How to Clear Your Mind in a Snap

Sometimes you just have way more stress, anxiety, or depression on your plate than you would like to admit.

Having a heavy workload or overly rambunctious kids can seriously disrupt your thoughts and your thought processes. In fact, it can really throw a wrench in your entire day.

The next time you feel like your world is spinning off its axis, you should know that there are ways to re-center yourself, your life and your brain.

These tips simply take 15 minutes and can help quiet your mind. While it would be great if you do all of the tips, you can pick the ones that you have time for right now.

5 Tips on How to Clear Your Mind

1. Give Yourself a Break

Did you know that even 5 minutes of physical activity can actually help release endorphins? These endorphins help lighten your mood and make you feel better about whatever “project” is stressing you out.

Endorphins can even make us happy when we feel like the world is swallowing us up! Go outside; take a brisk walk, go for a jog around the neighborhood, or do some brisk sit-ups.

To top it off, sometimes you need a few minutes to just get away and break free from whatever is making you feel stressed, anxious, frustrated or downright annoyed. Personally, I walk away from my desk several times a day before it gets to THAT point.

2. Be Thankful

This tip is often forgotten when you are trying to figure out how to clear your mind!

Clearing your thoughts can still be a difficult thing to do. One of the things I like to do after taking a break is to simply get out a notepad and a pen – you could use your phone, laptop or PC – and write down 5 things I am grateful.

Not only can this help you remember to be thankful, but it can also lift your spirits and help you remember that it’s not all doom and gloom – even though it might seem like it when you are going through your minor meltdown!

You can also write about 5 people you are grateful for instead of 5 items you are thankful for.

3. Meditation Is Simple

If you’re one of those people that think in order to meditate you have to take a huge chunk of time out of your day – you’re wrong!

Meditation is a proven method on how to clear your mind and it takes as little as 3 minutes. Meditation is a proven way to clear your mind and center yourself. Plus, there are several different approaches you can take.

– Prayer: Yes, talking to God can help clear your mind, re-focus, and de-stress. Some people, such as myself, find God to be incredibly comforting. If you are having an incredibly horrible day; go to your car, go to the bathroom, or go to another room and pray.

– Transcendental Meditation (TM): This type deals with sitting in lotus and internally chanting a mantra.

– Guided Visualization: The inspiration for this type of meditation deals with Buddha. He said: “The mind is everything. What you think you become.” It deals with thinking about or imagining positive situations, items, or experiences.

4. Take 2 Minutes of Silence

After you do one or all of the other exercises above, you can also take 2 minutes of silence.

Find a quiet place where you can sit down; shut your PC off, put your phone on silent, turn the weather off. Use a timer for 2 minutes and just… sit. How many times do we actually do this in life? Hardly ever! Which is probably why everyone is so stressed out all the time.

5. Deep Breathing

From people that practice Zazen to positive thinkers, to successful people and doctors – everyone says that deep breathing is one of the easiest and quickest ways to relax. This is something you can even do at your desk. I use the 4-7-8 technique.

– Close your eyes

– Exhale through your mouth while making a whooshing sound

– Close your mouth and through your nose inhale to the count of 4

– Hold your breath for 7 seconds

– Exhale through your mouth while making a whooshing sound to the count of 8

Repeat 3-4 times. It works like a charm. I do it before business meetings, before meeting with a new client, before going into any stressful situation, and it always keeps me super calm.

Conclusion

You simply have to take the time to do these activities and I can almost guarantee that you will feel better about yourself and life in general!