How To Create An On-Off Button For Your Mind
Overthinking things? learn to reset your brain. I recently caught up with two friends who I hadn’t seen in a while. We were having fun, talking about good times of the past and what we’re working on.
As I was talking to one of the guys, my other friend seemed distracted. He just stared off into space, in the middle of our conversation.
We were like, “Hey, anybody home?”
He laughed and said, “Sorry, I was just lost in thought. I got this thing I have to do tomorrow.”
Let’s be honest. How often does that happen to you?
The normal condition of the mind is to be lost in thought. We often don’t even notice we’re not in the moment. And it’s exhausting if you’re thinking every waking minute.
When you’re constantly thinking, whether it’s positive or negative, you always feel drained.
That’s why it’s important to have an off switch for your brain. At some point, you need rest. But you also need to switch it back on again so you actually use your brain.
Here are a few tips to do that.
Journal more
Imagine this: You’re sitting in front of your laptop in the morning to start working. You slept well and you’ve had your tea.
But after 10 minutes, you get an email from someone who sounds annoyed with you. And all of the sudden, your mind goes off on a tangent.
First, you think that the person doesn’t like you. Then, you start worrying about your career. And your brain goes on and on about the weirdest things. Sounds familiar?
This stuff happens to all of us because no one knows why the mind thinks certain thoughts. I deal with that by journaling. It’s an activity that really relaxes the mind.
I journal to place my thoughts on paper. We all have that monkey in our brains that won’t shut up. And putting it on paper makes it more manageable.
You don’t need a system. You don’t need a course on journaling. Just open a note and start writing down your thoughts.
Meditate daily
Plenty of studies have shown that meditation relieves stress.
The mind is noisy and meditation helps us to tune out that noise. With meditation, we focus on a single reference point, usually the ins and outs of breathing, and we notice our thoughts as they come. That’s how we train our minds to ignore our thoughts.
If you’re already meditating and practicing mindfulness, that’s amazing. Keep up the practice. Remember it’s a habit. I currently meditate twice a day; once in the morning and once at night.
When you do that, you can really turn off those annoying and distracting thoughts.
Turn devices off at a certain time
In an, experiment scientists formed two groups of people who read something before sleeping at night. One group used an iPad while the other read printed materials. And they all read in a dimly lit room until they felt sleepy. They did this for 5 consecutive nights.
The result? People who used iPads instead of printed material
Went to sleep at a later time
Had suppressed levels of melatonin (the hormone that regulates sleep)
Had less deep sleep
The iPad group also felt less sleepy in the evening and less alert in the morning.
Look, it’s really tempting to browse social media just before bed. Sometimes, we even like to keep working until late. But these habits don’t help our mental health and productivity. And they keep our brains unnecessarily active through the night.
So give yourself a break. I recommend turning off devices an hour before bedtime. I always read print books or on my Kindle during that time.
Never compare yourself to others
This is one of the biggest wastes of time. But we all do it.
You see your old classmate from university, who’s a year or two younger than you, going on a 2-week luxury trip to Aruba. And you feel this urge to compare your earnings potential with that person.
But comparisons don’t matter. So what if your old classmate is earning more than you or is “more successful” than you? It wouldn’t affect your career at all!
So whenever thoughts of comparison come up, become aware of it, and don’t listen. Say this:
“Do I also want what that person has? Do I really want to pay the price for a certain life?”
Most of the time, we feel envious of things we don’t really want.
So many people say they want to retire at 30 or 40 or some other random age. And then what? Spend the rest of your life sipping mojitos at the beach? Maybe some people actually want that. But I know it’s not for me. So I focus only on becoming better than I was yesterday.
Use a 1-minute meditation as your switch
All the above tips are great for living more mindfully. But how do you create an actual on-off switch for your mind?
I found a great technique for that in the book Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana.
He recommends doing a 1-minute meditation every hour. I tweaked that technique a little bit.
Instead of doing it every hour, I meditate for 1 minute as a trigger for when I’m switching to a different task or mode. For example, I always take some time in the morning to read a book, which is very passive. When I want to switch to writing, I pause for a minute, focus on my breath, and then start writing.
I use these 1-minute meditations whenever I feel I need to change my operating mode. I also do it after I finish work and want to get ready for dinner.
After a while, you get excited about that 1-minute break. As Gunaratana says: “Look forward to that minute and build up enthusiasm for it.
Also ask yourself, ‘When am I going to sit and meditate again?’”Ultimately, everything we do costs mental energy. So if you spend it uselessly on things like shopping online for 3 hours or calculating how much your college friend could be earning — then you’re wasting your energy.
Instead, be more mindful of your mental energy, and use it for things that actually matter to you. Read a book, work on your passion project, go for a walk, cook a special meal. Just anything that enriches your life.
