E59: The Physical Domain of Stuff

Hi, I'm Dr. Kirtly Jones and the host for the "7 Domains of Women's Health." I'm thinking about taking a deep breath and making some room in my life. And I'm thinking about clearing off my desk of too much stuff, or maybe I'll clean out a closet of stuff, or maybe clean out the house of stuff.

So here, on the "7 Domains of Women's Health," we're going to take a deep dive into stuff. That's stuff with a capital S, and it's the non-human or pet things that we have around us. We're going to think about what stuff we really need and what stuff we just want. We'll talk about the financial consequences of accumulating stuff, and we'll talk about the stuff that we treasure.

We will start where we often start in the "7 Domains of Women's Health," and that is with the physical domain. We'll follow with podcasts on the emotional, social, intellectual, financial, environmental, and spiritual domain of stuff. You can listen to just one domain of stuff or you can catch up with all of them as they're posted in the following weeks.

If this isn't your cup of tea, then you can catch up with the 7 Domains of Caffeine and see if that works for your cup.

So let's get down to stuff, the physical domain. Now, bear with me here because I'm going to dive into needs and wants. This topic will help you think about whether you really need that stuff, that new thing you want to buy, or that old thing that's taking up room in your visual, psychological, and physical space. Do you really need that thing or do you just want that thing?

And of course, I just have to quote the Rolling Stones. Are you ready? "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, well, you just might find you get what you need."

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

So let's get down to needs. I'm going to talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Maybe you learned about that in high school or college, or maybe it's new to you, or maybe you think it's just irrelevant. But for the purpose of talking about stuff and needs, it's helpful to use Maslow's structure.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, a psychologist named Abraham Maslow looked at what motivates us to do things, such as get stuff, and created a pyramid of reasons people might do something.

At the foundation of the pyramid is psychological needs, like food and shelter. The next step up is safety, like from lions and tigers or flooding rivers or your neighbors or something. We need to have these needs met before we move up to higher psychological needs.

Physiological Needs

So what are physiologic needs? That's the foundation of the triangle of needs as defined by Maslow. What stuff do you have that might fill that need? Physiologic needs include food and warmth and shelter and sex. Now, these are what we might call basic needs. You can decide how much the sex need drives your existence at this point, but most everybody needs food and warmth and shelter. These are basic things you need to survive.

As we talk about basic needs, we have to include the needs of our family. Parents will often forgo their basic needs to meet the needs of their family, their children. That means that the stuff for basic needs gets a little more complex if you're thinking about the basic needs for someone other than yourself.

You need a room over your head: a house, an apartment, a shed, a tent. Do you really need more than one? Of course, you might have your winter house where it's warm, and your summer house where it's cool, or you can have your winter ski house and your summer beach house. But do you really need more than one to satisfy the basic first level of Maslow's needs? Probably not. A second house is truly an extravagance.

Of course, there are herders who have a shelter in their summer range, where they keep their animals in a shelter in their winter range. There are people who live in a mobile shelter that they can take to a warm place and a cold place.

But in terms of accumulating stuff, that second house is definitely going to accumulate stuff. One house would suffice. So in considering if you need a second home, it must be fulfilling one of the other of Maslow's needs, which we'll get to.

Well, how about a sweater or a jacket. In temperate and cool climates, it can get chilly, and so you need something warm to wear and a blanket to cover you. And maybe you need two in case one is in the wash, but do you need three to meet this basic need of warmth? Probably not. And the third and the fourth or the tenth sweater are probably not necessary, at least not at this level of need, the physiologic need. That sweater might fulfill another need, which we'll talk about.

How about your kitchen stuff? Food is a basic need and cooking food is basic. So you need one bowl and one pan and one fork-spoon thingy and a knife. But check out your kitchen. Is it a little cluttered? Do you need all those things for the basics? Nope. But maybe when you get to the social needs in Maslow's hierarchy, you might need more for cooking for a party.

I really wanted to buy a whisk the other day. I have been thinking about one for years. I have a tiny kitchen and not much counter space or drawer space. At least they're all full. All of my whisking needs have been covered by a fork for 60 years. So no to a whisk.

Safety and Security Needs

Now, once you have your basic needs met, those foundational needs, the next level is safety and security. The things you need at this level to assure your safety and security are things that support your financial safety, your health safety, and the safety of your family.

So you might accumulate in this domain things that you might need for your work, like your car, your computer, your tools, appropriate work clothes, or things that you might need for your health and the health of your family.

A car, basic transportation. If you live anywhere but the most transportation-elevated city where you can get everywhere without a car, you need a car. But do you really need an expensive car with big upkeep? Do you need two to three cars with at least one sitting in the driveway all by itself or on the street? Maybe. As you think about the needs of your family, you might need more than one.

A car is important for the second foundational needs of safety for your job and getting someplace, so you need a car. And your phone is probably a necessity in this next level of needs. Does the next gen fancy phone have to be acquired? Do you have to get the fanciest phone to meet these needs? Do you really need that next gen phone or do you just want one?

So think about that second level of needs when you're acquiring kind of big stuff, because big stuff falls into this second layer.

Love and Belonging Needs

The next level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs is the need of loving and belonging, social and emotional connections to friends and family, companionship, friendship, loving family.

This is a very strong need in humans. And for children, they may put their need for their parents, who may be abusive, above their need for safety. The same is true for women in abusive relationships who put the need for connection above their safety.

Well, what does this have to do with stuff? I'll admit that a lot of the stuff in my kitchen shelves, like cups and glassware and plates and bowls, are for when we get together with people we know and love. We don't use them every day, some only once a year. Do we really need all of them?

Do I need Christmas glasses that I use only at Christmas? Would the experience of getting together for Christmas Eve dinner be any less likely to meet my need for social and emotional connection if I didn't have matching Christmas glasses on the table?

What about all the stuff, the lights, the ornaments, the Nutcracker soldiers that go out every Christmas as part of my need for social tradition? Do I need that stuff? This level of need, the social and connection need, can lead to an enormous accumulation of stuff, especially stuff that is handed down, stuff that's given in love, or inherited.

This kind of stuff is tightly connected to memory. Putting out the lights and the Christmas ornaments is a direct and powerful connection to memory of my years as a mother when my son was small, and Christmas was a big deal.

When I was training as a reproductive endocrinologist in Boston, my husband and I didn't have any Christmas stuff. I had a wonderful research subject in a study on hot flushes who created by hand a big box and covered it in beautiful red quilted Christmas fabric. It was filled with handmade stockings with our names and big Santa bags and some ornaments, a stuffed fabric tree, and a wreath.

This box has been with me for each of our Christmas years for the past 40 years. It ties me to the wonderful woman and to my years as a young mom. It's really treasured stuff because of my emotional connection to the memories of this level of Maslow's needs, my emotional and social connection with people I love.

If you're like me, you might have several pairs of earrings and several bracelets or necklaces, or you might, like me, have a drawer full. And if you look carefully at this stuff, only a very small amount of it has a deep meaning and connection to the people you love. The rest are trinkets. Now, maybe they're very nice trinkets, but they're not filling this level of need of connection to people in your social connection and your family.

Esteem Needs

But perhaps another level up, the need to show off, to show off to people, to achieve the esteem of others, or maybe to make you pretty, to enhance your self-esteem. Or maybe it was just a want and not a need.

So, as you look at the stuff like jewelry, some of that stuff has a powerful emotional connection to family and fills that Maslow's next level of hierarchy, and some of it doesn't.

For many of us, the stuff that we would take with us in the event of a fire, if we had time to think about it, is the stuff that connects us to memories of people that we love, the stuff that has a connection to this important social hierarchy.

Now, the next up of Maslow's triangle is self-esteem. This might be divided into two areas. One is esteem for oneself, a sense of dignity, achievement, or mastery about which one is proud. The other is the esteem of others, the desire for status and prestige.

So you might have wanted those beautiful silver and blue earrings because they made you look pretty and they improved your self-esteem, or maybe you thought they were really flashy and somebody else might think they were cool.

You might accumulate some stuff here if you have a hobby or a talent from which you gain self-esteem because you haven't really maybe become really good at it.

Consider an instrument if you're a musician, so you've accumulated that stuff. Consider art supplies and paintings if you're an artist. Consider a really nice bike if being a cyclist is what you love to do and are good at it. This stuff is associated with activities or realities that contribute to your self-esteem and are important, but it might lead to the accumulation of a lot of stuff. One bike? Two bikes? Five bikes? How many bikes do you really need for your self-esteem as a cyclist? That's a good question.

It's about here in Maslow's hierarchy that there might be a time to consider what stuff to get rid of and what stuff you want to give away, what you want to keep, what you want to sell.

Is that thing you're considering to get or keep meeting a need, a basic need for warmth and shelter or safety or love and connection? Is it important to your self-esteem?

The second area of esteem is the esteem of others. Do you need something because it's important for you or because it's important that it be seen for others?

In some societies, it's what you give away that's important for the esteem of others. You might accumulate good stuff so you can give it away and gain social status.

Self-Actualization Needs

The top of the pyramid is the need for self-actualization. And some people divide this up into four areas. One is cognitive needs, like books. There's more on that later. Aesthetic needs, like art. Self-actualization, becoming your best self. And for some, it's the need for transcendence. So some people divide this last one into those groups.

But this level is in many ways the most complex, and some people of deep mystical faith, Christian or Buddhists or others, will forgo any stuff or connections with people other than their God and retreat to a monastic life.

This hierarchy of needs and how people might meet these needs at the base of the triangle before they move up to the next level is not written in stone. So some people may actually not accumulate any stuff for self-preservation. They just live out there on the street or in the cold in a perfect contemplative state. That's unique and it's not common, but it happens.

Stuff that is acquired to realize a person's moral and spiritual goals might be a pretty small category. Maybe for a Christian, a book, the Bible, might be an acquisition for this, or for someone of the Islamic faith, it might be the Quran. Of course, if your greatest good is experiencing the world, then you might need to get the stuff to allow you to do that.

Managing the Accumulation of Stuff

So the stuff that's around us may make us feel warm and safe, attached to the people that we love. Some things may be fundamental to our work or a sense of self-esteem, our best self. Some things may connect us to something greater than ourselves. These may all be things that we need.

Some things, the best stuff, fill needs at multiple levels. That sweater, it keeps us warm. It was made by our grandmother and it connects us to her. It's really lovely and it brings out the blue in our eyes and that enhances our self-esteem. So that stuff is a keeper.

Of course, some of the stuff around us was important to us a long time ago. Was it really? That incredibly short skirt that you bought so many years ago, you're still keeping it? It might now be part of the accumulated clutter that clouds our mind and our spirit, and takes a lot of energy to keep clean and walk around.

Conclusion: Questions to Ask Yourself

So when you're thinking about adding more stuff to your life space, consider your motivation.

• What level of need does it meet?
• Do you really need it or just want it?
• Could the time and money that's spent on the acquisition of this stuff be better used elsewhere?

I have a little habit or rule when I think about getting something new, except books, which is a topic for another domain of stuff, the intellectual domain. I'm unable to apply this rule to books. I might say I'm addicted to books.

But when I see something I want or maybe something I need, I put the thought away for two weeks. If I still think I need it after two weeks, I consider carefully why I need it. If the need is still important for one of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, then I'll get it.

Of course, I have to be able to afford it and it can't hurt other people or the planet. It makes getting new stuff a lot more challenging. It's worth taking the challenge, though.

Getting back to the physical domain, how does the brain respond to getting more stuff? This is very complex, but just the process of looking at stuff to buy on a shopping network or on your computer or on eBay may initiate a sense of want or need.

You may see something that you didn't even think you wanted or needed. You may not take the time to analyze or consider why you want it and what purpose it might serve. You just want it. And clicking on your computer to buy something or bid on something may release dopamine, that feel-good hormone in the brain. They don't call it retail therapy for nothing.

We like shiny things and we get them and we fill our nest with them. The process may make us feel better, feel engaged in something, feeling like we've won something. It can be literally addicting. When we do it once, we want to do it again and again and do it more.

But there is a consequence, and people sometimes buy way too many things and keep way too many things, and they get in the way of their social, emotional, and physical health.

So as we get deeper into the 7 Domains of Stuff in the following podcasts and explore that emotional and social and intellectual and other domains, take a minute to reflect when you're considering your next acquisition, your next stuff, and ask why you need it.

Step away from the computer or your phone and have a conversation with yourself. Think back on Maslow's hierarchy of needs and see what level or levels of need this new stuff supports.

As you look around the environment of your home, and if you think you need a little more space to breathe, consider what you might get rid of. Is that thing still meeting one of your needs? If it isn't, then recycle or sell or give away and give yourself some more space to breathe.

Thanks for joining us on the 7 Domains of Stuff at the "7 Domains of Women's Health." We’ll be expanding on the topic of stuff to cover the other domains in the coming weeks. Join us and have a conversation with the people you love about your stuff.