As the sun comes out and plants begin to bloom, springtime brings symbols of rebirth and a fresh start. For many, this means opening the windows and getting to work dusting, scrubbing, wiping and vacuuming their homes.
With ties to several cultural and religious traditions, spring cleaning provides an opportunity for people to cleanse and declutter.
In Jewish custom, families clean their homes to eliminate any remnants of leavened bread, or chametz, to prepare for Passover. Ancient Catholic tradition dedicates the three days after Palm Sunday to a comprehensive home cleaning in preparation for Easter.
Deep cleaning the house is a tradition leading up to the Lunar New Year, sometimes known as the Spring Festival in China, to sweep out disease and bad luck before the new year.
And, in the weeks leading up to the Persian or Iranian New Year, Nowruz — which falls on the spring equinox — families practice a deep-cleaning tradition called khāne-takānī. Translated to English, the practice is called “shaking the house” and involves more than just physical benefits.
“Just as one cleans one’s place of residence from dirt and debris, one should also clean the inner self from all impurities to prepare for a better life in the New Year,” journalist Leila Imeni wrote in Iran Daily.
In the eyes of health and cleaning experts, spring can be a great time to cleanse and declutter your spaces — both physical and mental — and set yourself up for a great season ahead.
Clean space, happy mind
Local cleaning service provider Lindsay Buck said her team sees an increase in demand in the springtime. She owns Bucket & Shine, which provides one-time and recurring cleaning services to homes in the northwest Denver metro area.
“We definitely see an uptick in the one-time deep cleanings” in the spring, she said.
Buck said she thinks people want their houses clean after they’ve been “cooped up” inside them all winter. She said having a clean home can also improve mental health, which people might desire as the new season begins.
“A clean space equals a happy mind,” she said. “When you walk into a room that’s all cluttered … it makes you feel a little bit overwhelmed, closed-in, anxious.”
A writer from the 19th century, Susan Fenimore Cooper, agreed about this freshening benefit of “the great spring house cleaning.”
In her 1850 novel “Rural Hours,” she described the spring cleaning process, which some researchers say was common in those days to rid homes of dust and grime from a long winter. Wood and coal-burning stoves were common, which left layers of filth to be cleaned come spring.
“Topsy-turvy is the order of the day,” Cooper wrote, describing curtains and carpets hanging out of doors, beds in the hallway, chairs upside down and the ceiling “in possession of the white-wash brush.”
But despite calling house cleaning one of “the necessary evils of life,” Cooper highlighted its mental reward.
“It must be confessed, however, that after the great turmoil is over — when the week, or fortnight, or three weeks of scrubbing, scouring, drenching are passed, there is a moment of delightful repose in a family,” she wrote. “There is a refreshing consciousness that all is sweet and clean from garret to cellar; there is a purity in the neighborhood.”
Cooper’s experience is backed by experts, like Dr. Jaya Kumar, the chief medical officer at Swedish Medical Center, who says cleaning can have a positive impact on one’s mental health.
Kumar said some studies have shown that having a clean space can help reduce anxiety and stress, improve concentration and make people sleep better.
“For some people, the act of cleaning helps them destress,” she added. “It’s like a focused work — when doing something, it helps them destress and let go of other thoughts.”
Health and cleanliness
Kumar said cleaning also provides physical health benefits, especially in the spring.
“You’ve accumulated dust, mold, mildew and dander all over your house because you haven’t ventilated much — everything is closed during winter,” she said. “All of that kind of piles up and causes allergies, asthma and respiratory problems, and that process of cleaning would help with some of that.”
Having a lot of clutter in the house can also create opportunities for accidents, Kumar said, so picking up and organizing one’s home can keep it safer.
“We, at the hospital, really see a lot of elderly falls,” she said. “I can’t tell you enough how important it is to have your house decluttered when you have elderly (individuals) around.”
Kumar said the trauma center at Swedish Medical Center receives many older patients suffering hip fractures from trip-induced falls. Reducing clutter also reduces opportunities for kids to ingest or choke on objects, she said.
Beyond eliminating dust and clutter, Kumar said cleaning is important to maintain a germ-free environment.
“Just having those high-touch surface areas clean by wiping away (germs) will be helpful,” she said, especially with the flu, RSV and COVID going around.
The cleaning process also requires movement, which can be good exercise and boost endorphins, Kumar said.
“If you are doing rigorous cleaning, like mopping, vacuuming — even if you do it for 30 minutes, you’ve burnt around 100 calories,” she said.
When cleaning, Kumar said it is important to be careful about what products a person uses. Some cleaning agents can cause nose and throat irritation or respiratory problems, she said.
People can check the safety of products on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Safer Choice” website, she said. Also, it’s important to ventilate while cleaning.
Some shops, like Refillary in Parker, center their business around providing clean products that are non-carcinogenic and not bad for the planet. Adrienne Grolbert started the low-waste, refill company in 2022, where she sells household and cosmetic cleaners.
“Our take on cleaning is that it shouldn’t be bad for you, or for your house or for the planet,” she said. “All of our household cleansers and our laundry detergents, dish soaps and everything else you need to keep a tidy home fall into that. They don’t have nasty ingredients, they’re not going to cause you cancer, they’re not going to kill the fish.”
Grolbert sells many cleaners, including single-ingredient cleaners like vinegar, baking soda and citric acid, in customizable quantities so people can refill containers to reduce the use of plastic. She also sells reusable cleaning tools to replace single-use sponges and paper towels.
Cleaning the mind and heart
Beyond physical cleaning, some say springtime offers an opportunity for reflection and self-care.
JaLisa Williams, a social worker, clinician and Metro State University of Denver professor, said a lot of people notice that their homes get messier when there is a lot on their minds. This shows how our internal experience can be replicated in our external environments, she said.
The spring reflects the start of the new year in many cultures, Williams said, including communities that follow the astrological calendar. As the new year begins, it’s a good time to reflect on and cleanse mental and emotional spaces, she said.
“We’re going into this new year, but you still have a lot of old mental and emotional baggage,” she said. “So, how do you actually create a full balance, so you can come in actually clean and ready to enter the new year and to be filled with other things?”
Williams recommends rest as one way to “clean” the internal space.
“If our brains are always going, our bodies are always trying to go, we are unable to actually tap into what is happening in our internal space,” she said.
Mindfulness practices like yoga, meditation tai chi and walking are also great ways to empty the mind and cultivate inner peace to approach change and hardship, she said.
“I think self-care has been a hot topic concept for the last few years, and I think (we’ve) wrapped it up into facials and vacation,” she said. “But in reality, that self-care is very deep work. When we are thinking about how can we integrate mindfulness, it’s because we’re trying to create this sense of peace or empowerment, so then we can actually navigate the things that are pressuring us.”
Cultivating a community you care about — and leaning on it — is another way to clean your inner self, Williams said.
“Are these people bringing out the best in me? Am I bringing out the best in them?” she said.
In some cases, cultivating a “clean” community for a person could mean having hard conversations, letting relationships go or showing appreciation, Williams added.
For those who choose to clean their homes this spring, Williams said to take it space by space, room by room, be gentle with yourself and lean on community members for support if needed.