{"id":991369,"date":"2026-11-06T03:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&#038;wetrend=1e7862b3-2"},"modified":"2026-11-06T06:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T11:16:13","slug":"psychologists-agree-people-who-dont-make-their-bed-in-the-morning-arent-messy-25497-c1","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/psychologists-agree-people-who-dont-make-their-bed-in-the-morning-arent-messy-25497-c1\/","title":{"rendered":"Psychologists Agree: People Who Don&#8217;t Make Their Bed in the Morning Aren&#8217;t Messy, They Just Have Different Priorities"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_991371\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-991371\" style=\"width: 1268px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-991371\" src=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/11\/iStock-1020703480.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1268\" height=\"827\" srcset=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/11\/iStock-1020703480.jpg 1268w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/11\/iStock-1020703480-300x196.jpg 300w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/11\/iStock-1020703480-1024x668.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/11\/iStock-1020703480-768x501.jpg 768w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/11\/iStock-1020703480-400x261.jpg 400w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/11\/iStock-1020703480-155x101.jpg 155w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1268px) 100vw, 1268px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-991371\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit : vetikd<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em><strong>Some people can&#8217;t leave the bedroom until the duvet is smooth and the pillows are lined up. Others walk straight past an unmade bed without a second thought. For years, the second group has been labeled messy. Psychologists see it differently.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<b>In short<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">An unmade bed is often read as laziness, but psychology articles describe it as a matter of priorities.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A University of Minnesota study found that messy environments encourage creative, unconventional thinking.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Researchers at Kingston University in England suggested that an unmade bed may be less welcoming to dust mites.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Picture this<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s 7:30 a.m. You have a meeting, a school run or a train to catch. Making the bed would take three minutes you don&#8217;t have. So you leave it. Psychology articles widely shared in Spanish-language media, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cronista.com\/informacion-gral\/las-7-caracteristicas-que-tienen-las-personas-que-no-hacen-la-cama-por-las-mananas-segun-la-psicologia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">El Cronista<\/a>, argue that this choice says less about discipline and more about how you rank your morning.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>What it says about you<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Psychology-focused articles on the topic describe a handful of recurring traits in people who skip the morning ritual:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They prioritize productivity over physical order, and see the task as time taken from something more urgent.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They have a more relaxed relationship with perfectionism and tolerate a little disorder without anxiety.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They prefer flexible mornings to rigid routines.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They separate tidiness from well-being: a messy bed doesn&#8217;t spoil their mood.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is the same logic behind other everyday habits psychologists like to decode, from <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/psychologists-agree-people-who-write-things-down-on-a-paper-calendar-instead-of-on-their-mobile-phone-have-a-different-mental-processing\/\">people who still write in a paper calendar<\/a><\/strong> to those who leave dishes in the sink.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>What science actually shows<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The strongest evidence comes from Kathleen Vohs and her colleagues at the University of Minnesota. In experiments described by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologicalscience.org\/news\/were-only-human\/what-a-mess-chaos-and-creativity.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Association for Psychological Science<\/a>, participants worked in either a tidy or a messy room. Those in the messy room came up with more creative ideas when asked to list new uses for ping-pong balls, and were more likely to choose an option labeled &#8220;new&#8221; over one labeled &#8220;classic.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Order had its own benefits: people in the tidy room donated more to charity and were more likely to pick an apple over chocolate. In other words, order encourages convention, and a little disorder encourages new ideas.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>The dust mite argument<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There may even be a health angle. A 2006 study by a team from Kingston University in England, led by Stephen Pretlove, used a computer model to look at dust mites, which need moisture to survive. &#8220;Leaving a bed unmade during the day can remove moisture from the sheets and mattress,&#8221; Pretlove said, as reported by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/making-your-bed-each-morning-makes-it-easier-for-dust-mites-to-breed-science-finds\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ScienceAlert<\/a>. It is the same idea behind <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/pulling-your-comforter-back-to-the-foot-of-the-bed-every-morning-what-it-does-and-why-everyone-recommends-it-25497\/\">pulling your comforter back every morning<\/a><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>The limit<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">None of these studies tested bed-making itself as a personality marker, and the dust mite research was a model, not a field trial. An unmade bed is a habit, not a diagnosis.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>The bottom line<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If your bed stays unmade until evening, you are not necessarily messy. You may simply be someone who saves her energy for the things that matter more to her.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42690,"featured_media":991371,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[6939],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v18.5 (Yoast SEO v20.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Psychologists Agree: Not Making Your Bed Isn&#039;t Messy | Grazia USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"People who leave their bed unmade aren&#039;t necessarily messy. 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