Mental detoxification is the process of removing unwanted things from your mind. Note that I said ‘unwanted’, not ‘negative’. Sure, some of the negative stuff on your mind is probably unwanted, but some may be wanted. For instance, if your finances have taken a hit, then worrying about it is wanted and rational. However, if your finances haven’t taken a hit but you’re worried they will, then worrying about it is unwanted and irrational, unless you have legitimate reason to be concerned.
Similarly, you might be inclined to think that all the ‘positive’ stuff in your mind is wanted, but things like toxic positivity and magical thinking are unwanted and irrational. So, it’s better to think about the things in your mind as wanted or unwanted rather than positive and negative.
The mind is a processor
Your mind is a processor of the information that you encounter. Based on the information that you encounter, it forms attitudes and beliefs that help you make important life decisions. Sometimes, this processor gets overloaded with information. Thanks to the information age we live in, where information is readily available, our minds get overloaded rather frequently.
This over-availability of information is unprecedented. The environments in which our minds evolved did not overwhelm our ancestors with a continuous barrage of information. In other words, we have a limited capacity to take in and process information. Yet modern life is an information firehose that continually overwhelms us, and we feel the need to detox our minds.
Just like having multiple apps open on your computer can overload your computer and increase the chances of your computer freezing, having multiple things on your mind increases the chances of your mind freezing and wanting to take a break from it all. Your mind has a finite capacity, and getting overwhelmed and burned out is a sign that a lot of unnecessary stuff has accumulated. Just like you need to remove unwanted apps from your computer so that the wanted apps run smoothly, you need to remove unwanted things from your mind to focus on and process the wanted things efficiently and smoothly.
How to perform a mental detox
The goal of mental detox is to discard the unwanted stuff from your mind and allocate your precious mental resources to the few things that truly matter. Your cognitive capacity and attention are a resource, like your time and money. Just as you wouldn’t want to spend your time and/or money on unwanted stuff, you shouldn’t waste your mental resources on unwanted things.
Mental detox is a continuous process, similarly to scheduling and budgeting. You have to manage these resources properly every single day.
Here’s a step-by-step process of doing a mental detox:
1. Dump it all
Dump everything you’re thinking about on paper- from the slightest concerns to the deepest worries. Think about what you’ve been repeatedly thinking about and dump that, too. You can’t work with the stuff that’s on your mind. Maybe people with extraordinary levels of self-awareness can, but most can’t. When you dump the stuff on your mind on paper, you make the invisible visible so you can process and work with it. When you’re done, you’ll have a huge list of things or ‘mental apps’ running in your mind.
2. What matters
Make two columns. One titled ‘What matters’, and the other ‘What doesn’t matter’. Go through the huge list you made and score each item based on its importance. 1 for least important and 10 for most important. Items that score 5 or above go in the ‘What matters’ column. Items that score less than 5 go in the ‘What doesn’t matter’ column. When you go through this exercise, you might find that some of the stuff you were thinking about isn’t worth thinking about.
Your mind deems every open mental app important. "If I'm thinking about it, it must be important." This exercise shows your mind that it has been running some unwanted mental apps that need to be closed immediately.
3. What you can control
Now, take the things in the ‘What matters’ column and put them into two columns- ‘What you can control’ and ‘What you can’t control’ based on your judgment. Again, you may find that you’ve been wasting many mental resources thinking about the things you can’t control. Sometimes, a thing will have two aspects- one that you can control and nother that you can’t. Put those in appropriate columns. I provide an example in the next step.
4. Goals and plans
The items in ‘What you can control’ are the only mental apps that should be running smoothly and efficiently. Turn those items into goals and plans. Schedule them into your calendar and add them to your to-do list. For instance, if ‘get a job’ was in your ‘What matters’ column, you can put ‘Applying for jobs’ in the ‘What you can control’ column and ‘Getting hired’ into ‘What you can’t control’. You can then set a goal of applying for 3 positions daily. In a month, you’ll have applied for nearly 30 jobs, and your chances of getting hired will significantly increase.
Control the inputs
Congrats on freeing your mind to focus only on the mental apps that genuinely matter! However, the work is not finished. You have to be constantly on guard. You must constantly fight the unimportant stuff that will try to clutter your mental space again. Life will continually throw things at you to think about. And you can’t help but think about them. The mind can’t help but process the inputs from the senses. So you have to be in control of what you ‘sense’ as much as you can.
Remember that thinking is not free. It costs time and mental resources. You can’t afford to think about anything and everything.
Just like you must be mindful of what you eat, you must be aware of your mental diet. You have to be cognizant of what you choose to see and hear. Of course, unimportant stuff may sneak in occasionally, and you can’t fully control that. But what you can do is perform a mental detox every time you feel overwhelmed or feel you’re wasting your cognitive resources.
Decluttering your life
Decluttering your life automatically declutters your mind. That’s because your mind oversees your life. It processes information about your life. If your work, home, and social life are cluttered with unimportant stuff, that stuff also occupies your mental space. You need to audit your different life areas regularly to ensure you’re only keeping things in your life that serve you.
