Critical Thinking & Problem Solving Brilliance

How Our Thoughts Affect Our Results

Have you ever experienced mental overload? Do you find that the weekly activities you have to accomplish cause you tension or anxiety? Would you like to just put an end to your worries about life in general? Everybody has occasionally experienced negative thinking. However, if these thoughts frequently overpower you, you should pay close attention to what you're thinking and how it affects your mental health. This internal dialogue is a normal aspect of your mental environment. It's always there, day or night, reminding you to pick up the groceries you need to buy, making you feel bad for missing your sister's birthday, or making you nervous about the news of the day (whether it's about politics, the environment, or the economy). Even though you might not always be aware of them, these ideas are the background noise of your existence.

Just at this moment, take a moment to notice your thoughts. Strive to halt them. Isn't that difficult? You'll observe how they arrive one by one, uninvited and frequently undesired. You have some meaningless, weird thoughts. It seems like it's going to rain, My arm aches, and Where did I put my keys?However, a lot of our ideas are bothersome and unfavourable. Whether they are pleasant, neutral, or negative, ideas like That guy is a jerk, I really screwed up that project, or I feel so guilty about what I said to Mom clutter our minds, much like having too many possessions may clutter your home. Sadly, decluttering your mind is more complicated than just getting rid of a possession.

A notion cannot be thrown away and expected to vanish. Indeed, much to an endless round of Whack-a-Mole, your pessimistic ideas tend to resurface as soon as you confront them. Why We Think Negative Thoughts Now, picture your mind as a completely tidy house, devoid of any unnecessary, exhausting, or upsetting objects that would otherwise bother you. What if you could only think positive, uplifting, and calming thoughts around you? For a moment, visualise your mind as a clear, calm sky where you can select what floats across. If a clear mental sky is so ideal, then why do we think so much when there aren't enough filters to separate the important and constructive thoughts from the irrelevant and random ones? There are roughly 100 billion neurons in your brain, and your spinal cord also has billions more. One estimate puts the total number of synapses connecting neurons—the cells that do the processing—at 100 trillion.

Our highly developed brains are continuously processing and evaluating a wide range of experiences into thoughts. What we think of as reality is created by our thoughts. Thoughts are something we can direct and control, we often feel as though they are directing us and our emotions. Problem-solving, analysis, decision-making, and planning all need thinking, but in between constructive mental activities, the mind wanders like a rogue monkey, dragging you through the tangle of pessimism and rumination. You become distracted from the present moment by your incessant internal dialogue. It destroys the delight of the current moment and makes you lose out on important events. It is absurd that we think that in order to figure out why we aren't as happy or fulfilled as we would like to be, we need to think more or harder. We look for things, people, and experiences that could satisfy our desires and make us feel better. We grow more hopeless the more we think about how hopeless we are.

We get empty, restless, and anxious thinking about the future or the past in an attempt to find answers. Actually, almost all of your negative thoughts are connected to the past or the future. It's normal to become caught up in a recurring pattern of regretful or anxious thoughts, even when you're trying to stop the endless loop of thoughts playing in your head. You battle not just with your ideas but also with your incapacity to let go of them. You feel worse the longer the unpleasant thoughts run in your head. The way you think and judge, the one thinking the thoughts and the one knowing that you are thinking them and evaluating how awful they are, almost seem to be two different people. This thinking/judging process causes us to experience unpleasant feelings. We feel more pressured, nervous, sad, and angry the more afraid, guilty, and regretful thoughts we have.

Occasionally, negative ideas can immobilise us, and it's these emotions that rob us of inner contentment and serenity. Despite the fact that our ideas are the root of so much suffering, we tend to believe that nothing can be done about it. I take it that you are unable to stop thinking? You are unable to turn off your brain at will or get rid of the thoughts and emotions that keep you from living life to the fullest. We occasionally experience brief yet unexpected periods of mental calm. Most of the time, though, we attempt to quiet our minds by overindulging in food, drink, drugs, work, sex, or exercise—a form of self-medication. However, these are only short-term fixes to reduce the discomfort and muffle the noise. Before long, our minds are once again focused, and the cycle persists.

Are we condemned to always be the victims of our monkey minds? Must we give up on our ideas and let them bring us down with regret, concern, and anxiety all the time? Is it possible to have a pain-free, negative, and clear mind? Even if you might not be able to maintain a clutter-free mental home all the time, you can still have a significant positive impact on your life and general happiness by controlling your thoughts. Though many of our thought processes are repetitive and, well, careless, thinking may appear automatic and uncontrollable.

Despite the impression that you and your thoughts are one and the same, you actually have a conscious self that has the ability to intentionally intervene and control your thoughts. You underestimate how much power you actually have over your ideas. Gaining mental control allows you to access the abundance of ideas, inspiration, and intelligence that lie beyond the chaos of your wild thoughts. You may take control of your thoughts and create more space in your mind to experience inner peace and happiness by engaging in a variety of mindfulness exercises and useful habits. You'll be able to clearly identify what matters most in your life, what is no longer advancing your objectives, and your everyday lifestyle.

Introducing: Declutter Your Mind This book aims to teach you the routines, techniques, and attitudes that will help you clear out any mental clutter that may be preventing you from becoming more attentive and focused. Rather than simply advising you to take action, we demonstrate how doable, empirically supported acts can, when consistently used, bring about significant and long-lasting change. You can utilise the four highly informative sections of Declutter Your Mind to address particular areas of your life that may be stressing or overwhelming you. We specifically address the following subjects: Decluttering Your Thoughts; Decluttering Your Life's Obligations; Decluttering Your Relationships; and Decluttering Your Surroundings.

You'll discover that this book is jam-packed with mindset-improving activities that you can do right away. We advise you to read the entire thing through once and then go over it again to determine which part of your life most needs work, as there is a lot of information. Put differently, you ought to identify a quick win that will significantly improve your life right away.

Four Reasons for Mental Disarray

It's crucial to comprehend the reasons behind your negative thoughts before moving on to the several activities designed to eradicate them. Thus, we will discuss four reasons for mental congestion in this part. Cause #1: Excessive Stress on a daily basis Stress is the main factor contributing to many people's feeling of being overwhelmed by life. As a matter of fact, the stress brought on by an abundance of information, physical clutter, and the never-ending decisions these things necessitate can set off a host of mental health problems, including melancholy, panic attacks, and generalised anxiety.

According to the American Psychological Association, if you combine this stress with your valid worries and concerns, you may experience headaches, muscle soreness, chest pain, frequent infections, and stomach and intestinal disorders (not to mention the dozens of studies that show a link between stress and physical issues). The author of 10% Happier and ABC News anchor Dan Harris didn't realise how his mental overload stress was affecting him until he experienced a severe panic attack on national air.

He was sad and concerned as a result of his hard and competitive career, which led him to the front lines of Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine, and Iraq. He used recreational drugs as a form of self-medication for his own agony, which led to the on-air attack. Dan had a realisation regarding his mental health following a discussion with his physician. In an article on the ABC website, he claims, It dawned on me, as I sat there in his office, just how mindless I had become—from racing into conflict zones without thinking through the psychological repercussions to utilising medications to get a synthetic shot of adrenaline substitute. It seemed like I had been somnambulating through a series of insane conduct. Dan's insane conduct" was