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."
