Stress Cleaning

The SOVA Project is happy to feature this blog post written by one in our team of fantastic SOVA Ambassadors—these are young people who help create meaningful blog posts from adolescents’ perspectives. We hope you can use their post to start a conversation with your adolescent.


It’s often late at night when my mind is racing between the items on my to do list and the upcoming day that I find myself on a mission to clean.

Scrubbing the stove, wiping the inside of my microwave, sweeping the floors. The kitchen is perhaps my favorite room to clean as I love a clean slate for when I cook a meal the next day. Once I start cleaning, it’s almost hard to stop. I know it’s not always the most productive use of my time and sometimes it’s procrastination, but I always feel so much better afterward. It’s great for my stress to see a noticeable difference in cleanliness. I feel as if my kitchen is together, my life also feels more together. The satisfaction of crossing off items on my to do list right before bed is a strategy I use to relax, even if it means I stay up a little later than I should.

When I’m cleaning, I often find myself thinking of my old Sims computer game. Sims had an environmental score that contributed to their overall happiness, and whenever a room was altered/cleaned, the environment score would increase. I feel a similar feeling after stress cleaning my own apartment. This is perhaps the same reason I find watching HGTV so satisfying too.


What are productive ways you deal with your stress? How does cleaning make you feel? Does your child clean a lot?

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