You know that feeling where your head is about to explode from the 10 million thoughts that are relentlessly swirling around in it? Thoughts about nearly every aspect of your life (career, home, relationships, school, finances, etc.) and you don’t even know where to start? Yeah girl, I know the feeling too. My career alone has my head spinning half the time with things that I need to get done. Then add the demands of running a blog, my social/family life, and every day responsibilities and it’s just too much. Good news though! There’s something you can do to work through all the overwhelm. It’s called a “brain dump” and it’s probably a term you’ve heard before. It looks different depending on who you ask, but today I’ll give you a few different examples on how to master the art of brain dumping. Let’s get started.
Psychological self care
Psychological self care caters to your mind; your mental health. It involves activities that help you keep a clear head and a positive mindset, and work to decrease stress. So doing a brain dump exercise is a perfect tool for psychological self care. Your mental health affects your physical health so if you’re feeling like crap mentally, chances are you feel like crap overall. You can’t live your most fulfilling life if you’re feeling like crap now can you? (the answer is no!)
My point is, psychological self care is where you may want to focus most of your attention if you’re trying to upgrade your self care practice. Chances are, if you’re feeling too exhausted or drained to even make any attempts at self care, your mindset is what needs some work before anything else. Learning how to do an effective brain dump is a perfect start to that super important mindset work!
So what exactly is a “brain dump?”
Depends who you ask. A brain dump can be as simple as journaling all of your thoughts out onto paper, or you can try a more structured method to help you organize those thoughts. It really depends on your needs, and preference. No matter what you do though, a brain dump should serve the following purposes:
- Center and ground you
- Reduce feelings of overwhelm
- Provide some guidance for your day
- Reduce anxiety about the day ahead
- Clear your head
- Free up mental energy
The most common brain dump exercise you’ve probably heard of are “morning pages” or “stream of consciousness journaling.” In it’s most basic form, this is simply waking up, grabbing your journal, and writing down exactly what comes to your head without worrying about whether it makes sense or not. There’s not right or wrong way to do this. You simply write down whatever crosses your mind. Just like any brain dump exercise, you’re taking your thoughts from your mind, and putting them physically onto the paper.
Why are brain dump exercises helpful?
The act of taking your thoughts from your mind and seeing them visually on a piece of paper is freeing. Think of it like unpacking a suitcase. When you get home from a trip, the thought of unpacking your very full suitcase probably sounds overwhelming. Most likely, you’re tired and you really don’t feel like spending time unpacking all of your stuff and putting it away neatly. A brain dump is unpacking your mind. Your super full, overpacked, busy mind. If the idea of “morning pages” sounds sounds too open and unstructured for you, I have a few other ideas to help you get started with unpacking those crazy thoughts. Download the worksheets below and let’s do this!
Four square brain dump
This first brain dump worksheet just gives you a way to organize all those thoughts a little better. Let’s break it down.
- Thoughts: This is the square to fill with all the thoughts that are swirling around. The basic part of the brain dump exercise. Don’t think too much about it, because nobody is going to read this but you! They’re your thoughts. So get them out of your cluttered mind and put them on the paper.
- To do: I’m willing to bet that some of your thoughts were about things that you need to get done. Probably things that you’ve been putting off for a while, or things you’re anxious about doing for whatever reason. Re-write any thoughts that fall under this category into this box.
- Gratitude: This box is here to add some positive vibes to your brain dump experience. Unfortunately, a lot of the thoughts that may pop into our heads in the morning aren’t the most positive thoughts in the world. They’re usually things we’re stressing over, anxious or nervous about, things we need to get done, etc. So take a minute here to write down 3-5 positive things that you’re grateful for; whether it’s a close friend, your morning coffee, your health, or the fact that you have a comfy bed to sleep in every night.
- Top 3 Priorities: From the above “to do” box, choose the three things that you NEED to get done today. This will help give you a little more clarity and focus on how your day is going to go, as opposed to blindly trying to figure out what to do first.
The de-stress brain dump
I believe that we shouldn’t stress over things we can’t control. I also know that that’s much easier said than done. Let me rephrase a little bit. We waste a lot of precious time and energy stressing over things that we can do absolutely nothing about. When instead, we should focus our energy on the things we actually have control over and can take action on. Sound a little better? This next brain dump is designed to help you in determining what those things really are.
- Start by doing a basic brain dump of your thoughts. If you want, you can focus specifically on writing out the things that you are stressed/worried/anxious about.
- Next, sort all of those things into the two boxes below; “control,” and “no control.” Be honest!
- Draw a big “x” through the “no control” box if it makes you feel better
- In the bottom box, “action I can take over what I have control over” brainstorm your action steps. What can you do about the “control” items in order to help you feel less stressed?
So the next time you feel like your head is spinning, I encourage you to try either one of these simple brain dump exercises. Feel free to modify them however you like to better fit your needs too! I know there’s so many different ways to “brain dump” out there, so I hope I’ve given you a good starting point to try it out yourself. It’s definitely something to add to your self care tool box.
