With April showers come May flowers. The earth knows when it’s time to cleanse and renew itself for the blooming of spring.

Much like the earth, we also experience a time to cleanse and renew. Spring cleaning provides a time to help not only declutter your space but also your mind.

For those of us in academics, with the weight of the academic term and many late nights studying and working, it can be hard to maintain a clean space.

 “Whenever I have things everywhere then I can’t seem to be focused, no matter what I do,” said second-year zoology major at Oregon State University, Montana Rouna.

Misha Kleronomos, instructor in the School of Psychological Sciences at OSU, considered the connection between the mental space and the physical space.

“People who have kind of chronically cluttered or chronically dirty spaces often do have characteristics like procrastination, possibly a version of anxiety,” Kleronomos said.

Something about cleaning and decluttering offers the opportunity to create a peaceful and confident first step into Spring.

With many hibernating things beginning to wake up to enjoy the longer and warmer days of spring, there is a sense of rebirth and renewal as we enter this new season. 

“It’s like a sense of renewal and reset to restart for the next season,” Kleronomos said. “Clear out the doldrums and the cobwebs and the dirt and dust from being holed-in all winter.”

It helps people focus, which is helpful for college students who are often placed in positions where we need to “lock in”. A generally decluttered room can offer the space just for that.

“It helps me to focus more on my homework and studying,” Ruona said. 

Not only can it provide an atmosphere for studiousness, but a clean room can reflect, and influence, the emotional state of the mind, as in the case of third-year psychology major Felicity Brennan’s experience.

 “I feel like when your space is clean, then it just gives you a more peaceful mindset,” Brennan said. “I think cleaning has a lot of benefits. First off, for me, it’s a way to relax.” 

But it’s not just the clean room itself that offers this space to focus and relax. The act of cleaning offers just as much, if not more, of an emotional outlet.

“You can really get out of your head if you want to when you’re doing it or you can be really in your head while you’re doing it,” Kleronomos said. “It’s mindless and you can process information while you’re doing it while not getting kind of stuck in the weeds of those thoughts.” 

Spring cleaning usually refers to deep cleaning, but in most cases, it is cleaning to whatever level feels decluttering to you. 

“We’re not supposed to be so clean that there’s no germs and we’re not supposed to have so dirty that there’s too many,” Kleronomos said. “It’s a little balance in there somewhere.” 

After the trudge of winter term, spring cleaning offers the perfect environment to finally clean and organize your space, to your extent and level.

“People who are more balanced in general, they can keep their space clean, but don’t have to keep it pin clean in order to be happy and secure and safe and calm,” Kleronomos said. 

But let’s admit it, sometimes it’s hard to remain focused on a task and mid-cleaning burnout can be hard to work through.

Some people say that some of the best ways to keep yourself focused on cleaning is to have some sort of white noise, or something going on in the background, that you can occasionally tune into.  

“If I’m cleaning my room, it’s usually putting on my music or YouTube video or something like that,” Ruona said.

To help get into the groove of cleaning, another option could be to put on something bing-eable, that’ll provide entertainment and white noise while organizing your space.

“I love watching TV shows – anime, in specific,” said Brennan. “‘How I Met Your Mother’ is a classic I will usually put on if I’m cleaning my room.”

There are many ways to declutter your space for spring cleaning. Whether it be a deep clean, clearing off the desk, or throwing away a few papers, it leaves you feeling more relaxed, focused and prepared to step into spring.

“There is a balance between the two, that you can have a life and live a life in your house and leave dishes on the counter every once in a while when you’re tired and it’s okay,” Kleronomos.