How to Detox your Mind for Healthy Living
A lot of us started off the New Year in a bit of a frantic mess. I know for me, I always come up with a thousand to-do lists of:
what I should be doing this year,
how I should make this year better,
how to deal with my finances,
how to deal with my relationships,
how to deal with my life...
While the lists go on and on, it's easy to get really overwhelmed and to forget what's really important.
To keep you on track, here are three basic tips for clearing the clutter in your brain to have a stress free & happier life:
3 WAYS TO DETOX THE CLUTTER OF YOUR MIND
1. KEEP IT SIMPLE
Keeping it simple means really bring it back down to basics and figuring out what the most important thing is that you need to keep in the front of your mind.
For me, my days are really busy as an entrepreneur, as an herbalist, as someone in a relationship, somebody with lots of friends, someone with a lot of family members going through big stuff.
I am very easily overwhelmed by what's going on.
So I start off my days with a really easy way of keeping it together by just making my to-do list JUST 3 things long.
A lot of us get really excited or overzealous about all the stuff we can do, but it's so easy to defeat ourselves and keep adding and piling more to our plates everyday.
This ends up causing ourselves more stress!
If we want to really be detoxing your body, detoxing includes getting rid of stress. This includes getting rid of the stuff that's bogging us down.
So, I like to keep my to-do list SUPER SIMPLE with just 3 things, and that's it.
By the end of the day, if I get my 3 things done, I have a huge win!!! And, it's actually really easy to have that huge win, because 3 things is a really doable, manageable list.
For those who are herbalists that have thought about amazing formulas, some of the best formulas that I've ever seen only have 3 to 5 herbs in them. They are very sweet and simple.
So, keeping your to-do list as short and sweet, as you can is a really great way to keep your mind really happy and really refreshed, all year long.
2. CLEAR YOUR MIND
I start off my day, everyday, with some kind of a mind-relaxing ritual of doing a really simple meditation. (On good days, I actually end my day this way too!)
If you’re already into meditation, that's awesome!
If you are new to meditation, try using some of the different apps out there, like Headspace, Zen Meditation, and Meditation Timers to help get the process going!
For me personally, meditation can be just 2 minutes (for starters!) of breathing, being in my body, checking in, and NOT TALKING.
However, mediation doesn’t have to be a static thing! It’s not limited to just sitting down and focusing on your breathe, sort of thing. It can also be a moving mediation! I think this is especially helpful for when you’re just starting out.
It can be as simple as taking a walk around the block. Or even having a moment to sit in your car, whatever resonates with you!
It’s really just about putting life on pause for a second. So you can really breathe, sit with yourself, and check in to see what’s going on with YOU.
Clearing my mind is a morning and evening ritual for me, but it is also something I can add in throughout the day if I really need it.
Some easy pointers:
If you're a busy day-time worker and you get caught up in stuff a lot, it can be helpful to plug in recurring reminders into your phone to say…“Hey take a pause!” I do that with snack breaks and lunch breaks, and then sometimes add a 5 minute BREATHE break when I'm feeling extra rushed through the day.
Do you sometimes feel flooded by overwhelm? Take a little minute to breathe and figure out exactly what those signs are that your body is trying to tell you. For me, when I start feeling my head buzz, extra tightness in my neck and shoulders, or cant figure out what I'm supposed to be working on, it's a sign that I need a quick "check in"to figure out what my really body needs.
If you’re in a big household, and particularly something I hear often from moms, is that you can just lock yourself in the bathroom for 2 minutes or so. Sometimes that’s the only place you can actually get some “me time” and have a safe break from the world.
It’s so important to have a pause when we need it to give our brain a chance to rest and clear out to do the work we need to do.
The more pauses we put in throughout the day, the more our brain doesn’t feel so compounded to to figure out everything at once.
Remember, keep it simple, keep that to-do list short, and then clear your mind by pausing so you can figure out what those priorities really are.
3. CHANGE YOUR STORY
I know for me, it's really easy to let the negative self-talk or the inner monologue tape go on and on with all of the different “I should've, would've, could've done- x,y,z differently” or “I’m so bad at this”.
All of this negative self-talk, really bogs us down and stresses out our bodies a lot. It causes so many hormones to go into overdrive of stress and overwhelm.
That is why it's really important for us to pause that tape and rewrite the story.
I love doing positive affirmations for that reason!
Positive affirmations are just taking whatever the story is and putting a positive spin to it.
For example, for me, my Mantra used to be, “I don't have the time.” I used to be so stressed out about how many things I have to do. I used to say all the time, "I don't have the time," or "I'm just so busy." Well, that's, that's not really a positive story...
So I rewrote my story to “I have all the time in the world to do what's really important.”
When I hear that, I just calm down for a second, and bring it down a notch. I might even keep going with it:
"I have all the time in the world to...
enjoy my day today."
be with the people I love."
get the work done that I need to do today."
"I have all the time in the world."
And so I just started replaying that new tape, that new story. I kept on replaying that positive story again, and again, and again.
Before I knew it, I stop being so stressed about time. I stopped being so rushed ALL the time.
I invite you to start off the New Year right, by really changing up how you do this tape, how you do your story and rewriting it however you like.
Change your story to one that serves you in every way!
So to reiterate, just:
1) Keep it simple.
2) Clear your mind.
3) And change your story.
If you like this article, then look out for other self care snippets in our Detox Series.
Coming up, we're going to cover how to detox your body, how to detox your diet, how to detox your environment for a more sustainable life.
If you want to up your self-care, and really figure out how to prioritize your own healing this year, then check out our Self Care Quiz: “What the heck is wrong with my life?” A self care assessment for healers.
A lot of us come in to the healing world really excited to take care of others and so quickly forget that we really have to take care of ourselves FIRST to be able to fully show up for others.
This is a great opportunity to take a look in the mirror to really see what's going on internally with you.
Why are you putting your energy so far out there when YOU need a lot of tender, loving, care too?
It's time to learn how to:
Be gentle with yourself,
Keep it simple,
And prioritize your the top three things that you want to work on this year...
So that you can really take care of this AMAZING healer that you are, so that you can take better care of everyone else around you!
