Declutter Your Mind: How to Stop Worrying, Relieve Anxiety, and Eliminate Negative Thinking

by S.J. Scott

Take a second right now and pay attention to your thoughts. Try to stop them. It’s hard, right? You’ll see how they keep streaming in, one after another, unbidden and often unwanted.

Thinking may seem automatic and uncontrollable, but many of our thought patterns are habitual and, well, thoughtless.

You have far more control of your thoughts than you think. When you learn how to control your mind, you open a door to the vastness of creativity, inspiration, and brilliance that is just behind the clutter of those untamed thoughts.

The freedom of choice, something revered in free societies, can have a diminishing point of return when it comes to mental health.

We often feel like we don’t have time to declutter because we’re too busy consuming new stuff and information. But at some point, all this busyness is leading us to mental and emotional exhaustion.

Negative stimuli produce more neural activity than do equally intense (e.g., loud, bright) positive ones. They are also perceived more easily and quickly.

Your job is always to simply observe and redirect your mind back to the present moment, to your breathing.

When you find yourself struggling and ruminating, stop for a moment and simply say, “I accept this situation is happening.” Take a deep breath and try to stop mentally fighting against it.

Chip away at your action list daily so you can create changes and boundaries that prevent you from mindlessly wandering away from your values again.

Every revelation, every small action toward your goals should be savored and celebrated.

If you want to find meaning in what you do, then you’ll quickly feel overwhelmed if your days are fixated on a laundry list of goals. Yes, it’s important to be forward thinking, but you also want enough time to live in the present moment.

Daily, focused action will move you forward. If you don’t know what to do, just do something. Take one small action in the direction of your dream.

Although the important people in our lives can be the source of mental distress, our close relationships remain one of the fundamental components in life contributing to long-term happiness.

I’m on my own journey, which should be different from those around me.”

We can learn not to keep situations or events alive in our minds, but to return our attention continuously to the pristine, timeless present moment rather than be caught up in mental movie-making.”

Rather than beating yourself up over past relationship mistakes, try to honor the past and see your actions as a blessing. They were part of who you were at the time, and you needed to learn from them. Now you can move on and forgive yourself, knowing who you want to be and how you want to behave.

When you have an issue with your spouse, rather than taking a jab at them or making a disparaging comment, turn back to the practice of mindfulness. Pay attention to your emotions and wait until you are calm and less defensive before initiating a conversation.

You may find, for reasons you don’t completely understand, that another person diminishes your life more than enlivens it. You may come to a point where you simply don’t wish to deal with the emotional clutter and chaos another person creates in your life.

Multiple stimuli present in the visual field at the same time compete for neural representation by mutually suppressing their evoked activity throughout visual cortex, providing a neural correlate for the limited processing capacity of the visual system.

Cutting back and expunging non-essential activities can feel uncomfortable, and even threatening at first.

Children—especially young children—require plenty of free time for their emotional health and mental development. As with adults, children can suffer from anxiety, depression, and other issues when they feel overwhelmed.

“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it’s the axis on which the earth revolves–slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future; live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.” – Thích Nhat Hanh

American psychologist Abraham Maslow says, “The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.”