“Clutter is not just physical stuff. It’s old ideas, toxic relationships and bad habits. It’s anything that does not support your better self.” — Eleanor Brown
As human beings, we have a very misconstrued and sheltered idea of what clutter actually means. Physical clutter, although visible, isn’t the only thing you need to worry about. In fact, it should be the least of your worries when your mind doesn’t have an inch of space left to foster creativity.
Cluttered minds are a direct perpetrator of wasted time and energy in our lives. It leaves our minds cloudy, brains foggy and our senses disorganized. And, the only part that is worth remembering is that you aren’t alone in this. Millions of people experience the same every minute.
The excess accumulated clutter in your mind has the potential to make you feel disconnected from yourself, from the instances happening around you, and even the relationships you cherish in your life.
5 Ways To Declutter Your Mind
This blog will walk you through the simple five ways to declutter your mind for better mental health and well-being.
1. Start With Your Surroundings
Do you feel that your judgments become more clouded when things around you are cluttered? It’s a lot more common to feel a disconnect when nothing around you is physically organized. It could be your fresh pile of laundry that’s stacked on top of the chair or even your study desk that’s filled with wires.
Physical clutter eventually takes its residence in the mind, leading to mental clutter. When you have so many things lying around you, it triggers your mind with excessive stimuli, which pushes your brain to work in overdrive.
Having excess physical clutter is also distracting for your brain. It constantly reminds your brain that there’s something else on the side that needs to be done, further clouding your thoughts.
The best way to declutter your brain is by organizing the area around you. Start with one section of the room or the house. Take it slow but organize it in a way that ensures that you won’t have to come back and re-do it time and time.
2. Focus On Getting Quality Sleep
Sleep is when your body rests and recovers after a tedious day. But, the biggest benefit of getting a restful night of sleep is its impact on your mental health. It allows you to de-stress and relax after all the turmoil that your mind has gone through.
Even studies indicate that lack of sleep is a direct contributor to brain fog or cognitive disorientation. This might make you feel unorganized and your mind feels a lot more cluttered than it normally would.
Sleep deprivation also leads to mental lapses due to improper neural communication. So, foster a healthy bedtime routine in your life. And, start it now before things take a turn for the worse.
3. Practice Meditation
As I said at the beginning of the article, a cluttered mind creates a disconnect with your inner self. It becomes a lot harder for you to tether your mind and your thoughts in such instances, leading to your mind overworking and overwhelming itself.
Mindfulness meditation allows you to seek that inner peace that’s trapped under the rubble of your chaotic thoughts. It allows you to explore that place of peace and clarity in your mind that you haven’t had access to all this time.
Meditation also reduces the confusion that you are culturing in your mind due to the excess clutter. If you aren’t sure how to start, make it a gradual process. Start by meditating for 10 minutes each day and increase the duration gradually. Make it a part of your daily routine.
4. Start Journaling
What do you think happens when you switch on the tap and then close the pipe’s outlet? It will eventually lead to an excess pressure build-up and end up bursting.
Think of your mind as the pipe and the excess water flow as the clutter and the pressure that you are storing inside your mind. While you might not notice any substantial changes to your mind as the clutter starts, it will eventually take a turn for the worse.
The last thing you want is to reach that breaking point when things become too overbearing. Journaling is a great way to put your thoughts into one place and analyze and organize them.
Even research suggests that maintaining a personal diary allows individuals to work through intrusive thoughts and enhance one's working memory. Instead of bottling up your thoughts and emotions, let them flow into your journal for safekeeping.
5. Get Things done
Do you realize one of the reasons why everything around you feels so cluttered? It's due to procrastination, lack of planning, and lack of timely execution.
You are so inclined towards instant gratification that you have likely pushed the important work to the side. “Oh! I’ll do it tomorrow,” sounds unimportant at the moment but when you do it on multiple occasions, things are bound to pile up until you are ready to finish them at the last moment.
What does it contribute to?
Last-minute deadlines and a whole lot of panic. These kinds of physical and mental habits are the biggest contributors to your mental clutter.
So, identify these patterns and work on rectifying them. Sometimes, the easiest way to declutter your mind is by creating a to-do list, and ticking off the work – one after the other.
Prioritizing things can help you think clearly, have a vision for your goals, and organize your thoughts too. These can effectively reduce the excess clutter you are battling internally.
Final Words
As Johnny Uzan says, “Your mind is an abandoned playground. Left behind in early adulthood, now filled with clutter and trash. Meditation is how you remove them. Then you can play once again.”
Your clouded mind and the onslaught of overbearing thoughts aren’t helping you and they won’t a week or year later. So, why do you want to harbor them in there and create more inner chaos?
When it comes to declutter the mind, it isn’t about emptying your mind. It is about eliminating the negative, intrusive and overbearing thoughts that have no place in your mind. Having a clear mind allows you to have a clear vision, one that allows you to take on the challenges that life has in store for you.
Matrrix’s Mindfulness Certification program (dual certification) is a great way for you to learn the foundation of mindfulness and become a certified mindfulness Practitioner®© and Mindfulness coach.
For details and registration, visit https://www.matrrix.in/mindfulness-practitioner.
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