The Twice-a-Day Ritual That De-Clutters Your Mind, Helps You Sleep Better, Relieves Stress, and Boosts Mental Focus

Scott Bea is a clinical psychologist who understands how clutter can wreck your mental and physical health. He tells us that visual clutter, anything that falls within your line of sight but isn’t necessary, cranks up your production of cortisol. That means more stress and anxiety.

Clutter negatively affects your self-esteem level, even if you don’t consciously believe it’s that big of a problem. Mental and physical clutter kills your ability to focus and be productive and can lead to sleep loss.

Physical clutter in your environment can lead to mental clutter.

Your senses are constantly trying to deal with everything they detect in your messy, disorganized space. This fogs up your brain and gets it working overtime. When you remove visual, physical, and mental clutter from your life, you gain better control of not only your mental abilities. You also boost your self-esteem and feel good about what you’ve accomplished.

The Downside of a Cluttered Mind

Before we discuss how you can do some spring cleaning in your mind, let’s get a little negative. Sometimes understanding the downside of a situation can motivate you to take action.

Here are a few of the unfortunate symptoms of a cluttered mind:

• You constantly focus on the negative and have difficulty seeing things positively.
• You worry about things you have no control over.
• It isn’t easy focusing your attention and having clarity of thought.
• You are easily and frequently distracted.
• Your brain never shuts down and is always processing information from multiple topics and lists.
• A cluttered mind can lead to multiple sleep problems.
• It’s common to feel physically drained, mentally confused, and unproductive.

When your mind is cluttered with unnecessary “stuff,” a lot of energy is required to deal with it. This can make you feel run down and fatigued. You don’t feel like doing anything or dealing with anything.

Don’t worry; there is a simple solution you can use twice a day to sleep better and relieve the stress your mental clutter is causing. You will find it easier to focus, and you’ll be more productive as well.

Here’s what you need to do:

What is the “it” that you should be writing down? Your thoughts. Your feelings. Anything that’s going on in your head. In the morning, write out a game plan for the day. Prioritize important things and keep everything else off of your list.

At night, read over what you wrote that morning. Then unload your mind. Back up the mental dump truck and get it all out. If random thoughts bother you during the day and are still on your mind, let them stand up and be recognized.

Writing out your thoughts is such a powerful way to clear your mind. When you do this regularly in the morning and at night, you’ll find you sleep better, and you’re more productive during the day. This won’t stop your ceaseless inner chatter. It gives you control over it while ensuring a lot of mental clutter doesn’t take up full-time residency in your mind.