Do you ever feel like your brain is tied in knots? Do
your thoughts resemble a massive ball of string,
wound messily and tightly together? Are you unsure
of what to do next?
This feeling is all too common in a world of sensory
overload and multiple responsibilities. The
ultrabusy person sometimes feels like thoughts
don’t even get a chance to fully form.
At times of high stress, where we are trying to
satisfy multiple demands at once, it feels like
our minds are being constricted with warring priorities.
Let’s talk about some ways to untangle, unwind, and
refocus. Here are seven simple tips to clear
your mind and get your mental house in order.
You can try any one of them, several or even all
of them. They are listed here in no particular
order:
1. Write madly to get some mental breathing room.
Writing is a proven way to help organize your
thoughts. Morning pages, as popularized by *Julia
Cameron* in The Artist’s Way, are a way to adopt
the habit of clearing your mind on paper.
Three handwritten pages, done daily, can clear out
your conscious thoughts and bring unconscious
clutter to the surface. Some people write memoirs
as a more in-depth way to clear their consciences,
but we’re not trying to do that here. We’re just
trying to open up some space for your thoughts
to breathe.
If you don’t have the time to devote to writing
regular morning pages, consider a speedier
approach. Try writing as quickly as possible
with whatever time you have. Don’t
worry about what you are writing and don’t
worry if you can read it afterward. Use
the speed writing to loosen
mental knots as the activity itself becomes
a source of release.
2. Take deep breaths to calm yourself
Deep breathing as a relaxation technique is another well
documented way to regain some mental clarity. Deep
breathing increases the oxygen levels in your
body; the brain benefits from more oxygen. Increased
oxygen flow is a known benefit of aerobic exercise;
this is a way to get some of those benefits quickly
and easily.
3. Go for a walk to get some temporary distance from
your thoughts
Walking might be the perfect and ideal aerobic exercise It
provides many of the same benefits of deep breathing along
with the benefits of exercising your muscles. Sometimes we
need movement to burn off some of the excess energy that
anxiety squeezes into our minds. As our rampaging thoughts
lose steam, we regain some much needed clarity.
4. Draw a picture to show what thoughts are on your mind
People have different learning styles and preferred means
of communication that vary between each person. For
those of us who like a bit of physical and visual styles,
drawing may be a way to combine both of these styles in a
way to clear your thoughts. You don’t need to ask for
permission, just go ahead and draw.
You can draw simple pictures that show what’s on your mind.
You can make charts, graphs, or other images. You can
just write words or phrases down about the things on your
mind and draw connections between them to understand what’s
going on, a kind of simple mind map. Draw stick figures
and give them word balloons to display what’s bother you.
Give it a try!
5.Describe your desired end state and then work backward
There’s a technique called backward planning that could
come in handy for mental blockage. If you’ve got
a big job coming up and you don’t have a lot
of time to do it, you start with your target date
for delivery and move backward. Figure out what things
have to happen to finish the job. Then find the
next set of things that need to happen before that,
and so on, until you get to the beginning.
Sometimes, in order to untangle a string, we need to
find the end and then work our way back to the
beginning. Maybe you can do the same thing with
your thoughts?
6. Talk it out with another person
Then there are people who prefer talking
(or some who find it hard to do) instead of writing
or drawing. That’s perfectly fine! Maybe you just
need someone who’s willing to listen. Explain your
problems or concerns to them.
The point here is not to force them to solve
your problems for you. The objective is to
express your hopes, fears, and questions. If you can
describe your concerns you can understand them better
and determine what’s important and what isn’t.
7. Ask for help from an expert
There are times when you need to go to the next
level to resolve the problems. If your thoughts
are resulting in serious anxiety and you can’t
function normally, you may need to talk to a medical
professional to help you deal with your problems.
Or perhaps you have business problems that
require the help of a consultant or specialist.
At some point, you have to make the determination
whether you can handle the situation yourself or
whether or not you need help. That’s perfectly OK:
we all encounter problems where it makes more sense
to get help than to try to do it by ourselves.
I hope these seven tips will help you untangle
your thoughts and get back to a more productive
state of mind!
Mark Dykeman is an IT professional with several
years of blogging experience. He writes the award-winning
blog Broadcasting Brain and recently started
Thoughtwrestling with some friends to help you wrestle
ideas to the ground, overpower problems, and become the champion of your great ideas.
Nice, Mark. I’ve never done the ‘working backwards’ exercise – I’ll give it a go!
Thanks Marsha. It’s a technique that I’ve seen used more on my day job related to IT projects, but I think it can be used elsewhere. Good luck!
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by QueenBee77: 7 Simple Ways to Clear Your Mind via PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement – Do you ever feel like … http://tinyurl.com/ya5ceqj…
These are all excellent suggestions. My personal favorite, however, is not mentioned and that is to sleep on it. If you are afforded a night’s sleep before you need to act on whatever you’re trying to focus on, I’d suggest it. Clearing your mind can actually be very simple. The key is doing something mindless so you have time to regroup like listening to music or taking a walk. Great post!
Sleeping on it is another great idea! Assuming that you have the time to do so…
In addition to writing out thoughts, one can consider keeping a journal and using that as an outlet. Writing in a journal has been a great sense of healing for me in years past before I became a blogger.
Although, I now right for the benefit of an audience, many of the topics are beneficial to me as well. I thoroughly agree with your tips.
Great article and thanks for sharing!!
Journaling is another great practice!
Hi Mark: I think that writing morning pages or journaling each day–or when you can–is a great way to get stuff off your mind so that you can concentrate on what’s really important to you. I also clear my head by going for a run outside (which I can do all year long since I live in the Tropics
).
Marelisa, I think many of us envy your choice of home.
Good ideas! I’ve had good luck with a quick list of “bothers” each morning on the bottom of my todo list. It helps to just state what is bothering you and not keep it circling your brain all day.
Bothers, interesting idea… do you find yourself checking the list of “bothers” very often?
Hi Mark, writing the bothers down makes them less bothersome so I don’t check them often. They do tend to repeat over several days until I eliminate them or they eliminate themselves.
Dale
very nice post , sometimes i feel like i want to clear my mind after a long work day, certainly these advice can help. thanks Mark:)
Some good advice here, but I feel the reason why we clutter our mind to begin with is that we like to complicate or lives instead of aiming to live with simplicity, as described by my following post:
http://www.knowledgereform.com/2009/11/03/the-simple-way-of-living-towards-peace-of-mind/
We also seem to think that if we accumalate knowledge (mostly superfluous) we can acheive our goals. Knowledge can help with doing a particular job, but can also fill a mind and obscure clarity in dealing with problem with the self. Hence, I feel that self-knowledge (which encourages discarding useless knowledge) is the key to self-improvement, as I have written in the following post:
http://www.knowledgereform.com/2009/09/14/self-knowledge-is-power-knowledge-of-self-towards-successful-living/
Nice post, bit of an odd formatting, but interesting. I’m visual, drawing out plans helps me clear my mind quite a bit.
Yes, sorry about the formatting.
Interesting post. Very good advice.
Thank you for sharing.
[...] I wrote a guest post at Pick The Brain earlier this week that you might find interesting: 7 Simple Ways to Clear Your Mind. [...]
As a psychotherapist and spiritual teacher and someoone who has helped people work with their mind clutter, for more than 25 year, this list is great!
These are some of the exact things I ask my clients to do and I use the results of these as grist for the mill. The information loosens the grip of the old habitual stronghold of their history.
Thank you Mark for this meaningful blog post!
Dr. Jennifer Howard
Thank you for your comment, Dr. Howard!
I like go for a walk advice, definitely clears my mind.
Another thing about the writing madly part is that when you start writing you get random thoughts and problems out of running around your mind for hours onto paper where they can actually be dealt with with a plan of some kind.
5.Describe your desired end state and then work backward
thank you for this one! this is very helpful!
Good advice and thank you for sharing. Helpful
[...] under a lot of baggage and years of suppression. I’d suggest following the advice in 7 Simple Ways to Clear Your Mind to unlock what you’ve got. These exercises will free up your creativity and help you to [...]
[...] 7 Simple Ways to Clear Your Mind: This post offers some simple tips that can help rid yourself of mental clutter impeding your meditation. [...]
Greatings, ЎGracias por el artнculo. Cada vez que quieres leer.
Gracias
Boldy
i need to clear my mind,thx!