Health

Too Sentimental to Declutter? Start Here.

Published

10 months ago

March 1, 2025

Too Sentimental to Declutter? Start Here.

Kim Allen doesn’t like clutter. But when it comes to some of her most sentimental items, she finds it hard to let go.

Near the top of the list is a ceramic creature that her daughter made years ago. It has one eye, a lolling tongue and a crop of blue hair. She displays it in a prominent place near her bathroom sink because it always makes her smile.

But there are other keepsakes that don’t bring the same kind of joy — such as memorabilia and artwork handed down from her relatives — that are only taking up space, physically and emotionally.

“Hopefully I will be retiring at age 67,” said Ms. Allen, who is 52 and lives in Sherrill, N.Y. “Do I really want to deal with all of this excess stuff then? No, I want to be having fun with my friends and family, enjoying the life I worked so hard to build.”

And yet for a long time, Ms. Allen felt uneasy about discarding the family heirlooms.

Sentimental items are among the hardest belongings to part with. The mementos can feel intertwined in our identity, particularly if they once provided us comfort or belonged to a loved one. Getting rid of them can signal that certain chapters of our lives have closed, said Selena Jones, a grief and trauma therapist in Ontario who coaches older adults in the art of decluttering.

“People get caught up in the fear that if they let something go that is sentimental, that they will forget the memory,” she said. But our memories live inside us, she added, not in our things.

If you’re looking to pare down some of your most meaningful items, here are gentle ways to get started from decluttering experts.

Build Your Decluttering ‘Muscle’

To kick off the process, reflect on why you want to declutter in the first place, said Dr. Carolyn Rodriguez, an expert in hoarding disorder and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford Medicine.

The “why” will serve as your motivation. For example, maybe you want to avoid leaving behind a slew of items for your children to sort through after you’ve died. Maybe you simply want a room or space to be more functional.

For Lee Shuer, 50, who lives with symptoms of hoarding disorder, making the choice to trim back his sentimental items was an enormous challenge at first.

His drive to collect things began in childhood. When he got his own space, stuff filled his home in Northampton, Mass., spilling onto the porch and choking the hallways. He eventually realized that he was clinging to things that reminded him of people, places and experiences from his past.

“I wanted to make room for my future,” Mr. Shuer said. He envisioned having a space that would be welcoming for friends, family and, eventually, a romantic partner. Now, he helps people declutter their homes, and leads workshops, which he helped develop, for those with hoarding disorder.

Once your motivation becomes clear, Dr. Rodriguez advises tackling the low-hanging fruit: the common areas that you use every day.

By focusing on decluttering the living room and the bathroom, for example, your efforts will be immediately visible and rewarding, Dr. Rodriguez said.

Then work your way up to the items that feel the toughest to discard.

Prioritize the Items That ‘Amplify Joy’

After his mother died, Joshua Fields Millburn, a host of the podcast “The Minimalists,” learned that the fewer sentimental items he had, the more value he got out of them.

“Because if everything’s sentimental, then nothing’s sentimental,” he said.

So rather than putting everything in a “clutter mausoleum,” he said, choose the few things that amplify your joy and consider displaying them, he advised.

Also ask yourself whether you would pay money for any given item again. If not, that’s a sign you should let it go, Mr. Millburn said. If you think you might want to look at it again, consider taking a picture and storing it in the cloud or a special folder in your computer.

Ms. Allen, who has managed to whittle down some of her more sentimental items, faced a tougher challenge when considering her deceased relatives’ hand-me-downs — but eventually she had to admit that she and her daughter didn’t want them.

At first, this made her feel guilty.

Emotions like this “keep us stuck, and it can lead to procrastination,” she said.

Do a Little at a Time, but Do It Consistently

To avoid becoming overwhelmed, Ms. Jones suggested making your task as small as possible. You might pick one room; one type of item, like a big stack of paper; or a pocket of time, such as every Saturday at 3 p.m. Then stick with it. Even if you only spend 10 minutes at a time decluttering, you’ll see progress.

Susan Litt, 49, in Richmond, Va., is continually sorting through the artwork that accumulated from her two children. “You can’t have 10 bins of things for your kids,” she said. “It’s overwhelming.”

Now that her children are teenagers, she asks for their input on what holds meaning and what can go. She also avoids trying to sort everything in one sitting — “that’s too drastic for me,” she said. Instead, she’ll return to the same pile of things in a few months.

Try These Decision-Making Techniques

If you’re not sure where to start, Dr. Rodriguez suggested, pick up an item and ask yourself two questions: 1) What comes to mind when you hold this item? 2) What if you got rid of it?

It’s often helpful to share your answers with a friend or family member, Dr. Rodriguez added. Simply talking about the item and the time period that it represents can sometimes help people let go, she added.

You can also ask a friend or neighbor to hold onto something you are considering parting with for a week, Mr. Shuer suggested. Then see how you feel when the week is up. Was it as difficult as you anticipated?

Steve Wobrak, 67, of Latrobe, Pa., said this strategy helped him to finally give away one of his daughter’s many elephant figurines — years after she died.

“I got some tears out,” he said. Parting with one sentimental item made getting rid of others a bit easier. He soon realized that the memories didn’t disappear, even if the items did.

“It’s OK to have emotional attachments,” Dr. Rodriguez said. “You just can’t keep all of the things.”

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Health

New Weight Loss Drug Beats Ozempic and Eases Joint Pain With ‘Insane’ Results, Doctors Say

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9 hours ago

December 17, 2025

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Health

Major study reveals why COVID vaccine can trigger heart issues, especially in one group

Published

10 hours ago

December 17, 2025

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Major study reveals why COVID vaccine can trigger heart issues, especially in one group

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One of the most widely known risks linked to the COVID-19 vaccine is myocarditis, especially in young males — and now a new Stanford study has shed some light on why this rare effect can occur.

Myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart, occurs in about one in 140,000 people who receive the first dose of the vaccine and one in 32,000 after the second dose, according to a Stanford press release. Among males 30 and younger, that rises to one in 16,750.

Symptoms of the condition include chest pain, shortness of breath, fever and palpitations, which can occur just one to three days after vaccination. Another marker is heightened levels of cardiac troponin, which indicates that the heart muscle has been damaged.

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In most cases, people who experience myocarditis recover quickly and restore full heart function, according to study author Joseph Wu, MD, PhD, the director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and a professor of medicine and radiology.

One of the most widely known risks linked to the COVID-19 vaccine is myocarditis, especially in young males. (iStock)

“It’s not a heart attack in the traditional sense,” Wu told Fox News Digital. “There’s no blockage of blood vessels as found in most common heart attacks. When symptoms are mild and the inflammation hasn’t caused structural damage to the heart, we just observe these patients to make sure they recover.”

In rare cases, however, severe heart inflammation can lead to hospitalizations, critical illness or death, Wu noted.

Finding the cause

The new Stanford study — conducted in collaboration with The Ohio State University — aimed to determine the reasons for the myocarditis. The research team analyzed blood samples from vaccinated people, some with myocarditis and some without.

They found that those with myocarditis had two proteins in their blood, CXCL10 and IFN-gamma, which are released by immune cells. Those proteins then activate more inflammation.

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“We think these two are the major drivers of myocarditis,” said Wu. “Your body needs these cytokines to ward off viruses. It’s essential to immune response, but can become toxic in large amounts.”

In mouse and heart tissue models, high levels of these proteins led to signs of heart irritation, similar to mild myocarditis.

Prevention mechanism

“One of the most striking findings was how much we could reduce heart damage in our models by specifically blocking these two cytokines, without shutting down the entire (desired) immune response to the vaccine,” Wu told Fox News Digital, noting that a targeted, “fine‑tuning” immune approach might be enough to protect the heart.

Myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart, occurs in about one in 140,000 people who receive the first dose of the vaccine and one in 32,000 after the second dose. (iStock)

“This points to a possible future way to prevent or treat myocarditis in people who are at the highest risk, while keeping the benefits of vaccination,” he added.

The team also found that genistein, an estrogen-like natural compound found in soybeans, reduced inflammation in lab tests, but this has not yet been tested in humans.

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The findings were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

“This is a very complex study,” Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel told Fox News Digital. “Myocarditis is very rare, and the immune mechanism makes sense.”

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“Myocarditis is worse with COVID — much more common, and generally much more severe.”

Wu agreed, adding that COVID infection is about 10 times more likely to cause myocarditis compared to mRNA-based vaccines.

‘Crucial tool’

The researchers emphasized that COVID-19 vaccines have been “heavily scrutinized” for safety and have been shown to have an “excellent safety record.”

In rare cases, however, severe heart inflammation can lead to hospitalizations, critical illness or death. (iStock)

“mRNA vaccines remain a crucial tool against COVID‑19, and this research helps explain a rare side effect and suggests ways to make future vaccines even safer, rather than a reason to avoid vaccination,” Wu said.

“The overall benefits of COVID‑19 vaccination still clearly outweigh the small risk of myocarditis for nearly all groups.”

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The study did have some limitations, primarily the fact that most of the data came from experimental systems (mice and human cells in the lab), which cannot fully capture how myocarditis develops and resolves in real patients, according to Wu.

“This points to a possible future way to prevent or treat myocarditis in people who are at the highest risk.”

“These findings do not change what people should do right now, because our work is still at the preclinical (mouse and human cells) stage,” he said. “Clinical studies will be needed to confirm whether targeted treatments are safe and effective.”

The researcher also added that myocarditis risk could rise with other types of vaccines.

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“Other vaccines can cause myocarditis and inflammatory problems, but the symptoms tend to be more diffuse,” he said in the release. “Plus, mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines’ risks have received intense public scrutiny and media coverage. If you get chest pains from a COVID vaccine, you go to the hospital to get checked out, and if the serum troponin is positive, then you get diagnosed with myocarditis. If you get achy muscles or joints from a flu vaccine, you just blow it off.”

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Gootter-Jensen Foundation.

Melissa Rudy is senior health editor and a member of the lifestyle team at Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to melissa.rudy@fox.com.

Health

Major cannabis study finds little proof for popular medical claims, flags big dangers

Published

22 hours ago

December 17, 2025

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Major cannabis study finds little proof for popular medical claims, flags big dangers

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Cannabis has been linked to some significant medical benefits, but recent research calls those into question.

A major new analysis published in JAMA examined more than 2,500 scientific papers from the last 15 years, including other reviews, clinical trials and guidelines focused on medical marijuana.

“While many people turn to cannabis seeking relief, our review highlights significant gaps between public perception and scientific evidence regarding its effectiveness for most medical conditions,” Dr. Michael Hsu of University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA) Health Sciences, author of the study, said in a press release.

Many medical claims about cannabis are not supported by strong scientific evidence, according to a comprehensive review published in JAMA. (iStock)

The researchers — led by UCLA with contributions from Harvard, UC San Francisco, Washington University School of Medicine and New York University — set out to determine how strong the research is on the effectiveness of medical cannabis and to offer evidence-based clinical guidance.

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The review found that evidence supporting most medical uses of cannabis or cannabinoids is limited or insufficient, the release stated.

“Whenever a substance is widely used, there is likely to be a very wide set of outcomes,” Alex Dimitriu, MD, double board-certified in Psychiatry and Sleep Medicine and founder of Menlo Park Psychiatry & Sleep Medicine, told Fox News Digital.

“Cannabis is now used by about 15 to 25% of U.S. adults in the past year, for various reasons ranging from recreational to medicinal. This study points to the reality that this widely used substance is not a panacea,” said Dimitriu, who was not involved in the study.

There are very few conditions for which cannabinoid therapies have clear, well-established benefits backed by high-quality clinical data, according to the researchers.

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The strongest evidence supports FDA-approved cannabinoid medications for treating specific conditions, including HIV/AIDS-related appetite loss, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, and certain severe pediatric seizure disorders.

The review identified significant safety concerns, with high-potency cannabis use among young people linked to higher rates of mental health issues. (iStock)

For many other conditions that are commonly treated with cannabis — such as chronic pain, insomnia, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder — evidence from randomized trials did not support meaningful benefit.

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The analysis also examined safety concerns — in particular, how young people using high-potency cannabis may be more likely to suffer higher rates of psychotic symptoms and anxiety disorder.

Daily inhaled cannabis use was also linked to increased risks of coronary heart disease, myocardial infarction (heart attack) and stroke when compared with non-daily use.

Daily inhaled cannabis use is associated with increased cardiovascular risks, including coronary heart disease, heart attack and stroke. (iStock)

Based on these findings, the review emphasizes that clinicians should weigh potential benefits against known risks when discussing cannabis with patients.

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The authors suggest that clinicians screen patients for cardiovascular risk, evaluate mental health history, check for possible drug interactions and consider conditions where risks may outweigh benefits.

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They recommend open, realistic conversations and caution against assuming that cannabis is broadly effective for medical conditions.

The review highlights the need for caution, urging clinicians to weigh risks, screen patients appropriately and avoid assuming cannabis is broadly effective. (iStock)

“Patients deserve honest conversations about what the science does and doesn’t tell us about medical cannabis,” Hsu said.

This article is a narrative review rather than a systematic review, so it did not use the strict, standardized methods that help reduce bias in how studies are selected and evaluated, the researchers noted.

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The review notes further limitations, including that some evidence comes from observational research rather than randomized trials, which means it cannot establish cause and effect.

The trial results also may not apply to all populations, products or doses.

Khloe Quill is a lifestyle production assistant with Fox News Digital. She and the lifestyle team cover a range of story topics including food and drink, travel, and health.