How to Clear Your Mind and Get Out of Your Head

Welcome to the fourth and final post of our four-part series on divesting things from your life. Today’s post will show you how to clear your mind and divest all the unnecessary mind clutter from your head.  In previous posts in this series, we have got rid of all the losers in our lives, had multiple apocalyptic decluttering orgasms to get rid of material things, and learned how to deal with 11 Superheroes gone bad who try to steal your time – that is, if you let them!

Just as a messy workplace or cluttered house can hurt your productivity, a mind full of clutter can do just as much, or more, damage!

Before We Get Into The Post

I need to introduce you to a friend of mine who was the inspiration for this post, let’s just call him ‘Nick’.  Some quick background on ‘Nick’, he is originally from Canada,  is extremely handsome and buff, and is a self-improvement blogger.  He is also very modest.

Anyway, ‘Nick’ was having trouble sleeping and focusing on things.  It seemed like his mind was always racing with random things popping into his head to distract him and keep him up at night.  I guess you could say ‘Nick’ had some of the classic symptoms of mind clutter.  More on him and what he did to solve his problem in a bit…

What are Some Other Symptoms of Mind Clutter?

Not everyone experiences each and every symptom of mind clutter.  Other than getting distracted and messing up your sleep like ‘Nick’, here are some other classic symptoms:

  Lack of energy – You are constantly feeling sluggish and uninspired.
  Feeling overwhelmed and stressed – It seems like you always have a million things to do.
  Forgetting things – You are always failing to remember things.
  Being controlled by your thoughts – Instead of you controlling your thoughts.

When our mind is full of clutter it means we aren’t focused on the important things we should be focused on.

Back to ‘Nick’…

Some of the specific things that were cluttering ‘Nick’s’ brain were: tasks he had to do in his life, ideas for his amazing blog, and being preoccupied with ways he could keep improving himself.

What Are Some Other Things You Need to Get Out of Your Head?

Before we look at what ‘Nick’ did to clear his mind, let’s look at some other types of mind clutter or things you may need to get out of your head:

Being a self-improvement blogger, I did some research…umm, I mean ‘Nick’ did some research on things that he could do to calm down and clear his mind, so he could sleep and focus better…

How to Clear Your Mind – Use It or Lose It

A few of things ‘Nick’ learned to do are:

Meditate – Meditation has been proven to reduce stress.  ‘Nick’ has found that meditating for 15 minutes every morning really helps calm down his brain. He uses an app called ‘Calm’, you can also use one called ‘Headspace’ to guide you.  If you are a reader, check out a great book called Search Inside Yourself.

Journaling– Another thing he does is to take 10-15 minutes to journal first thing every day as part of his morning routine. It helps get all that crazy shit out of his head.  He does it every day and he highly recommends a great short book called ‘Morning Pages’,  which will teach you about the benefits and practice of morning journaling. The idea is to write 3 full pages of whatever is on your mind longhand as soon as you wake up in the morning.  Don’t think, don’t stress, just write whatever is on your mind until you hit 3 pages. You don’t review them, in fact, ‘Nick’ throws them out right after.  You won’t believe the lightness and calmness you feel after doing this exercise every day.

Taking time to think – Sometimes all you need is a solo walk or just a little alone time to give you time to think. Check out Bri’s recent article on the benefits of taking time to think. When ‘Nick’ needs to be creative for his entertaining and actionable blog he lies on his bed and just calmly lets his mind wander. This technique has helped him come up with some really good shit.

Listening to music – According to this article, “Listening to music can have a tremendously relaxing effect on our minds and bodies, especially slow, quiet classical music. This type of music can have a beneficial effect on our physiological functions, slowing the pulse and heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and decreasing the levels of stress hormones. Music, in short, can act as a powerful stress management tool in our lives.  As music can absorb our attention, it acts as a distraction at the same time it helps to explore emotions. This means it can be a great aid to meditation, helping to prevent the mind wandering.”

Exercise – Exercise has been shown to have a low to moderate effect on reducing anxiety levels, helps promote emotional resilience, and helps prevent depression  So get exercising! But before you start an exercise program, be sure to consult your physician.

Practice being grateful – Take time every day to think about what you are truly grateful for. Write it down if you have to, the act of writing stuff down is very powerful.  This helps ‘Nick’ start his day off on a positive note.

Limit your intake of media – Stop watching the news! Remember, NEWS = never-ending worry source!  99.9% of the crap on the news doesn’t affect your life anyway and can only have a negative effect on your psyche.

Some other strategies that ‘Nick’ doesn’t currently use but that the research shows may be helpful to you are:

Practicing positive self-talk – If you are prone to negative self-talk, one way to eliminate negative self-talk caused by irrational beliefs about your abilities is to challenge why your beliefs are irrational and then replace them with positive self-talk.

Declutter people, things and time wasters from your life – As we have pointed out in the first 3 parts of this series. All of those types of clutter only add to what’s in your head.

Seek professional help – If you still find you are unable to get rid of the clutter in your head, you may want to consider seeking the help of a professional.

Coming Clean…

Ok, I need to confess something before we go our separate ways. If you haven’t already figured it out, ‘Nick’ is really…me.  I don’t know why I was trying to fool you.  Shame on me, I hope you forgive me.

On a serious note, the above strategies have really helped calm me down and have quieted my monkey mind.  If you need to get clear your mind, I highly recommend a lot of the strategies above – especially meditation and daily journaling!

That’s it for this week, until next time, clear your mind, keep improving, and as always…PYMFP!

–Rick aka ‘Nick’

When to Use The Strategies Above:

  When you feel overwhelmed or stressed.

  If you are feeling distracted.

  If you feel like you are in a rut and lack energy.

  When your thoughts are controlling you instead of you controlling your thoughts.

What Do You Think?

  Are there any other things that you find you need to get out of your head?  Do you have any strategies on how to clear your mind other than the ones we have listed above?  Please share in the comments section below.

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