MoHow   Posted By   Dr. MO   The world of stresses, worries, and noise that we live in often results in a mind filled with chatter and a life of chaos, a life where we cannot find the calm and positivity that we so want and need.

If this situation applies to you, and you want to feel better, how do you do it? It’s not as if thoughts are just laying around, waiting for you to pick through them, finding the ones that should be kept and those that we ought to trash. The mind isn’t like an inbox, that can be sorted through and acted upon with instant deletions.

The brain is a complex organ, the core of our humanity. The mind is replete with old hurts and traumas, and layered at many levels of consciousness with out of date, and destructive habits and patterns.

So how do we begin the re-organizing?

It’s actually quite simple, however simple does not mean easy! In fact this ‘simple’ is difficult and requires stamina, repetition, and perseverance for the re-organizing to be successful.

You can improve your mental health with simple actions, actions that will have have a positive effect. Little things that can make a big difference, especially when they are used in combination, over an extended period of time. Choose a few of the following and see what works for you.

1. Healthy breathing. So simple, and yet so effective. Take a few deep breaths, and then for a few minutes, just focus on your breathing. Concentrate on your breathing as it comes into your body, and then as it goes out. It has a calming effect, especially if you continue to return your focus to your breath when your mind strays. It also allows other thoughts to just float away.

2. Identify what’s essential. If you want to simplify or reorganize, the first step is identifying what is most important. In this case, identify what is most important in your life, and what’s most important for you to focus on right now. Make a short list for each of these things.

3 Eliminate. Now that you’ve identified the essential, you can identify what’s not essential. What things in your life are not truly necessary or important to you? What are you thinking about right now that’s not on your short list? By eliminating as many of these things as possible, you can get a bunch of junk off your mind.

4. Journal. Similar to “write it down” above, but with a little more depth. Journaling (whether it’s in a paper journal or using the MoPad journalling tool on the website) helps you explore different areas of your life that you don’t think about much. And this exploration might allow you to find some things in your mind that you didn’t realize were there, some things that can be eliminated or pursued. Just getting these thoughts into some kind of a journal is a way of getting them out of your mind as well.

5. Get active. Getting outside and doing some kind of physical activity is a great way to get stuff off your mind. I like to run or do  gardening, what you do doesn’t specifically matter. Expending physical energy is what counts, it clears the mind.

6. Get in touch with nature. I like to work in the garden, walk in the forest, on a beach, or in a park. Listen to the sounds of birds and other animals, smell the flowers, feel the rain and the sunshine.

7. Do less. Take your to-do list and cross off half the things on it. Just pick a few things to get done today, and focus on those. Let the rest go away. If you do less, you’ll have less on your mind.

8. Slow down. Walking and talking and working and driving slower makes a very big difference. It’s kind of like you’re saying, “I’m not willing to rush through life, no matter what artificial time demands others are putting on me. I want to take it at my pace.” The result will be a less harried mind.

9. Let go. Worrying about something? Angry about somebody? Frustrated? Harboring a grudge? While these are all natural emotions and thoughts, none of them are really necessary. See if you can let go of them, it’s worth the effort.

10. Declutter your surroundings. Decluttering your desk, room, office or home will help you feel calmer. Having a lot of stuff around you is just visual clutter, it occupies part of your mind, even if you don’t realize it.

11. Uni-task. Multi-tasking, for the most part, is a good way to fill your mind with a lot of activity without a lot of productivity or happiness as a result. Instead, focus on one task at a time. Clear away everything else, until you’re done with that task. Then focus on the next task, and so on.

12. Communicate more. Sometimes it can make a huge difference to share our problems and challenges with someone else. If you have a significant other or a best friend or a close family member or coworker … talk with them. And, listen to them.. Connection can make a huge difference to your mental health.

If you found this post useful consider subscribing to this blog, and if you want  more help and support, including the MOmentum Mind thinking training course,  personalized training and coaching, and a wide range of specific motivational tools and resources and a morning boost in the form of  my morning email AmMo to help you get going every day, consider joining www.maintainmomentum.com.