![]() ![]() These women also displayed greater increases in depressed mood throughout the day, greater fatigue in the evening and experienced a more difficult transition from work to home. In one study, women who described their homes as being messy or disorderly displayed flatter diurnal slopes of cortisol, an indicator associated with depression and poor coping skills. ![]() Our physical surroundings have an incredible impact on how we feel, especially for women. 72% of Americans still participate in some form of rigorous spring cleaning alongside a little less than half of Britons, and research indicates that these annual fits of cleanliness have a markedly positive effect. These days, fewer and fewer of us participate in organized religions and our homes are now heated with electricity and lit with LED bulbs, but the tradition of spring cleaning is still alive and well. When homes were heated with coal, lit by oil lamps, and sealed shut against cold winter winds, spring marked the opportunity to open doors and windows, air everything out and wash a house of months worth of built-up smoke and soot. The desire to scrub our homes within an inch of their lives as soon as the weather warms up also reflects more practical concerns, too. Jews meticulously cleaned their houses before Passover, while early Christians traditionally made a clean sweep of things in between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. The practice of spring cleaning isn’t a new one, with historians suggesting that like many of today’s traditions, it may have religious origins. ![]()
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