Rearranging Your Bed Linens May Alter Your Brain Architecture

Making Your Bed: A Simple Act with Mighty Brain Benefits

Every day, you make a choice—to pull up your duvet or not. But this simple act could be more than just tidying up your space, it might be shaping your brain too. Yep, you heard it right. Making your bed might be a secret weapon for a well-functioning noggin.

But let's not jump the gun, instead, let's take a dive into the fascinating world of neuroscience and explore the mind-blowing benefits of this bed-making business. 🛎️🧠

Bed-Making: Mastering the Art of Habit Formation

First things first, let's talk habits. Making your bed drips with the essential ingredients for habit formation—simplicity, consistency, and immediate feedback.

Ease: Making your bed is a breeze to do, making it more likely to become a regular ritual.
Routine: Your trusty bed is your constant companion, providing a reliable cue for the habit.
Reward: A tidy bed gives a boost of satisfaction, which reinforces the behavior.

Turns out, this seemingly pointless practice could be growing neural pathways in the brain, leading to more efficient behaviors and freeing your brain power for more complex tasks.

Keystone Habits: A Domino Effect on Your Day

Making your bed is more than just a morning ritual, it's a keystone habit. According to Charles Duhigg, author of "The Power of Habit," these powerful habits cause positive changes in multiple areas of life. As a result, taking on one keystone habit leads to a domino effect, triggering a ripple of positive behavior changes throughout your day.

By starting your day with bed-making, you're setting a tone of order, control, and productivity. This simple action makes a big impact, steering you towards better planning, budgeting, and overall well-being.

Order and Control: Mental Health Magic

Now, let's delve deeper into the mental health benefits of making your bed. Here's where things start to get really interesting.

Reduced stress: A tidy space means less mess for your brain to process, reducing cognitive load. Less clutter equals less stress.
Better sleep: Who doesn't love a good night's sleep? Sleeping in a clean, organized space has been shown to improve sleep quality[3].
Improved focus: A clutter-free space helps you focus, giving your brain the mental clarity it needs to kick your day's goals.

Making your bed creates an environment that promotes self-care and nurtures a sense of control. In a world where life rarely feels controlled, making your bed can be a powerful tool for reducing anxiety and promoting feelings of calm.

Micro-Rituals: Structure Your Day Like a Champ

Rituals provide structure to your day and, as we know, the brain loves structure. Performing the same task at the same time each day, like making your bed in the morning, creates temporal scaffolding. This scaffolding helps regulate your body's internal clock, or circadian rhythm.

The result? More consistent energy levels throughout the day, improved focus, and better sleep-wake cycles. It's all about giving your brain the structure it needs to run like a well-oiled machine.

Symbolic Actions: Shaping the Person You Want to Be

What you do influences who you are. By making your bed each day, you're casting a vote for your identity—for discipline, order, and proactiveness.

This self-signaling process reinforces beliefs about yourself, helping to shape your self-image over time. In other words, by consistently making your bed, you're telling your brain, "I am the kind of person who takes care of myself and my surroundings."

When Nootropics Meet Bed-Making Magic

Making your bed is a behavioral intervention, but brain supplements like nootropics could complement this practice biochemically. By taking nootropics alongside bed-making, you could boost the cognitive benefits, enhancing focus, boosting energy levels, and enhancing overall brainpower.

Small Steps, Big Results: The Power of Consistency

Big goals are built on small steps, and no habit embodies this principle better than bed making. While it might seem insignificant, this daily practice has the power to mold your brain, one morning at a time.

By making your bed, you're teaching your brain to complete loops, value organization, and embrace routine. This foundation sets the stage for better focus, healthier habits, sharper memory, and improved emotional regulation. Just think, tomorrow when you make your bed, you're reshaping your brain for success.

Enrichment Data:

Simplified Neuroplasticity: Neuroplasticity is The brain's ability to adapt and change structurally, functionally, and mechanistically in response to internal or external factors.
The Power of Routines: Repeated behaviors form neural pathways, becoming less reliant on executive function over time, allowing your brain to focus on more complex tasks.
Positive Psychology: The science of happiness and well-being, positive psychology highlights the importance of focusing on positive emotions, relationships, and behaviors to improve overall mental health.
Deep Dive into Habits: Habits are automatic behaviors that are triggered by cues, followed by routines, and reinforced by rewards. The "habit loop" model explains the process of habit formation and the role of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with reward and motivation, in reinforcing behaviors.

Sources:

Duhigg, C. (2012). The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. Random House.
Kolb, B., & Whishaw, I. Q. (2015). Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain. 7th edition. Sinauer Associates.
Frank, L. D., Carrasquillo, O., Shen, D., Joiner, T. A., & Wheaton, S. A. (2015). The sleep environment and sleep quality among adults in the United States: Results from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2010-2013. Sleep Health, 1(1), 87–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2014.11.001
Psychology Today. (n.d.). Keystone Habits. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/keystone-habit
Association for Psychological Science. (2021, February 22). Repetition Someone Likes Becomes Something They Like. ScienceDaily. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210222154404.htm

Making your bed every day might be underestimated as a secret weapon for a well-functioning brain, as it contains essential ingredients for habit formation like simplicity, consistency, and immediate feedback.
Making your bed can be a keystone habit, triggering a domino effect of positive behavior changes throughout your day, according to Charles Duhigg, author of "The Power of Habit."
A tidy space, such as a made bed, can reduce stress and cognitive load, providing mental clarity for more complex tasks.
Sleeping in a clean, organized space has been shown to improve sleep quality, which is essential for overall mental health.
Nootropics, brain supplements, could complement the practice of making your bed biochemically, enhancing focus, boosting energy levels, and improving overall brainpower.
Repeated behaviors like making your bed form neural pathways, reducing the reliance on executive function over time, allowing the brain to focus on more complex tasks.
The ritual of making your bed can help regulate body's internal clock, or circadian rhythm, leading to more consistent energy levels throughout the day, improved focus, and better sleep-wake cycles.
By making your bed consistently, you're casting a vote for discipline, order, and proactiveness, which reinforces beliefs about yourself, helping to shape your self-image over time.
Micro-rituals like making your bed create an environment that promotes self-care and nurtures a sense of control, reducing anxiety and promoting feelings of calm.
Making your bed each day can improve focus, foster better habits, sharpen memory, and improve emotional regulation, setting the stage for overall well-being, productivity, and success.
The behavioral intervention of making your bed and the use of nootropics can work synergistically to boost cognitive benefits, shaping your brain for improved mental health and wellness, both through lifestyle choices and neuroscience-backed supplements.