We live in a society today where stress has never been more prevalent across the global population. Whether it’s work-related stress, financial strain, poor health, or relationship woes, it takes a serious mental, emotional, and physical toll on us all.

The reality is that much of the stress we experience is created in our own minds. Yes, some forms of stress are legitimate and tangible, such as work deadlines or being stuck in traffic. But much of the time, stress can be avoided by learning to calm the mind.

If you want to learn more about how to clear your mind in order to better manage your stress and anxiety, just keep on reading.

The Positive Effects of Mind Management

Most people may not realize just how stressed or anxious they are. Many of us learn to live with stress as if it’s part of your daily life. In fact, some people thrive off of highly stressful, pressurized situations.

While exercise and certain supplements, including this product, can improve stress levels, mind management is one of the best ways to reduce stress. Here’s how learning to control your thoughts can improve your health:

• It can improve your quality of sleep, resulting in better rest, overall
• It reduces cortisol levels which are automatically raised when we’re stressed
• It can make room for positive thoughts, which can boost your mood
• It allows for increased creativity and productivity

Here’s why heightened levels of cortisol are bad for your health. Chronic stress contributes to elevated cortisol levels, which in turn, contributes to a myriad of illnesses. Cortisol impairs the body’s immune response, making you susceptible to not only colds and flu, but more serious conditions such as diabetes, cancer, and osteoporosis.

6 Proven Techniques on How to Clear Your Mind

When most people face stress, they may find that their thoughts compound their levels of stress even further. Do you find yourself worrying about situations that haven’t even happened yet? Or stressing over past events and how they could have been different?

These are the types of running thoughts that compound stress levels. Negative thoughts that run on an endless loop is known as rumination. They are unhealthy for the mind and can only lead to increased levels of anxiety, which worsens stress levels.

Try these techniques to help clear your mind:

1. Daily Meditation

Some people are skeptical about the true benefits of meditation. But research shows that it’s one of the best ways to change negative thought patterns, reduce depression, anxiety, and stress.

It’s easy to default to a negative way of thinking if you are constantly in a state of stress. Meditation helps to re-wire the brain to focus on positive thinking, as well as quieting the mind by letting go of rumination. It also facilitates forgiveness, which helps you to move on from negative, ruminating thoughts.

You don’t need any fancy tools to meditate. All you need is a quiet space where you can sit or lie down and focus your mind. You only need to start off with 5-minutes of meditation each day, then progress to longer periods.

2. Focus on Mindfulness

Mindfulness is often confused with meditation. While the two concepts are similar, mindfulness is more about focusing your attention on one particular activity. It can be anything, as long as you are immersed in the present moment.

Focusing on being mindful in your day-to-day life is a great activity for busy, highly-strung people. This is because it forces you to slow down and forget about all the running thoughts in your mind or your never-ending to-do list.

You can practice mindfulness with almost any activity — whether it’s eating a meal, having a cup of coffee, cooking a meal, taking a bath, etc.

3. Journal Your Thoughts With Expressive Writing

If you feel like you can’t get a handle on all your thoughts, writing them down is also a brilliant way of clearing your mind. Perhaps you aren’t good at communicating exactly how you feel? Journaling your thoughts in an expressive way can be just as therapeutic as talking to someone about them.

Journaling also allows you to dive into deeper thoughts and emotions you don’t always address on a daily basis. This, in itself, can help you to process worries, insecurities, or past trauma, which can help to manage stress. If you’re new to journaling, set yourself a time limit so you don’t waste time on rumination. This will encourage you to examine your thoughts and come up with solutions, instead.

4. Make an Effort to Distract Yourself

Sound easy enough, doesn’t it? But the art of self-distraction is easier said than done, especially if your life is very busy. This being said, it’s important to allocate some time to yourself each day to completely zone out from your everyday life.

This is a healthy habit, which is essential for a healthy mind. There’s nothing selfish about it. Whether it’s 45-minutes of exercise, a 20-minute bath, some personal reading time, or cooking your favorite meal. Use this personal time to distract yourself and calm your mind.

5. Spend Time Around Positive, Loving People

Stress has a way of sucking the life out of all of us. If you feel like your personality or happiness has disappeared, it’s important to surround yourself with people who can bring it out of you.

However, it’s crucial that you make an effort to meet your loved ones half-way. You don’t want to become a negative influence, as this can drain their energy, too. Try to focus your time on positive relationships, with friends and family members that are understanding and patient.

Make an effort to work on and strengthen these relationships so that you don’t have to rely on rumination as a coping mechanism.

6. Avoid Ruminating (Where Possible)

While personal rumination is impossible to avoid on an everyday basis, it’s important to be mindful of where your thoughts go. As soon as you find yourself drifting into a dark, negative self-dialogue, try to change your thought pattern. You can do this by actively taking note of your inner self-dialogue and the thoughts that come from it.

The same goes for co-rumination. This is where you continually discuss negative thoughts or problems with your loved ones. Your support network should be there for you to ”unload”. But don’t make your entire relationship about this. It will only leave you and your loved ones feeling flat and defeated.

Make Your Mental Health a Top Priority

These are just a few of the many proven ways on how to clear your mind. But ultimately, it’s about thinking about how you think. Stress is as much a mind-game as it is a physical condition. By learning to calm your mind, you can control your stress.

If you’re interested in making your health — both physical and mental — a top priority, don’t miss out on the rest of this site for more. Explore for a plethora of health and fitness content to keep you on track!