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Song: Green Lights
Performed By: DLP
Written by: Daniel Labate (BMI 100%)
Published by: Boss Soundstripe Productions (BMI 100%)
Song (Trailer): Epic Hybrid Trailer Music
Performed by: by 2CoolFire
Licensed by: Envato Market
Cover Photo: Angela Clifton Photography
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The Neat Lifestyle Podcast
#15: 15 Powerful Ways to Declutter Your Mind
In this episode, let's explore a more comprehensive approach to decluttering because good decluttering goes beyond our physical spaces. It also considers decluttering our minds. A mind cluttered with too many thoughts, whether negative, neutral, or positive, can restrict our ability to focus and process information. Listen now!
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Credits:
Song: Green Lights
Performed By: DLP
Written by: Daniel Labate (BMI 100%)
Published by: Boss Soundstripe Productions (BMI 100%)
Song (Trailer): Epic Hybrid Trailer Music
Performed by: by 2CoolFire
Licensed by: Envato Market
Cover Photo: Angela Clifton Photography
Hair and Make-up: Casey J. Cheek
Sound Effect (curse beep) by Daniel Roberts from Pixabay
This is The Neat Lifestyle Podcast, episode number 15. In today's episode, let's talk about 15 powerful tips to declutter your mind, so stay tuned.
Welcome to The Neat Lifestyle Podcast. My name is Katia Mesquita. I'm a personal organization expert, an online business entrepreneur, and your host on this weekly variety show. I'm excited to bring you an extra dose of inspiration to become more organized, stay organized, and make things work better for you. My goal in this podcast is to help you achieve a more functional, harmonious, and meaningful life. I can't wait to connect with you today. Thank you so much for tuning in, and now let's begin. Hello and welcome to The Neat Lifestyle Podcast, now present in 28 countries worldwide. I'm so happy. Thank you so much for listening, and also, I want to welcome people tuning in for the first time. Today, my special thank you goes to my listeners in some of these countries. Of course, I cannot list all of them in just one episode, so thank you to my listeners in the US, the UK, Brazil, Egypt, Serbia, Spain, El Salvador, Jordan, Nigeria, France, South Africa, and Canada.
I'm your host, Katia Mesquita, and I hope you don't think today's episode is too crazy, okay? It's just a little bit because, let's say, it's kind of unique because I'm bringing up a lot of mixed ideas, but this is what this podcast is about, is to bring something unique, okay? And I'm glad that you are here with me. So, this is the episode in which you'll be able to see how getting organized can go far, far beyond just tidying up and putting stuff away. Today, I will talk about a more comprehensive point of view on decluttering, talk about Einstein, E = mc², the brain, the effects of mess in our brain, how the brain interprets mess and how it can affect us, neuroscience studies, and how the heck this whole bunch of things got related to this episode.
But in the end, the idea is to give you some insights to improve the quality of your life. When we talk about decluttering, the first thing that usually comes to mind is decluttering our homes, right? Which is a great thing to do, but today, I really want to bring up another thing to consider decluttering: your mind. And as you're going to see in this episode, decluttering home and declaring the mind are both very connected. Let me just make a disclaimer before I jump in because what I will discuss here are reflections based on personal experiences, articles, and books that I have read, and they should not be taken as advice. So, if you know or suspect that you have a psychological or health problem, you should consult your doctor or another trained health or mental health professional, okay? Let's get back to the episode.
So, a house can be full of clutter when people accumulate too many possessions, making it hard to function well. Similarly, our minds can become cluttered and filled with all sorts of thoughts. Whether these thoughts are negative, neutral, or positive, they can make that background noise that prevent us from functioning well. Some people unfortunately resort to alcohol or substances to numb the noise, which doesn't seem to really solve the problem, and actually, I believe it worsens even more because it addresses the symptoms while the cause remains there. And by doing that, they are just postponing the eventual solution, delaying everything that you want to achieve in life. A cluttered mind can make us get stuck in overthinking and delay achieving our goals. It is challenging to quiet the mind and stop our thoughts, but it is absolutely possible to manage and direct them in a way they don't interfere or disturb us.
We can organize our thoughts when we are structuring an idea, and similarly, we have the power to manage and declutter our minds when undesirable thoughts pop up, unless of course, in certain exceptional cases in which the person is experiencing some mental limitations. And the way to do that is definitely not by thinking more or thinking harder, but by using powerful science-backed actions that can help us calm down and be more at peace and in a more favorable state of mind to move toward more achievements. So, let's start with the definition of clutter. There are many definitions of clutter out there on the web. I didn't agree with some of them, but that was one that I found that was more accurate. I found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It says "To fill or cover with scattered or disordered things that impede movement or reduce effectiveness."
And now let's see the opposite of clutter, which is declutter. I found this definition that says, "Getting rid of the excess, getting rid of the unused, and getting rid of the unnecessary stuff." So, decluttering the mind would be getting rid of the excess of thoughts and thoughts that don't service, worries, noise. I was reading a book called Declutter Your Mind, written by S. J. Scott and Barrie Davenport. They bring up a very interesting correlation between clutter and our neuro response. They mention a study conducted at the Princeton University Neuroscience Institute published in the Journal of Neuroscience in 2010, and they say, "According to their report, interactions are top-down and bottom-up mechanisms in human vision cortex. Multiple stimuli present in the visual field at the same time compete for neural representation by mutually suppressing their evoked activity through the visual cortex, providing a neural correlate for the limited process and capacity of the visual system."
In other words, when your environment is cluttered, the visual chaos restricts your ability to focus. Clutter also limits your brain's ability to process information, distracts you, so you are unable to process information as well as you would in an uncluttered, organized, and serene environment. Of course, they are talking about clutter in your environment in a more long-lasting way, not about the temporary clutter and mess we create in a section of our home or workspace when we are working on a project. It's absolutely normal to generate some clutter and mess in a designated section of our physical space when we are in the process of creating or transforming something. Even when we have a project to organize a room, we have to remove things, generate temporary mess, then we usually choose what we are gonna keep, donate, clean up, and put away the things we decide to keep in a more organized way.
Even in organizing, it's unavoidable to create a temporary chaos. It's an inherent part of the creative process, and that was what I referred to in one of the previous episodes when I mentioned the creative mess of Einstein. He had a highly organized thought, and as far as I heard, he frequently had some clutter on his desk. I totally believe it's about his creative mess. I have researched a lot about Einstein. I love him by the way. I love his books, many of his ideas, his studies, and one of the special things about Einstein that made him the genius he was, is that he knew how to use both sides of his brain, the left hemisphere, which is the logical, rational part of the brain and the right side, which is more related to emotions. While most of us use predominantly one of the sides of our brains, Einstein knew how to use them both.
Fortunately, it's something that we can develop and that's one of the reasons I'm so wired to personal development. Anyway, a fun fact about Einstein is that there is a quote attributed to him that says, "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, then what are we to think of an empty desk?" I laughed a lot when I first read. Of course, he was being ironic, okay, implying that an empty desk would be a sign of an empty mind. And of course, he knew that decluttered doesn't mean empty. He knew the difference. But the reason I think that he was being ironic in his situation of this quote is that he was in a very peculiar moment in his life in which he was using irony jokes and unexpected behaviors, including that famous picture of him with his tongue outside of his mouth, as he was getting tired of posing for the press, photographers, and answering journalists about things he didn't want to answer, especially when the questions were related to two very delicate situations.
One of them was the fact that he was born into a Jewish family in Germany and the Holocaust was going on in Europe with European Jewish people being persecuted and killed, and he had to leave the country to protect his life. He went to London without his possessions and had to deal with the fact that he couldn't return to his country, and there was no much he could do to help the people he grew up with. And the other peculiar situation was that the formula E = mc² he published 40 years before that revealed the relationship between mass and energy, his formula was used to create the atomic bomb and people started to blame him for the bomb. But see, we can compare the formula to a tool, okay? And it depends on who uses the tool to make a good use of it or not.
Just to give you an example, a knife. A knife is just a tool, right? It depends on the person who uses the knife to make a good use of it, for instance, to cut the ingredients to prepare a meal, or to cause harm to someone. And you can get a better idea of this whole context I'm talking about in a documentary on Netflix called Einstein and the Bomb. It's a very good documentary, especially when he talks about what triggered him to start thinking about the principle of relativity and so on. I really love this documentary. Now, let's talk about the 15 powerful ways to declutter our minds. The first one is obviously decluttering our home. This is the first thing we need to do in order to help decluttering our minds. Remember, when your environment is cluttered, the visual chaos restricts your ability to focus, and the clutter also limits your brain's ability to process information as well as you would in a more organized environment.
So, given to this correlation, one of the good ways to start decluttering your mind is by decluttering our physical spaces, but not only doing it, but maintaining as well. Because if you organize and then you disorganize the day after, it's not gonna work so well. You may feel confused, you may start forgetting things, losing things, so it requires a little bit of effort. And when we declutter, one thing to take into consideration is that less is more. Having the essential furniture, the essential tools and items actually helps us making things easier to manage, easier to clean, easier to maintain, and about decluttering our homes and the effects that it can create in our lives, I really like to bring up that documentary, good, very awesome documentary on Netflix. It's called The Minimalists. Please watch this documentary.
Number two is by doing breathing exercises. It has a calming effect and helps to quiet the mind. We pause to take some deep breaths. It oxygenates the brain, helps to calm down the heartbeat, and improves our general wellness. One of my favorite breathing exercises is called "the 5, 7, 8 breathing exercise." I do like this. I inhale the air in five seconds, I hold it for seven seconds, and then I exhale in eight seconds. It has this calming effect and also makes my heartbeat more peaceful. Number three, listen to 432 Hz frequency music. I love it. I will put the link on the show notes of this episode with one of my favorite playlists of 432 Hz frequency music. I really like to listen to this type of music certain times in a day, when I feel a little bit, like, in need of focus or relax to sleep, to fall asleep. It helps a lot.
Number four is to spend more time living in the present moment. Of course, we need to plan the future. Of course, we still need our memories from the past, but it's not a good idea to spend most of our time living in the past or in the future, lamenting the past, or worrying about the future. Because what happens is that when we constantly worry about the future, we tend to develop anxiety. And when we spend too much time lamenting the past or missing the past or wishing the past was still here, present, we actually tend to develop depression. Only when we allow ourselves to live in the present moment most of the time, we can actually experience more wellness, more peace of mind, and build a better future.
Number five is taking some minutes in your day to feel yourself. To sense. It's like you scan your body from top to bottom to feel what's going on with your breathing, with your body. If you feel some discomfort in your body, some kind of pain, something bothering you, pay attention to yourself, pay attention to your skin, pay attention to your current environment, what's going on. It helps you ground yourself, especially when you are in a moment of chaos or something disturbing going on, it helps you to center back.
Number six, this one I am insisting with my son: digital declutter. Oh my goodness. What about some moments without digital devices, without electronics? I remember when I was a teenager, I didn't have any electronics. We would knock at our friend's house. I didn't even have a telephone. My neighbors did, but I didn't. And I remember my friends would knock at my door and vice versa for us to go out and do something. And nowadays a cell phone kind of became part of our bodies. So it's good to take some time without electronics.
Sometimes, it's very tricky because, of course, there are many good things like apps. I listen to music using my device, my phone, okay? I connect to speakers, and I use music to calm down. But I am also careful in having at least some moments without electronics, some moments to, you can choose, some days you're gonna choose going for a walk with music, with electronics, but some days we can choose go for a walk just to notice our bodies, our breathing, the nature and connect a little bit more, but basically to disconnect from the devices and this interference of radiation.
Number seven: minimize TV and social media. It's really noisy. You see a lot of news, a lot of bad things going on, and they kind of create that sensationalism with everything, making things look like catastrophic to get your attention. And also social media, it's very, very noisy. Everybody competing for your attention. I'm not saying not to watch TV or not to go to social media, but minimize. Don't let it steal your time and your energy.
Number eight: we can declutter our minds by doing less. When we define what's top priority in our lives, the priority in terms of things we want to accomplish or do and our main goals we want to achieve, and what people are part of our top priority, we can make better choices and actually do less. It's one of the things I help with in my coaching programs because sometimes we don't realize how much time we waste and how we can reorganize our time for us to do what really matters to us. So, when we are able to reorganize our schedule, our time in a way that we can do less, by prioritizing the right things, we can actually have less on our shoulders and declutter our minds.
Number nine is by making sure we are getting a good night's sleep. Sometimes it's inevitable, but it is important that most of the time we are resting well, good quality of sleep, so it's good to make everything we can to have a good quality of sleep. I really use some natural resources for that. I like to listen to some music. Sometimes I read a book, it helps me to calm down. I avoid checking the news by the time I'm going to sleep, opening emails or mail, whatever, it's a time for me to relax and make sure I will refresh my energy for the next day.
Number ten: connect to nature. When every time I go to the woods or I go camping, or even when I go to a road trip, I start to see the trees and nature, and I don't have much explanation, but I get re-energized somehow. It's like when I go there, I go like a dead battery and I recharge. Nature is an amazing way to recharge. Going for a walk in a park or going to the beach, going to the mountains, whatever makes you comfortable. Having some moments to stop the worries and focus on your breathing, in the nature, the smell of the trees, of the environment, hearing the birds chirping, hearing the surroundings of nature is really powerful.
Number eleven: you can declutter your mind by decluttering relationships. I'm very selective with relationships, and I'm really mindful of toxic relationships, people who are friendly, but when we get together, I try to spend less time with them because, you know, some toxic people, they drain our energy. We feel that heaviness, spending some time with them. Always complaining about something, bringing negativity or putting us down, you will notice the difference. One thing is when you get together with people that energize you, put you up, you feel like, wow, so much better, so much lighter. So, I minimize the contact with toxic people.
Number twelve is by practicing forgiveness. It's powerful. It's more about you freeing your mind and your chest from discomfort because you are going to let go all these things that are inside causing discomfort to you. Sometimes, it's about forgiving someone else, and what I mean, it's not necessarily reestablishing the relationship, okay? But just letting go. That feeling inside about whatever it's bothering. The person may ask forgiveness or not. If the person doesn't ask for forgiveness, by you forgiving anyway, even if you don't talk to the person, but if you create this forgiveness sense to yourself, you can be more at peace and declutter your mind. Sometimes it's about forgiving yourself. It's even harder sometimes. In episode number four of this podcast, I bring a very deep exercise about forgiveness. You definitely should check it out.
And the next one is number thirteen: writing down. When I have a problem, sometimes I like to write this problem down and throw the paper away. It helps. It feels like I'm throwing away the problem. Some people burn the paper, and some people keep like a journal. I'm not not sure. The thing that bothers me a little bit about journaling is that I don't like to open that journal a few years later and see a lot of bad stuff I wrote. I don't know, it's kind of weird for me at this moment, at this stage. Maybe I'll give it a try someday, but I like to throw the page away. It's a relief for me.
Number fourteen: allowing ourselves to have some downtime. Sometimes, we are just focused and doing, doing, doing, and going here and there and doing a lot. And what about reserving some time to do nothing, to just be, not do? This is important too.
Number fifteen: to practice more gratitude, more feeling of gratitude for what we already have. We don't step in that better position or in that better situation if we are not grateful for what we already have. And all of these ways to declutter our minds give us so much peace of mind, clarity, focus, harmony, more overall happiness, improvement of relationships, improvement of health and wellness, management of our emotions, especially in case of unexpected life events. Okay, that's all for today. I hope you had some takeaways from this episode. It was really done from the bottom of my heart for you, and I want to invite you also to listen to previous episodes. Some people think that, okay, they're past episodes, so they are outdated. No, they are not outdated, and I made it in a way that even if you listen five years from now, it's still going to be current for you.
And if you had some "aha moments," let me know. Send me a DM on my Instagram telling me how this episode spoke to you. The link to my Instagram page is in the show notes of this episode, and you can also follow me there for extra inspiration. And before I leave, I also want to announce the winner of the 1-on-1 coaching session with me as part of my last episode's giveaway. Her name is Luciana Fernandes. She is based in Germany at this moment. Congratulations! She already received a message with all the details. I'm Katia Mesquita, and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye!
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you liked what you heard today, be sure to share it with those you care about so they can also benefit from it. If you aren't already following me on social media, do so by clicking on the link on the show notes or simply by visiting my website at neatlifestyle.com. I appreciate you so much. I hope you have an amazing day. I'll see you in the next episode of The Neat Lifestyle Podcast.