Reduce Stress and Find Your Flow in 2019!

Are you the type of person who has a million things running around your head every single night as soon as your head hits the pillow? 

All the things you didn’t get done today, all the things you need to do tomorrow. All the things you want to achieve in life? 

You know you should be sleeping, you want to be sleeping, but your brain wants to know the answers to all of life’s unanswered questions? 

Does any of this sounds familiar? It’s exhausting right!? I’m sure it resonates with quite a few of you. My brain used to be in this space too!

Just like my internet browser, my brain used to have hundreds of tabs open. 

Information overload was one of the main reasons I would have trouble falling asleep at night. I had a pretty sound night time routine, but my mind was constantly switched on!

And at the end of the day, with so many tabs open, I just kept flitting back and forward between them all, and nothing was actually being achieved! I felt so busy, but not productive! I’m sure you know the feeling..

I was expecting far too much of my brain. Filling it to the brim, trying to remember everything, and if not over flowing it by expecting it to hold onto everything I was feeding it! 

This, my friends, is called a recipe for disaster. 

I know first hand that operating like this will have you all sorts of overwhelmed, stressed, feeling like you have a million things on your plate, and then you’ll feel frustrated that nothing is being achieved.  

Cue; The Brain Dump.

A what!? A brain dump is exactly what is sounds like. Literally, you dump everything thats in your brain onto a piece of paper. It is simply you writing a list of everything thats in your head. It doesn’t have to be in any sort of order. Because you will come back to it all later. At this point, whatever is in your head, Get. It. Out.

So that’s where you start with a brain dump. For me, sometimes it comes fast and flowing. Other times,  it takes a little longer. Either way, I make sure that this is the very first thing I do every single day while I’m getting ready in the morning, I’ll come back and forwards between getting dressed or having breakfast. Or sometimes I’ll brain dump right before bed, so I can get everything out, and not stress at night that I’ll forget about it by the morning. 

Once everything is out, I go back over my list and write a little sentence next to it. 

For example; In my fast and flowing brain dump I might have just written the word Bank. As to not forget the next thing that was flowing out. I’ll then come back to the word Bank, and next to it write “Deposit cash at Commbank” 

You may be thinking that by looking at it all will feel just as overwhelming because you’ve written down so much stuff. But, I promise you 100%, that it will feel soo much better once its all out on paper.  

The next step is to go back over your Brain Dump and give it a little more order. You’ll categorise your Brain Dump into a few different sections.

Firstly I create a category to list the things that are the most important. Tasks that take top priority.  Most likely these will be the hard ones that usually you’d procrastinate over! Get them in there!

Other categories I use include To Do, To Buy, Call/Email.. etc. I also like to include a daily gratification section to take a moment to write down something I am grateful for today. If you don’t do this already, I can’t recommend this enough if you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed. 

It’s important that this second, organised list, is all on the one piece of paper. You don’t want to have heaps of post it notes laying around, because each post it note is essentially another tab to remember you have open. 

You want to write everything nice and neat. Each day you do your brain dump, cross things off as you go, or at the end of the day. I like to re-write the things down that I haven’t  yet done on tomorrow’s new page at night. So that in the morning, theres less things to brain dump.

So, why is it important to brain dump like this?

Well besides the fact you will feel a whole let less overwhelmed, you will feel sooo much more organised!

This brain dump, is a type of self care. Psychological self care, self care that caters to your mind; your mental health. Activities like this will help you keep a clear head and a positive mindset, and they help to decrease stress.

And, as you may or may not know, your mental health affects your physical health too! 

So if you’re feeling like crap mentally, chances are you probably aren’t in the mindset to want to workout, which will then have you feeling like crap overall.

And you can’t live your most fulfilling life if you’re feeling like crap!

So to get your mindset back in check, learning how to do an effective brain dump is a perfect way start! 

Doing a Brain Dump will also greatly reduce your feelings of overwhelm, provide some guidance for your day, reduce your anxiety about the day ahead, clear your mind, as well as free up mental energy!

Get Brain Dumping NOW!!

To get you started on your Brain Dump journey, and help shift that mindset of yours, and to help you relax at night, I have created two Free Brain Dump templates for you to download right now! Yes, for free!

The first is a page for you to do your initial brain dump. There are no lines or dot points, as I want you to really have free flow of letting everything out. 

The second page is your organised brain dump, where you can categorise your initial thoughts into a less overwhelming system, that will greatly help you achieve your goals, keep your mind at ease, and have you sleeping at night again!

All you need to do is click the download button here for FREE access!

If you have any questions, head over to Beauty of Arcadia on Facebook and shoot through a message!

Goodbye Stress, Hello Flow in 2019!