Wrote an article
Published a story
Practiced Meditation
Shared a thought
+2

Can meditation help you to declutter your mind?


It’s been almost a year since I started meditating from morning to evening.

During my first few months of practicing the basics, I felt so invigorated. Meditation was all new to me and my experience had a profound effect on my wellbeing.

Meditation has been helpful whenever I have brain farts.

You can also call brain farts as “hitting a wall” moments.

Whenever I have brain farts, it’s so hard to write. A cluttered mind with dangling thoughts and jarring noise is the worst.

I can’t push myself to write because I know brain farts hamper my line of thinking. It’s foggy (no pun intended), I can’t seem to choose the right words or weave a sentence.

When this happens, I pause and move away from my work.

I don’t want my work to get the stink from my brain farts.

It’s wise to pause for the moment. But if you continue your work with foggy thoughts, your work will not reflect the way you planned it.

It will reek of stink. We don’t want our work to smell like that. We want our work to be aromatic—friendly for the nostrils of our readers.

So you pause, reflect on your progress, and go back. Who knows? Maybe you’ll see the dots you’ve missed when you have foggy thoughts.

One approach to reflecting on your progress is to meditate.

I know, this is a kind of pseudoscience type of advice, but hear me out.

If you can take one major benefit of meditation, it’s this:

Meditation will silence your inner critic, and it’ll bring a sense of serenity.

We’re always critical to ourselves, even if our work meets our expectations. It’s hard to silence our self-criticism.

Maybe we’re too hard on ourselves because we connect our work to our identity. Who knows? This is a rabbit hole in a gray area. (I’ll share this more in the future).

Okay, back to the topic.

When I started meditating back in March 2021 (almost a year ago), I didn’t know what would happen.

I grew up thinking that meditation was only for outdoor practice. I was dead wrong.

The pandemic brought all kinds of stress and frustrations to everybody, including me. Thinking about the existence of the coronavirus made me afraid to go outside.

So here I am, with my family, hoping that this virus will not infect us. I was stressed and anxious all the time. I needed a break.

I stopped using social media because of the news. So I opened the App store and searched for games.

I love puzzle games, so I downloaded a bunch, but it got boring. Nothing seems interesting when in the back of your head, there’s this virus lurking around.

I dismissed that thought, then I watched my favorite YouTubers to ease my anxiety.

You know those annoying ads before the video? Yes, I got those too, but I got an interesting ad about a puzzle game. It was an ad for “Elevate”.

I downloaded the game, played for 2 hours, and it was surprising to see myself immersed in playing a puzzle game! I gave them a five-star rating because the game is fun and interesting.

Scrolling down the app store, I noticed Balance, a meditation app. I downloaded it because I needed to take a break and to see if meditation was for me.

Fast-forward today, I’m glad I downloaded Balance. The app is so simple, but the amount of personalization it serves me is outstanding.

Whenever I have brain farts, I will sit or lie down on my bed, plug my earbuds, open the Balance app, choose a personalized session, and meditate.

Yes, meditation works for me, but let’s not just jump to conclusions. I wasn’t consistently meditating the entire year. Yep. It happens.

There are days when my brain farts are persistent, meditation seems powerless. When this happens, I know I’m putting too much pressure on myself and I need to back away from my work and focus on other things I care about.

It’s all about getting mental clarity.

Then I’ll return to my work when I know I’m ready and confident I can finish the work.

To recap:

  • Meditation helps us to get clarity around our work and surroundings. It silences our inner critic, which is the most critical of all critiques.

  • Meditation unravels the dots you’ve missed. It assures our work will not stink with mumbo-jumbo but with aromatic synthesized knowledge you’ve stored.

  • Meditation shows your current state of mind, whether it’s clear or foggy. Having brain farts ruin your day. Practicing meditation consistently will remove the fog from your mind.

Start your day with meditation. Try it, it won’t cost you a lot of time. 5-minutes is enough to set your optimal day.

Try this beginner-friendly meditation:

Box breathing method.

  1. Close your eyes.
  2. Sit up straight, or you can do this while lying down on your bed.
  3. Then breathe in through your nose for 4 seconds.
  4. Hold your breath for 4 seconds.
  5. Breathe out through your nose for 4 seconds.
  6. Hold your breath for 4 seconds.
  7. Repeat this for 5-10 reps.

There you have it! If you practiced the box breathing, you’re already taking care of yourself. I know it’s kinda meh because it’s just a breathing exercise, but trust me, the longer you practice this, you’ll see significant results in your focus.

If you want to know more about the practice of meditating, I recommend you to download the Balance. I’m giving free one year of premium access to the app. Want to get some? Message me.

Take care of yourselves out there.