Tips to silence your mind & reduce stress & anxiety

March 19, 2025

Silencing your mind is essential for focus, creativity and general productivity.

If you’re stuck in a negative thought loop, it can be hard to see things clearly.

That’s why it’s important to find ways to quieten your mind, even if it’s just for a few moments each day. Once you clear your mind, you can approach your work with a fresh perspective and renewed focus.

Here are a few easy things you can do to help to “have a quieter mind” and not be “bullied” by that overwhelm and negativity that you don’t want to feel.

You know, the solutions to our problems, are staring us right in the face. We must just be willing to see them.

Don’t start your day with your phone

I know you want to immediately check your phone as soon as you open your eyes. We’re all addicted to our devices. However, starting your day by looking at your phone is the perfect way to set a negative tone for the day.

When you look at your phone first thing in the morning, you’re exposing yourself to a barrage of notifications and news stories that can quickly put you in a bad mood.

You’re also setting the precedent that your phone is more important than anything else in your life — including your peace of mind.

Also, checking your phone first thing in the morning creates a false sense of urgency.

You feel like you need to respond to that text or email immediately don’t you, even though it can wait.

Waiting until later in the day to check your phone gives you time to ease into the day and get yourself into a positive headspace before dealing with the outside world.

Here’s what can help:

Keep your phone out of reach when you go to bed, so you’re not tempted to look at it first thing in the morning;

Set a specific time later in the day when you can allow yourself to check your phone. Until then, resist the urge to look at it;

Start your day with a positive activity, such as:

listening to some music you like;

If you have a fury friend play, stroke, talk to it. You’d be amazed how calming that is.

Stretch

Do some breathing / a quick relaxation exercise etc.

Prioritise your brain use

Problems, setbacks, and unfavourable incidents have a way of creating urgency. It makes you feel small and powerless.

When you’re in the throes of a problem, it’s easy to convince yourself that the worst thing has hit you.

The truth is most problems are relatively minor. And while they may feel big and insurmountable in that moment, they eventually fade into the background if you give them time.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should ignore those issues, what it does mean is that you should take a step back and assess the situation to see if it’s as awful as you think.

For example, maybe you overslept; then on your way to work you dropped coffee all over your clothes; then your meeting got postponed; and on top of all of that, you realise you have to work late and you’ve got arrangements for the evening.

All this can make you feel as though everything is plotting against you.

But when you take a step back and don’t get caught up in, what I call “the whoosh”. But take a look at the situation, you’ll see that none of these problems are life-threatening.

They’re just minor setbacks that you can easily overcome “if -you-treat-one-thing-at-a-time.”

Here’s what can help:

When facing a problem, take a deep breath and assess the situation and ask yourself “Is this as big a deal as I’m making it out to be?”

If the answer is “yes”, then take some time to determine the best course of action. What can I do to fix this problem?

If the answer is no, let it go and move on with your day.

The rule of thumb is to make a list of your problems, big and small. Then, prioritise them according to urgency and importance. Work on solving the most important ones first and save the rest for later.

Realise you are being “bullied” by these negative emotions, but just like the physical bully, emotional bullies are weak. To recalibrate yourself you can do some breathing using maybe the HA Breath; listen to one of my relaxation recordings; speak to that negative feeling and ask it kindly to go away.

A non-negotiable hourly brain dump

One of the main reasons why people feel overwhelmed and stressed is because they’re trying to hold onto too many thoughts. Whether it be a small issue at work, a disagreement with your partner, an insult, etc., can entirely rot your mind if you fail to intervene immediately.

Our brain is like a computer — it can only process a certain amount of information at any given time. 

When you try to hold on to too many thoughts, your brain becomes overloaded and starts to shut down. This is why you feel scattered, confused, and stressed.

A helpful tip is to do an hourly brain dump. It sounds impractical to pause all your work and clear the mental clutter. But let me ask you a simple question:

How does a mother do all the work while managing a 2–3 months baby?

The answer is mental clarity.

She knows she can’t do her work effectively if the baby is hungry or crying for attention.

Our mind is like that, baby.

You can’t work effectively if your mind is crying. If something painful is constantly running in the background, don’t you think it will affect the quality of your work/performance/relationships?

This background noise can be anything like an insult, unfavourable result, failure, or simply overthinking. I say background noise because we don’t allot a specific time to ruminate on these negative occurrences. We keep thinking negatively while we work on our daily goals.

That’s why the main aim of an hourly brain dump is clear mental clutter before it hangs your brain abruptly.

Ask yourself every hour or so if anything is troubling you. If the answer is yes, then take a few minutes to address the issue first. Everything else in the world can wait.

If you don’t have a healthy Mental Health all aspects of your life will suffer

Here’s how it works: