We talk a lot these days about how to detox our body but not much about how to detox the mind. And it’s the overthinking mind full of chaos that holds us back from moving forward in life. It’s the overthinking mind that makes us feel anxious and worry about the future. It’s the overthinking mind that we need to better control in order to stop worrying and start living.
Over the last 10-12 months, I have experimented with a number of life changes – some were forced on me – others were choices I made. These changes have helped me detox my mind from all the overthinking about life and career that I was doing. Some things to remember: My goal here is to share what I’ve learned in my own life and what works for me, may not work for you.
4 lessons I learned on how to detox your mind from overthinking:
Lesson #1 on how to detox your mind to stop overthinking:
1. Stop consuming the news
I used to be a news junkie but over the last few years, I found that it caused me more stress than providing me with value. So, I stopped. I turned off the news. I stopped my daily ritual of reading the morning paper or surfing online for news. My consumption of ‘what’s going on around the world’ is now limited to once a week of going online to Reuters.com or to my Twitter feed.
Here’s the problem with consuming too much news: It causes our mind to think further and deeper about the topic that we read or hear about. Normally that’s not a bad thing, especially when we’re trying to understand the depth of something. But what I’ve observed is that my mind would burrow deeper into sometimes a worrisome place after hearing of all the uncertainty in the world around me.
Instead of exploring the possibilities and opportunities in life, reading about the uncertain nature of our world today caused me to start worrying and overthinking about my own future – my career, my relationships and my life. And there I stood: Stuck. Unable to move forward.
[Tweetable: By eliminating the news from the diet of my mind, I became more open to possibilities and opportunities in life. ] [Read more…]