8 Secrets Why Women Love to Clean

It's a Stress Reducer

When Tula Karras, 43, a contributing editor to Self magazine and freelance writer in Brooklyn, New York, was moving apartments she found herself spending several days deep cleaning her old apartment to get her deposit back. A few days later, the building’s superintendent called to say that in his 19 years of working there he had never seen a tenant leave an apartment so clean, and Karras realized she had been using cleaning as a way to handle “the stress of the move.”

Karras, and many of our readers who responded on Facebook, also clean to take a break from the pressures of work and everyday life. “As a freelancer, when you have a deadline, you do everything else on your to-do list before doing your work,” says Karras. Some might see that as procrastination, but Neziroglu says it can be a healthy way to handle anxiety. “People may clean as a form of distraction…and doing something mindless can rest your brain.”