Psychology

The root cause of your clutter can be deeper than you think. Wise Bread makes a case for fixing your mind to fix your mess.

I've been messy since birth. One of the constants in my life has been arguing with my mother over how to clean the house, any house, properly. My neatnik mother is one of those naturally tidy people. You know the type. She's so put-together that she looks like a flight attendant.

"A cluttered desk equals a cluttered mind," she'd say, passing me the feather duster. "If that's the case," I'd shoot back, quoting Einstein, "Then what does an empty desk signify?" 

RELATED: Clutter-Free: The Zero-Accumulation Household

I mean, really. Does it even matter that I have a messy mind?

I asked my friend Dr. Regina Lark, who chairs the Education Committee of the National Association of Professional Organizers, if there's any connection between a messy desk and a messy mind.

"Of course," she said.

Fudge.

I hate losing arguments to my mom.

To quote Regina, "There are people who are genetically messy because their brain is hardwired for non-linear thinking. They are very right brained and artistic. They are out there in the world. They are social. They'd rather do anything other than file. So when these people come home, they get an idea for a project, and everything else just goes on the floor."

Uh oh. As of this moment I count seven, SEVEN unfinished projects in my living room alone. On the floor. Of course.

So, how do non-linear thinkers clear their internal and external space? For me, this means less about relieving the footprint of clutter and more about maintaining a level of organization that allows me to spend the maximum amount of time pursuing creative projects.

I asked Regina how she would handle a client like me. "We'd develop a workaround for you. We'd find a fix that would solve the mess but not make you feel like you are losing your creative edge. For example, I have clients who have piles of clothes cluttering their bedrooms because they hate hanging up their clothes. They argue that, 'the clothes are just going to come off the hangers anyway so why put them on the hangers to begin with?' Since I'm never going to convince the clients that hanging up their clothes isn't a total waste of their time, my attitude is, 'If you just can't stand putting your clothes on hangers, let's go get you some really awesome looking hooks.' Take the sticking point — the hangers — out of the equation."

Read on for more.

I'll admit it: I'm a sucker for New Year's resolutions. I get swept away with the promise of a fresh start and new beginnings. But honestly, if you think about it, what makes Jan. 1 different from May 1? Making resolutions at the end of December won't magically make them easier to keep. You see the thing is, I know all that, but I still can't help falling for the New Year hype. It appears that I'm not alone: 40 to 50 percent of people make New Year's resolutions, according to a study by clinical psychologist John Norcross. The downside? Only 40 to 46 percent of those resolutions make it through the first six months. However, I'm an eternal optimist; if the hope of a new year is what it takes to make self-improvement goals, it's better to start making positive changes in your life than not trying at all. Here are some tips on how to make your savvy New Year's resolutions stick:

• Ready For Change: Norcross found that being in the right frame of mind for your New Year's resolution is the best predictor of the permanence of one's goals. This means that you have to be prepared for your self-improvement plans. It helps to have a goal that's realistic, and something that you've been thinking about for a while.
• Treat Yourself: You have to set up some kind of system to reward yourself for good behavior. For example, if you're trying to cap your spending limit, figure out what kind of fun budget-friendly alternatives you can do in lieu of getting your satisfaction from expensive activities. Maybe it's reading a book at the library or a trip to an art museum with friends.

Read on for more savvy tips.

Did you know that the brain in utero can't recognize pain? Or that teaching your child a second language will help her brain grow larger? Here are some interesting facts about our brains:

1. The brain accounts for only 2 percent of the body’s weight but uses 20 percent to 25 percent of the body’s oxygen and energy supply.
2. Messages travel between neurons at different speeds. Some seem like they’re walking (one and a half feet per second), while others are fighter-jet fast (four hundred feet per second).
3. In utero, the brain has no pain receptors, so it can feel no pain. Newborns feel pain with the same sensitivity as adults, but the sensation may be less localized (they don’t know where the pain is coming from), and they may have a delayed response.
4. While awake, the brain generates up to twenty-three watts of power, enough to light up a room.
5. Simply opening your eyes activates 75 percent of your brain’s energy.
6. Children who learn two languages before the age of five have much denser gray matter as adults. They literally build bigger brains. Muy bueno!

A New York Times #1 best-selling author and host of The Dr. Oz Show, Mehmet C. Oz, M.D. is also professor and vice chairman of surgery at New York Presbyterian-Columbia University and the director of the Heart Institute. For more from Dr. Oz, check out You: Raising Your Child and You: Having a Baby, both co-authored with Michael F. Roizen, M.D.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, POPSUGAR.

Who knew your Chanel bag would make you a better person, at least in other people's eyes. Wearing brand-name clothing and toting high-end bags will get you better job recommendations and a higher pay, according to a study by psychologists at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. Researchers Rob Nelissen and Marijn Meijers write:

The present data suggest that luxury consumption can be a profitable social strategy because conspicuous displays of luxury qualify as a costly signaling trait that elicits status-dependent favorable treatment in human social interactions.

Funny, I've always thought that wearing designer labels is a detriment as they can distract people. But I guess the brands are a good kind of distraction!

If the daily grind is getting to you, slacking off (even though it might sound counterproductive) will reduce the stress from work, according to a study by the Journal of Applied Psychology. That means that if problems are popping up at work, sleeping on it or avoiding the issue would be beneficial for your mental health. The researchers say that "disengaging from stressful roles temporarily, may actually help."

Personally, the longer I put things off, the more stress I feel. That's because I put more pressure on myself to mentally remind myself to do certain tasks and I'm constantly fearful of forgetting. The to-dos linger in my mind as I'm dozing off to sleep, which is why I find that penning a do-not-do list is extremely handy!

With tweens and extended adolescence now a part of our vocabulary, it's easy to forget that adolescence didn't always exist. It's only been acknowledged in Western culture for the last 50 or so years. You were a child until you weren't. One defining birthday —13, 16, or 18 — changed everything from clothes to the quotidian details of daily life. It wasn't until the '50s and '60s that youth culture became a beat too loud to ignore, and adolescence finally gained acceptance outside psychology.

American psychologist Stanley Hall is credited with defining adolescence in 1904, but it was popularized by psychologist Erik Erickson's stages of psychosocial development in the mid-20th century. Erickson pinpointed the stage's crisis, calling identity vs. role confusion, and argued why it should be seen as a unique period in life. "It is human to have a long childhood; it is civilized to have an even longer childhood," he famously wrote. "Long childhood makes a technical and mental virtuoso out of man, but it also leaves a life-long residue of emotional immaturity in him."

But this week's New York Times Magazine posits a new theory: Shakespeare was the first person to characterize adolescent absurdity, particularly in Romeo and Juliet. Whether anyone acknowledged it our not, Shakespeare created a whole new category of life out of the star-crossed lovers, filled with wonder, exaggeration, and despair — great melodrama.

He captured the tension Erickson would later categorize by illuminating the choice every human has between childhood and adulthood. Go down senselessly but in a tragic blaze of glory like Romeo and Juliet, or grow up and develop a sense of humor, much like Shakespeare did.

Most of you — 84 percent — said that March Madness betting is all in good fun, in a recent poll. But did you know that the enjoyment you get while watching the college basketball games will be reduced if you're betting on the outcome? In fact, it even "ruins it for many people," says Stephen Nowlis, professor of marketing at Washington University. Fortune cites Nowlis:

It's basic psychology, he says: lay down a bet for a team to win, and you'll feel jittery and anxious as you watch. We are our own worst enemies.

Everyone may have conflicting opinions about Nowlis's theory. Those who participate (but aren't in it to win) in a betting pool can probably laugh off their losses more easily than those who take it seriously. If you have money on the line, seeing your favored team losing will probably hit you more negatively. What do you think — does betting take the fun away from March Madness?

Sarah White is not a licensed therapist — how can she be when the APA strictly forbids nudity? — but nonetheless her naked therapy sessions are in demand. Clothes, she says, are limiting, and she frees clients to open up by taking hers off.

Whether stripping down is a metaphor of the therapeutic process or not, Sarah does not deny she's using the "power of arousal" with her mostly male clientele. "For men especially, who are less likely to go to therapy, it's an enticing, exciting, and I think effective way, a very effective way, to get men to open up and introspect, think and meditate, on how to make their lives better and more fulfilling," she says in a YouTube video the Daily Mail linked to but is now private.

A Daily reporter went to see her for a mock session in the video above, and you can see seduction is her key tactic. "Freud used free association," she says "I use nakedness."

Freud also talked about transference — the redirection of a patient's feelings toward the therapist — though. And since transference often manifests as a crush, I do wonder how she'd address that. But, hey, if she can get men who otherwise wouldn't go to therapy in the door, maybe she's doing the world a service? For all we know the sexy librarian phenomena started in an effort to get people to read.

Surely there are more than five myths floating around, but the authors of The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find — and Keep — Love are clearing up a lot of misconceptions.

We all have an attachment style in relationships (find out yours here). Anxious (20 percent of the population), avoidant (25 percent), and secure (54 percent) are the three top-level styles, though there are a few more if you dig a little deeper.

Of course, we'd all like to have a secure attachment style, but that's not the case for 46 percent of us. There's no reason, though, that anxious and avoidant people can't have successful relationships, and that's exactly what the authors of Attached set out to prove. So here are five myths that you should ditch right now, whether you're single or attached.

• Myth: You must love yourself before you can love another.
  Fact: Not only is there no data to support this, but research shows one needs to be loved before they can love.
• Myth: The majority of men have an avoidant attachment style.
  Fact: The majority of men have secure attachment styles (as 54 percent of the population is secure). Men may take a slight edge over women for avoidant, but they are by no means the majority of men.

Read the rest below.

When you're slogging through those job applications and waiting anxiously by your phone, you must be thinking, there's got to be an easier way to do this. There is — having the six degrees separation mentality will help make the job hunting process a lot smoother. It's the theory that everyone in the world is connected to each other within six steps, so this means that if there's someone you're trying to meet, you're connected to him somehow, perhaps through a friend of a friend.

The six degrees separation mindset helps when you're job hunting, because you'll know that somewhere, somehow, someone will be able to make introductions for you and help you get your dream job. All you need to do is to tap into your friend network and try to find someone who works in the industry or company where you'd love to be. A great way to figure out your connections is LinkedIn because the social network maps out all your professional relationships for you. But the way that seems to help the most (at least when I was job hunting), is to ask everyone around if they know of anyone at the company or industry you are interested. Just start asking today, you'll be surprised at how small the world really is.