A new study in the journal of Current Biology establishes a link between temporary anxiety and -- wait for it -- obsessive cleaning. It turns out that being in an anxious state may in fact make people tidy up.  Researchers primed a group of college students into freaking out over a public speaking task. They were presented with a shiny statue and asked to prepare a speech about it in front of a panel of experts. Following the speech, they were told to clean the object. (In addition, there was a control group comprised of students who were not required to give a speech.) Those who had to give the anxiety-inducing speech were more repetitive in how they cleaned. The amount of anxiety the students reported feeling over the task predicted how many repeated movements they made while cleaning, as well as how long they cleaned the object before they deemed it reasonably clean. In times of stress, people might turn to repetitive behavior like cleaning because it gives the...