Posted By: How May I Help You NC on January 29, 2015
The human mind is rarely quiet. Questions, ideas, and plans seem to pass through our consciousness without much order or purpose sometimes. This profusion can be good, but it can also be distracting or worrisome. Knowing how to clear your mind can help with anxiety, depression, and even sleep difficulties. Here are some proven tricks and techniques that will allow you to better clear your mind.
Method 1 of 3: Finding Clarity
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Express your thoughts in writing. If your mind is a tangled mess of thoughts, it can help to write them down. Start off writing in free-form: record how you're feeling, why you're feeling, and what you want to do about it. After recording this information, you'll have something concrete to reflect upon; this will help you feel a sense of accomplishment, even if you haven't "done" anything.
- This really interesting trick will help you literally throw away your thoughts. Write all your troubles down on a piece of paper, discussing why they're bothering you. Then crumble it up and throw it away. Yes, throw it away! Researchers found that people who threw away their written concerns were less likely to be worried by them. [1]
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Express your thoughts in drawing. So you may not be a Van Gogh, but you don't have to be to create art. All you need is a medium and a piece of paper. Have fun decorating with rainbow crayons; experiment with oil painting; get just the right shading with charcoal. Releasing your anxieties and clearing your mind through drawing can be an incredibly powerful force.
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Have a discussion with another person.[2] Maybe you're the kind of person who keeps their thoughts and emotions bubbled up inside. That's not a bad a thing, necessarily, but it means that small concerns can quickly snowball into seemingly big ones overnight. In order to free your mind of worries you may be having — worries about love, stress about health, doubts about your job — learn to talk to someone.
- Reach out to friends and family first. Your friends and family love you and understand you. They don't need rationalizations, and they won't sugarcoat advice. Tell them about what you're going through and listen for advice.
- If your friends and family aren't the kind to lean a helping hand, consider talking to a therapist. A therapist is trained to listen to your particular concerns and find solutions based on calculated research and troves of experience. Don't feel like you're inferior for seeking the advice of a therapist.
- Have a deep conversation with someone. Easier said than done — but totally worthwhile. Researchers have found that having deep conversations, in which you go beyond the superficial and share something thought-provoking or intimate, actually makes people happier.[3][4]
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Hang out with a pet. While there is no scientific evidence that owning a pet can directly help clear your mind, there is a host of evidence that is worth looking at. Owning a pet lowers your risk of depression; lowers blood pressure; elevates serotonin and dopamine; and lowers your risk of visiting the doctor if you're older than 65. [5] If you're happier and healthier, wouldn't it also be easier to let go of things that are bothering you and embrace what you do have in your life?
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Remind yourself of the truly important things in life. Sometimes, our minds become flooded with thoughts that, in retrospects, aren't very important. Perhaps you lost your job, or maybe your girlfriend just broke up with you. While definitely important, these things are by no means the end of the world. Remind your brain of all the truly important things that it has going for it:
- Friends and family
- Health and safety
- Food and shelter
- Opportunity and freedom
- Method 2 of 3: Finding Clarity in Meditation
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Try walking meditation. Walking meditation is exactly what it sounds: Using the openness and beauty of nature to inspire calm, positive thoughts in the brain. Be like Henry David Thoreau, walking through the wilderness and planning the site of your cabin-to-be. Or imagine you're Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish scientist, who classified many plants and animals. Being outside on a warm sunny day can do wonders for your disposition.
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Still your eyes. This is a meditation technique that helps you clear your mind by obliterating your sense of time. Here's how to do it:
- Focus your eyes on one point in the distance.
Any stationary object about 10 feet (3.0 m) away works best; objects that are too far away are harder to focus on for longer periods of time. The object could be a wall, a vase, a speck of dirt — as long as it's not moving.
- Dim your conscious mind and continue to focus on the object. Your brainpower is all being channeled toward one task. Continue focusing on the object, even if your eyes begin to stray or your mind begins to wander.
- After a certain point, time will begin to slow. You'll be in the zone. Your concentration will not waver. You won't begin to worry about what was once worrying you because your concentration is 100% devoted to maintaining its gaze on the object. When you're ready, relax your concentration. Your mind should feel a little worn out, like it's just gone through mental calisthenics. You should feel better.
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Try breathing exercises. Breathing is an essential part of meditation, which can be an essential part of clearing your mind. Mastering several different breathing techniques can help you achieve the open-minded clarity that comes with transcendence. Master this quick breathing technique — the complete breath[6] — in order to better master meditation:
- Standing up straight, exhale completely.
- Relax your belly muscles as you begin to inhale. Concentrate on filling your belly with air.
- Once your belly is completely filled with air, keep on breathing, expanding your chest and rib cage.
- Momentarily hold your breath, fighting the instinct to exhale.
- Exhale slowly — as slowly as possible. Feel the air moving out of your lips.
- Relax your chest and rib cage, pulling in your belly in order to force out any remaining air.
- Close your eyes, concentrate on your normal breathing, and clear your mind.
- Repeat process for 5 to 30 minutes.
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Try different forms of meditation. There are many ways to skin a cat, and not all of them involve a knife. Learn the different forms of meditation, everything from mantra meditation to zen meditation.
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Once you've begun meditating, learn to deepen your meditation skills.[7] Once you've gotten a hang of the basics of meditation, learn how to enhance the effects of your efforts. There are several ways to do this:
- Relax the body completely. Make sure your body isn't unconsciously tensing up while you descend into mindlessness. Try tensing your body purposely, and then releasing the tension. Repeat this exercise until you know that your body is completely relaxed.
- Try staying completely still while you meditate. It's hard achieving a state of enlightened mindlessness when your body is moving, sending sensation and demanding response from your brain. Make an effort to stay completely still.
- Let your breathing flow naturally. After some initial breathing exercises, let go of the conscious exertion of your breath. Let it do what it wants. Focus your awareness out into the farther points of your body, and by doing so, eliminate that awareness.
Method 3 of 3: Finding Productive Ways to Distract Yourself
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Play sports or make a game out of something. Sometimes, clearing your mind is about distracting yourself from negative thoughts that creep into your consciousness. Nothing is more distracting than playing an absorbing game or making a game out of ordinary routine.
- Getting physical exercise by playing sports is a great way to feel better and take your mind off whatever is bothering you. On top of that, physical activity is a great way to cure physiological ailments and soothe psychological disorders.[8]
- Make a game out of whatever ordinary activity you are performing at the time. Have to organize your room? Make a game out of it by shooting dirty laundry into your hamper. Have to run errands? Challenge yourself to be frugal and spend half of what you normally spend.
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Challenge yourself to an open-ended task. They say that idle hands are the devil's workshop, so the best thing that you can do to keep your mind clear is keep your hands occupied. Your metaphorical hands. And challenging yourself to an open-ended task is a great way to do that. Here are some ideas that you can try out to stay busy:
- Take a picture of yourself every day for a year. You're probably seen the montage videos by now — the succession of pictures accompanied by music, chronicling the life of a human being in pictures. It's a great idea, and anyone can try it. But you need patience and persistence to do it every day for a year.
- Do something you're afraid of — every day. This was Eleanor Roosevelt's famous advice, and one that strikes a chord with many people. Maybe you're afraid of interacting with other people. (Many people share this fear.) Go out and stop a stranger for directions, and then strike up a conversation. You'll slowly begin to conquer your fear, helping your mind realize that it can let go of other troubles, as well.
Tips
- Relaxing the muscles/body can enhance the clearing of the mind and help promote sleep!
- Over thinking can cause migraines. It's like a light bulb hooked up to a nuclear power plant. Clear your mind.
- Don't worry about the time it takes to clear your mind. Being too conscious of time can undermine the process.
- Have an intention. Use that to focus the mind.
- Go for a run. Running will relax your body and mind. Listen to music while running.
- Try to forgive and love yourself as well as everybody around you.
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