Spring clean your mind

Detoxing your mind is just as important as detoxing your physical body and spring cleaning your house and workspace. Mental and emotional toxins consist of bad attitudes, memories, judgements, grudges, resentments, frustrations, traumas, bad habits, feeling trapped and victimised to name a few. These emotions usually result in behaviours and ways of thinking that don’t serve you well. Your time and energy is wasted on these restrictive emotions which can make you feel tired, drained, depressed and demotivated. They can also affect you physically with headaches, digestive issues, joint and muscular pain for example.

Ways to spring clean your mind

Power up

What’s draining and powering you? Make a list of things that are draining and powering you. This includes interactions with people, habits and routines. Try to work out how you can eliminate or reduce the drains and increase the powers.

Write it out to clear it out

Journaling can clear mental clutter. Write out your thoughts on a piece of paper then rip it up and recycle it or type and then delete for good.

Write Morning Pages. This practice was created by Julia Cameron and involves doing three pages of longhand writing on whatever pops into your head, first thing in the morning on a daily basis. These pages clarify, prioritise, incite and synchronize the day ahead.

Still the mind

There are numerous studies proving the benefits of regular meditation and mindfulness practices. Both reduce stress, fatigue and other negative emotions. They help boost happiness, self-awareness and mental clarity.

Meditation. Researchers at UCLA found that long term meditators have larger amounts of gyrification ("folding" of the cortex which may allow the brain to process information faster and improve decision making) than non meditators. Some of my favourite meditations are from the Chopra Centre Meditation. I also recommended the apps Headspace and Calm.

Mindfulness is the practice of focusing your attention on the present moment. See some mindfulness exercises here.

React differently

Negative emotions can be useful as they indicate that something is not quite right and needs your attention. Make a list of your current negative emotions. For each emotion, try to determine what might be causing this emotion and what you could do to change it. This will help you understand how you react to certain people and situations and how you might now choose to react differently or not at all! A good in depth article on dealing with negative emotions can be found here.

Useful therapies

Flower essences work on vibrational energy and stimulate the body’s natural ability to bring itself back to homeostasis or balance. Find out more information through my practicing clinic’s sister site Yorkshire Flower Essences.

Homeopathy considers the way in which your physical, mental and emotional symptoms relate to each other and provides remedies to help heal. Contact my colleagues for more information.

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy and NLP is based on the latest brain and neuroscience findings. It is a gentle therapy for the mind which can help you manage negative emotions. Contact my colleague for more information on how it could help you.

Please seek professional advice if you are in a current mental or emotional crisis. Call your doctor to direct you to the best source of help and support.

Always seek qualified practitioners and always check with your doctor before undertaking new therapies.