5 Effective Methods To Quiet Your Mind
Quieting your mind can be a huge challenge. If you suffer from constant, repetitive mental chatter, you may find it extremely difficult to focus on tasks you need to be completing. At its worst, mental chatter can cause you to ruminate on negative thoughts, creating even more anxiety and stress.
When you need to get your mind quiet again, consider the following methods to cultivate more mental peace.
Method 1: Make sure you’re taking plenty of breaks, especially when you’re working on a particularly challenging or stressful task.
Taking breaks is an excellent way to quiet your mind. Often, spending too much time trying to focus on a task can cause the opposite effect – you become so stressed out and frazzled from the attempt at constant focus, you lose the stamina to keep going.
Instead of trying to sprint your way through the marathon of getting a task done, schedule breaks into your work time. This ensures that you’re giving yourself an opportunity to take a mental break and “zone out.” While taking breaks may seem counterproductive, giving yourself rest actually ensures that you’ll be able to focus in the long run.
Method 2: Keep a notebook handy for your random thoughts so you can revisit them later.
Sometimes mental chatter can be incredibly annoying because it distracts you from working on something you need to be doing. When you find yourself in this situation, making sure you have a notebook handy for the occasion is the perfect tool to fight it.
For example, pretend you are trying to finish an important research paper for class. You have a strict deadline and you’re trying desperately to finish the paper with enough time to submit by the deadline. As you’re trying to focus on the paper, you find your mental chatter racing between random thoughts (You need to Google that new restaurant downtown! Did you pick up the dry cleaning? Don’t forget to add eggs to the shopping list!).
When you experience these thoughts, jot them down in your notebook. This ensures that you won’t forget them and can revisit them once your major task is complete.
Method 3: Reach out to someone in your support system for help when you need to get something off your mind.
A personal support system is a group of people you can trust when you need some extra help. When you’re experiencing mental chatter and racing thoughts that just won’t subside, reach out to someone you consider a member of your support system for some extra assistance.
Talking to someone else is a great way to get those racing thoughts out in the open and outside of your head. When those thoughts stay trapped in your mind, you can begin to ruminate and develop negative thinking patterns that can be tough to break. Speaking to another person you trust about what’s bothering you and causing you to experience mental chatter can give you a fresh perspective on your situation and help silence your worried mind.
Method 4: Engage in a distracting activity you really, truly enjoy.
Whatever your distracting activity “guilty pleasure” is, take some time to engage in it, especially when you feel your thoughts racing and need to quiet your mind.
Whether you enjoy reading a good book, getting lost in a board game with friends, catching up on your favorite binge-worthy TV shows, or playing the latest video game, getting lost in these fictional worlds is an excellent way to distract your overactive mind and silence those racing thoughts.
Method 5: Make sure you’re squeezing in some physical activity each day.
You don’t need a fancy gym membership or excellent athletic skills to use this mind quieting technique. Movement – no matter how you prefer to do it – is an excellent way to silence a worried, chattering mind.
You may enjoy going for a walk or jog before work to get yourself relaxed before a busy day. When you’re feeling your thoughts racing, step away from what you’re working on and take a quick walk to clear your head. Sign up for a fitness class you can enjoy a few times per week. However you get your exercise in each day, the results are the same: All that extra movement will help you quiet your mind.
