11 Quick & Easy Ways to Reduce Toxicity and Lower Stress

Our environments contribute to our stress or our peace

We all know that people can be energy vampires, sucking the life force out of us with their neediness and propensity for drama, but sometimes objects have the same impact.

I would be lying if I said I’m one of those organized adults who have my sh*t together. Mostly, I’m just winging it. While that primarily works for me, I recently decided that my sense of overwhelm was starting to create added stress. I’ll never be that Pinterest-perfect mom or color-coded organizational adult, but I can take small steps to clear out negative energy in my life.

I’ve spent the last several years cutting toxic people out of my life. I know how important it is to have a strong support system, but it’s equally as important to reduce or eliminate contact from toxic relationships. As I began clearing clutter surrounding me in my home, I started wondering how I could eliminate more of it from my life, thereby reducing my stress. While I’m not an expert on cleaning or organizing, I do know a bit about stress as a former therapist.

I’d like to offer a few simple ways to clear the clutter and reduce our stress. Each of these only take a few minutes, but they could give us a sense of calm and control when we’re done.

• Hide, unfollow, or unfriend people on social media who bring stress and drama rather than joy. We don’t need updates from everyone. Restricting who we see and interact with can be a powerful stress reliever.
• Unsubscribe from all the emails we often delete or ignore but never open. Instead of an overflowing inbox to deal with, we’ll have more time to focus on the content we actually prefer to receive.
• Clean up our DVR and/or watch lists to remove shows we no longer watch or care to see. We can also stop watching any shows that no longer make us happy no matter how much time we’ve invested in them already.
• Clean up our music playlists, removing songs we always skip and the ones that no longer feel good to us. Adding new music and keeping old favorites can be a way to improve our energy, too.
• Take care of something other than ourselves — even if it’s an online farm or electronic pet. While it seems like another responsibility rather than a way to clear clutter, nurturing something else can be a way to focus on growth, accountability, and consistency. Plants are my preference, but anything that involves nurturing can help us shift our perspective and improve our frame of mind.
• Clean out our contacts lists and remove those with whom we no longer communicate. Unless we have a clear and valid reason to keep those contacts, it’s probably time to delete them.
• Donate or recycle old magazines lying around the home or office. Sometimes, clutter is simple. If we get overwhelmed with objects like magazines, there’s an easy, eco-friendly solution.
• Give old books away to the local library if they aren’t a valued part of our home library collection. Libraries typically sell donated books or add them to the circulation; in either case, a donation helps benefit the community.
• Regularly check for expiration dates. Doing a sweep of food in our fridge and pantries can help us be more aware of when something like condiments expire and need to be tossed out. This also applies to skin care products, cosmetics, and medicine.
• Pinpoint objects that encourage growing piles and focus on one at a time. I have a table that ends up as home to a collection of assorted objects. I have a drawer that seems to attract junk. When we see this happening, we can give ourselves 5 minutes to make a quick dent in clearing it.
• Focus on balance when it comes to buying. If we’re bringing something new into our homes, we may want to consider what it may be time to take out. It also helps to stay away from “sale” items we don’t need that don’t contribute positively to our environments. While retail therapy can be enticing, keeping it balanced can help us avoid overwhelm and clutter.

I feel like the least organized person on Earth, but when I look at how much I manage on any given week, I know that’s not true at all. I keep my work organized and my week planned. When clutter starts to build around me, so does my stress level. When I find small ways to tackle it, I can feel my stress easing.

Life is stressful enough. Eliminating toxic people just isn’t enough. Sometimes, we need to do a frank appraisal of our environments and ask ourselves if they are contributing to our peace or to our stress. If it’s the latter, it might be time to clean up our act and finally get our sh*t together.