Why Making Your Bed Every Morning Matters: What Science Says

By Hugo Francisco de SouzaReviewed by Benedette Cuffari, M.Sc.

Introduction
Making Bed-Making a Habit
Executive Function and Morning Task Initiation
Environmental Order, Attention, and Stress
Building a Consistent Morning Routine
Conclusions
References
Further reading

A familiar morning chore raises a scientific question: how do repeated actions, sleep, and the spaces around us shape everyday behavior?

Image Credit: FaceStock / Shutterstock.com

Introduction

The simple act of making one’s bed provides a familiar example of a repeated morning behavior. Research on habit formation offers a basis for understanding how such tasks become automatic; however, it remains unclear how daily tasks like making the bed could improve cognition or reduce stress.^1,2,4

Psychological research suggests that environmental order can influence certain laboratory measures of self-control and creative thinking. These effects vary with individual characteristics and the task being measured, making personal preferences and context relevant to interpreting the findings.⁷

Together, findings from behavioral neuroscience and environmental psychology help explain why a consistent morning task may become easier to perform. The most defensible application is habit development: repeating a manageable action in a familiar setting can reduce the conscious effort involved ^1,2,4

Morning routines also need to be distinguished from the light-dark cues that regulate circadian rhythms. A routine may include both a household task and exposure to daylight, though their proposed effects arise from different mechanisms.^2,8

Making Bed-Making a Habit

Habits are learned responses triggered by familiar cues with less deliberation. Applied to bed-making, this suggests a possible explanation for how a repeated chore becomes part of a routine, with less need to decide each morning whether and when to perform it.^1,2,4

Habit-formation principles may support evidence-based psychological treatments, as consistent contextual cues and repetition support the development of automatic behavior. In the context of bed-making, getting out of bed could be selected as a cue, as an illustrative application of these principles.²

Describing the task as a “morning victory” may express its personal appeal, as calling it a “keystone habit” that improves subsequent decisions makes a broader claim than these papers support. Any sense of accomplishment should be distinguished from a measured improvement in other daily activities.^1,2

Image Credit: maryam jamila / Shutterstock.com

Executive Function and Morning Task Initiation

Executive functions help people hold information in mind, resist automatic responses, and adapt to changing demands. Habit formation can reduce the conscious decision-making required to perform a familiar task. For example, repeatedly making the bed after getting up could help link the action to a consistent cue, making it easier to initiate over time. 

Habit research offers a separate explanation for why a familiar task may require less conscious effort. Through repetition, the visual cue of leaving the bed might become associated with making the bed. Here, the practical aim would be to make starting the task more automatic. Developing that association would require repeated performance, with the learning process varying across individuals.^2,4

Automaticity also differs from improved executive capacity. Executing a familiar task with less conscious decision-making does not establish that working memory, inhibitory control, or performance on later tasks has improved. Habitual responses can also become inflexible when circumstances change.⁴

Dopamine participates in the neural circuits involved in learning and habitual behavior. Its involvement helps explain learning mechanisms; however, it does not provide direct evidence of a bed-making-induced dopamine boost or improved decision-making capacity later in the day.^1,4

Environmental Order, Attention, and Stress

The organization of a space can influence how people process visual information. Laboratory research shows that multiple objects compete for representation in the visual cortex, while attention and perceptual grouping help resolve that competition. These findings offer a possible explanation for why clutter can be distracting, though their application to a disorganized bedroom remains an extrapolation.⁵

The relationship between clutter and stress may also be related. A survey of 290 U.S. office workers supported a model linking demanding work with emotional exhaustion, delayed decision-making, and accumulated clutter. This suggests that stress may contribute to disorganization; however, the survey could not establish which factor came first or whether reducing clutter would relieve stress.⁶

Experimental research provides a more direct look at how environmental order affects behavior. In one study, participants with low trait self-control, a relatively stable tendency to regulate impulses and behavior, showed greater improvement in breath-holding persistence after spending time in an orderly room than in a disorderly one. Participants with high trait self-control showed no clear difference between conditions. Because the task measured persistence, the results offer limited insight into everyday executive functioning.⁷

Order also related to outcomes, depending on the task. In a second experiment, participants with high trait self-control performed better on a creative-thinking task after viewing images of disorderly spaces.

Both experiments involved students completing brief tasks, limiting their application to daily life. Together, these experiments suggest that the effects of tidiness vary with the person and activity; they do not establish that making the bed reduces stress or improves cognition.⁷

Building a Consistent Morning Routine

For someone who wants to develop a bed-making habit, choosing a stable cue and repeating a manageable version of the task is consistent with general habit-formation principles. New behaviors can be linked to an existing routine, providing a recurring opportunity to practice the action in the same context.^2,4

The time needed for an action to become habitual varies considerably, with some studies reporting that habit development can take weeks or months, depending on the behavior and individual. Importantly, missing one opportunity to perform a behavior does not appear to disrupt habit formation; therefore, a consistent approach can allow occasional lapses without treating each missed task as failure.²

Morning routines can include cues that help regulate the body’s internal clock. The daily light-dark cycle synchronizes circadian rhythms, which influence sleep, alertness, and mood. Including daylight exposure in a morning routine has a biological rationale, though any circadian benefit of making the bed remains unproven.⁴

In the Framingham Heart Study, long sleep duration was associated with poorer cognitive performance, while stronger associations were found among people reporting depressive symptoms. These cross-sectional findings concern sleep duration and cognition, offering context for sleep health rather than evidence that a morning routine prevents depression.⁹

Evidence about physical activity also requires careful interpretation. In one review, physical activity interventions improved measures of executive function among children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Nevertheless, differences in study methods, activities, and intervention durations warrant caution when comparing particular exercise categories.¹⁰

These exercise categories should be kept separate from the idea of a fixed household routine. For bed-making, the relevant practical principles remain choosing a feasible action, identifying a familiar cue, and repeating the behavior; its cognitive and mental-health effects require direct study.^2,4,10

Conclusions

Research on habits explains how repeated actions can become more automatic, while studies of sleep and environmental order describe factors associated with cognition and behavior. Making one’s bed is a plausible everyday example of applying habit-formation principles, but the cited evidence does not establish its effects on stress and executive function.^1–4,7–9

The practical value of a consistent morning task may lie in making that particular behavior easier to start and maintain. A predictable morning task may suit an individual’s preferences, but any benefits should be distinguished from those demonstrated for sleep-related factors or structured exercise.^8–10

References

1. Smith, K. S., & Graybiel, A. M. (2016). Habit formation. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience 18(1); 33-43. DOI: 10.31887/dcns.2016.18.1/ksmith. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.31887/DCNS.2016.18.1/ksmith
2. Harvey, A. G., Callaway, C. A., Zieve, G. G., et al. (2022). Applying the Science of Habit Formation to Evidence-Based Psychological Treatments for Mental Illness. Perspectives on Psychological Science 17(2); 572–589. DOI: 10.1177/1745691621995752. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1745691621995752
3. Lima, N. C., Kirov, R., & de Almondes, K. M. (2022). Impairment of executive functions due to sleep alterations: An integrative review on the use of P300. Frontiers in Neuroscience 16, 906492. DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2022.906492. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2022.906492/full
4. Lerner, T. N. (2020). Interfacing behavioral and neural circuit models for habit formation. Journal of Neuroscience Research 98(6); 1031-1045. DOI: 10.1002/jnr.24581. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jnr.24581
5. McMains, S. & Kastner, S. (2011). Interactions of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Mechanisms in Human Visual Cortex. The Journal of Neuroscience 31(2); 587–597. DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.3766-10.2011. https://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/2/587
6. Roster, C. A., & Ferrari, J. R. (2020). Does Work Stress Lead to Office Clutter, and How? Mediating Influences of Emotional Exhaustion and Indecision. Environment and Behavior 52(9), 923-944. DOI: 10.1177/0013916518823041. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0013916518823041
7. Li, Z., Liu, N., & Li, S. (2020). Environmental Orderliness Affects Self-Control and Creative Thinking: The Moderating Effects of Trait Self-Control. Frontiers in Psychology 11. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01515. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01515/full
8. Walker, W. H., II, Walton, J. C., DeVries, A. C., & Nelson, R. J. (2020). Circadian rhythm disruption and mental health. Translational Psychiatry 10(1); 28. DOI: 10.1038/s41398-020-0694-0. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-020-0694-0
9. Young, V. M., et al. (2025). Long sleep duration, cognitive performance, and the moderating role of depression: A cross‐sectional analysis in the Framingham Heart Study. Alzheimer’s & Dementia 21(4); e70160. DOI: 10.1002/alz.70160. https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/alz.70160
10. Chen, C., Fan, M., Yu, C., & Wan, S. (2026). Effects of different physical activity modalities on executive function in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychiatry 17. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2026.1824121. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2026.1824121/full

Further Reading

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• The Effect of Optimism on Health
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• Narcissism Evolutionary Psychology

Last Updated: Nov 10, 2026