Apparently the ‘Cleantok’ trend is actually making our mental health worse

The gloves are coming off

In an age of tidiness influencers, where mucking out your closet has become a legitimate social media trend, with millions of ‘Cleantok’ videos racking up billions of views, experts warn that things are getting emotionally messy.

“The constant need to keep up with these decluttering and organisational trends is causing genuine mental and physical stress,” Association of Professional Declutterers and Organizers president Siân Pelleschi told The Guardian.

“People are losing the ability, in some cases, to distinguish between a fad and a method that can benefit their life. They’re experiencing feelings of being overwhelmed and hopeless, thanks to all these different organisational trends and methods,” Pelleschi said.

With National Organising Week wrapping up this weekend, the APDO is celebrating with a push to downsize peoples’ ambitions, urging everyone to get ‘back to basics’.

“Our goal is to reduce pressure on people to achieve perfection by emphasising progress over perfection,” Pelleschi said. “We want to highlight the importance of focusing on basic needs and functions rather than aesthetic appeal.”

Trend analyst J’Nae Phillips told the outlet that hyper-cleaning and throwing away things has for many people become all about showing personality.

She told the outlet that the move is “a way for individuals to express their creativity and values in spaces that might otherwise seem mundane.”

Are we becoming too obsessed with CleanTok?. Image: Getty.

However, mental health experts say that these anti-hoarders run the risk of causing themselves a kind of harm not unlike that suffered by their polar opposites.

“Throwing stuff out to this extent isn’t mindful,” psychotherapist and psychologist Cassandra Jay, a specialist in organization for women who are busy, told the Guardian.

“Instead, the pressure to get rid of all our possessions and hone it down to one perfectly colour-coordinated airport box leads to burnout,” she explained.

On top of that, it can lead to a false sense of self and achievement.

“Which in turn leads to more stress and alienation,” said Jay.

Originally published as Apparently the ‘Cleantok’ trend is actually making our mental health worse