Cleanliness Is Next to Sanity?

Cleanliness Is Next to&Sanity?

You'd think it was 1950. Experts are singing the praises of
housework and its possibilities for transcendence. But this new take on
domestic drudgery has a contemporary twist; this is cleaning as a refuge
from hectic and harried lives, even as substitute Prozac. "Simple
household tasks such as ironing or doing the laundry can offer drug-free
ways of coping with stress," says Vivien Wolsk, Ph.D., a New York
psychologist who counsels her clients to turn daily chores into a kind of
therapy.

While washing windows, she tells them, imagine that your
perceptions are becoming as clear as the glass; while ironing, imagine
"smoothing out the wrinkles in your life" (or flattening an irritating
coworker). "There's something relaxing, even meditative, about these
chores," says Wolsk. "When we clean, we have a visible impact on what we
do: something is dirty, and you make it clean."

She's echoed by Margaret Horsfield, a journalist and author of
Biting the Dust: The Joys of Housework. "Housework can be used to work
out frustration and even grief," says Horsfield, who calls this activity
"heartbreak cleaning." Even if you've only washed a load of laundry or a
sinkful of dishes, "you can feel that you've accomplished something in
this uncontrollable world."