Psychology says people who compulsively tidy and reorganize aren't control freaks - they learned early that the one thing they could control was the physical space around them - Silicon Canals

"People who compulsively tidy and reorganize aren't usually chasing an aesthetic. They're chasing a feeling. A specific feeling that many of them learned to produce in childhood, often in homes where almost nothing else was predictable."

"Research from evolutionary anthropologist Martin Lang and colleagues found that induced anxiety led to a measurable increase in repetitive and rigid behaviors - not as a conscious choice, but as an automatic response."

"Repetitive, structured action provides exactly that: a known sequence, a predictable outcome, a feeling of having restored order to a corner of the world that can be controlled."

"This is not unusual or disordered. It is, at its base, how human nervous systems respond to uncertainty. The mind likes to predict."

Compulsive tidying and reorganizing behaviors stem from a desire to create order in chaotic environments. Individuals often learned to produce this feeling in childhood, where their physical space was the only predictable aspect of their lives. Research indicates that anxiety triggers repetitive behaviors as an automatic response, aiming to restore a sense of control. This behavior is not a personality flaw but a natural response of the nervous system to uncertainty, seeking predictability in an unpredictable world.

Read at Silicon Canals