycle of messiness that worsens their mental health and vice versa.
“Cluttering is another behavior typical in folks with ADHD. Leaving items out as visual cues is a common way of compensating for an unreliable memory or inadequate time-management system, but to the untrained eye it can resemble hoarding,” she says.
Decluttering is hard because you end up having to make a decision about everything. Little AND big. It's exhausting! If you can break up each area into small sections, and focus on each of these in turn, rather than the whole thing, it will feel a lot less like you're going through everything.
Then we tested our hypothesis: the 20/20 Rule. Anything we get rid of that we truly need, we can replace for less than $20 in less than 20 minutes from our current location. Thus far, this hypothesis has become a theory that has held true 100% of the time.
Clutter can make us feel stressed, anxious and depressed. Research from the United States in 2009, for instance, found the levels of the stress hormone cortisol were higher in mothers whose home environment was cluttered.
Blue hues are known for slowing down the heart rate, reducing respiratory rhythm, and encouraging calm and focus. In general, stick with muted or pastel shades, and avoid primary colors.
For example, Buscemi has found that blues, greens and muted brown tones tend to be great choices for both adults and children with ADD and ADHD.
So even when actively trying to focus on a task, DMN levels remain high in the ADHD brain, making it easy to slip back into that daydream or resting mode. That slippage could feel like the involuntary spacing out or zoning out that people with ADHD experience so often.
Getting and saving an excessive number of items, gradual buildup of clutter in living spaces and difficulty discarding things are usually the first signs and symptoms of hoarding disorder, which often surfaces during the teenage to early adult years.
People with ADHD who have a hard time keeping things tidy usually aren't being lazy or thoughtless. They have trouble with a group of skills needed to tackle cleanup tasks and stay organized. These skills are known as executive function.
A key difference between ADHD and hoarding disorder is the reason why people have so many possessions. A person with symptoms of ADHD may be untidy or live in a cluttered home because they are unable to organise their things whereas a hoarder will have a specific reason why they can't let go of something they own.
Having a messy room might be the result of a lot of factors. It might mean you are busy and have little time to clean and organize. It might be a sign that you have too much stuff. Or it might be the result of having young kids in the house who are usually not motivated to clean up after themselves.
Being messy is not necessarily a symptom of depression. However, it can result from symptoms of depression such as hopelessness, lack of motivation, or social isolation.
While extreme messiness can be the result of depression or behavioral issues, extreme organization can be a sign of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Teens with OCD experience intense anxiety if anything in their room or their surroundings is out of place.
Clutter in the living room might suggest blockages in your social life, as well as your relationship with yourself, while a cluttered bedroom might relate to issues surrounding your sexual self, fears of intimacy or gender roles.