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 worry 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.
Lesson #2 on how to detox your mind to stop overthinking:
2. Reduce stimulants (coffee, soda, etc.)
In March of this year, I was forced to give up my big morning cup of coffee that I had for about 20 years. And it was VERY difficult. I didn’t realize how addicted I was until I gave it up.
The reason I gave it up was because one morning I woke up with this ringing in my left ear. It was a tiny sound, almost a supersonic beep…that would not go away for days. This annoying sound was especially more pronounced when I tried to sleep at night because there was no ambient noise around to mask the loudness. When I saw the doctor, a specialist, I got some troubling news. I have what is called Tinnitus – a constant ringing in the ear that affects 1 in 5 Americans. Unknown cause that reduces blood flow to the inner ear, making your mind interpret signals that are not there. Some things that contribute to it are: stress, lack of sleep, trauma (I didn’t have any trauma), caffeine, alcohol, sugar and salt.
Basically, this ringing never goes away but the good news is that you learn to live with it…you adapt. Scared that I was going to have this ringing in my ear for the rest of my life, I quit coffee the next morning. And the other things too. Talk about tough. Quitting coffee gave me so many headaches to the point where I just could not function normally for a couple of weeks. It was brutal. My facebook friends gave me some good advice on managing it. See Facebook friends advice (March 6 post) on managing coffee withdrawal. It took me about 4-6 weeks of trying to get my body in balance but I did it and don’t miss it anymore.
Giving up caffeine (which I never thought I would do) inadvertently had a positive side effect: My overthinking slowed. Coupled with a regular morning run on the treadmill that I started doing to replace the energy I lost from coffee, my mind was so much clearer and balanced. Reducing such stimulants helped to detox my mind because I didn’t have the ups and downs anymore….
Minding my mind 