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5 Ways to Cleanse Your Stressed-Out Mind

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night and replayed a conversation, argument, or to-do list over and over again in your head? If you have, then you know how incredibly frustrating it is to have the thing you need most at the moment (sleep) robbed from you by your inability to just stop thinking! When your stress button has been pushed and your thoughts are on overdrive, what you need is to know how to cleanse your mind.

Negative thoughts, doubts, or fears linked to stress suck away your capacity to think critically. Stress exacerbates fear of the unknown, anxiety, and worry, which lead to unclear reasoning or panic. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a strategy to handle life’s issues with a better perspective? Here’s how to cleanse your mind to overcome whatever stress throws at you.

Remove the mistakes.

Errors in judgment, failed attempts, and mistakes just happen, but when we internalize them, accumulate them, and let them lodge in our minds, that’s when stress builds. Instead, acknowledge the effort you made, and ask yourself, “Did I do my best?” If not, then try again. If the answer is yes, do it differently next time. Either way, use your mistake as a teaching moment for yourself. Learn to achieve your goals a better way or with a more positive attitude. Look at unsuccessful attempts as opportunities. This new perspective adds energy and zeal to what is before you.

Remove the worry.

I remember my mom used to say, “We’ll worry about it tomorrow, and if tomorrow doesn’t come we don’t have to worry about it!” This little nugget of wisdom taught me how not to borrow trouble from tomorrow. Additional worry adds stress to today’s situation with fictional ideas. The unknowns in life will always loom, but we can’t focus on every possible scenario.

Remove the defeat.

Life is full of negative triggers, so cleanse your mind of negative thoughts. Symbolically gather them up in a bag and kick them to the curb!  For example, I used to weigh myself every day. I realized that I mentally hung my self-esteem on the rise and fall of the numbers. What an unhealthy mental and emotional place for me to visit daily! I removed that one negative trigger and was then able to think more positively about my overall body image. It was so liberating to see my low self-esteem rise just by removing that one thing from my day.

Remove the waste.

So much of the thinking we do as moms is unproductive and wasteful. We think about how we’re messing up our kids, whether we offended somebody, or if our kindergartener will get into college. I recently read that my personality type is “thinking repressed.” I rolled my eyes at that because I’m always thinking. But then, as I kept reading, (as if this article knew what I was going to say) it read, “You think all the time, but it’s not productive thinking.” Ouch. I’ve learned that when those thoughts start spinning, I have to ask myself, “Is it doing me any good to keep dwelling on this?” The answer is almost always a big, fat no.

Remove the limits.

Take some time to dream again or do something you have only thought about. Taking a step toward your “someday” ideas might just be the thing that moves you bravely forward. Often, silly fears or limits hold you captive in your mind. Expand your mind to think outside the box and break out to do something new. This gives you the courage to accomplish something you never thought you would. There’s so much adventure out there waiting for you!

Practice the removal of negative influences so the positives come flooding in. But don’t take my word for it. Try these methods for yourself and change your way of thinking to become a happier person inside and out.

What are your tips for how to cleanse your mind?

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