As a change in the seasons draws nearer, now is the perfect time of year to consider a spring-clean. You are likely to get a lot of satisfaction from decluttering your life – whether it be sifting through your wardrobe, throwing away old papers and magazines, or just having a general tidy-up in your home.
But have you ever considered spring-cleaning your brain?
Simplification is one of the foundations of mental clarity. Paring back the superfluous or unnecessary things in your life can help to conserve precious cognitive resource for the thoughts and decisions that really matter. This produces the right conditions in the brain for creative thinking and problem solving.
There are a number of techniques you can practise to help you achieve a simpler way of living and, along with it, a clearer mind that can cut through the noise and bustle of everyday life.
Mindfulness
You’re probably familiar with mindfulness – the practice of focusing all your attention on the present moment – which has long been associated with relaxation and stress relief. By simplifying what you ask your mind to focus on, and concentrating solely on your own breathing, body and thoughts as they enter and leave your mind, you can reduce levels of cortisol in your blood and the corresponding feelings of stress.
When you practise mindfulness, your brain goes into a gamma-wave state of relaxed alertness. The regular practice of yoga or meditation three times a week results in lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol compared with other women of the same age. Regular mindfulness practised over eight weeks will lead to increased gyrification – the formation of more folds – in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain associated with higher executive functions. These extra folds will help the brain enhance its performance when carrying out these functions, which will have an impact on your ability to think flexibly and make good decisions.
Choice reduction
To achieve mental clarity first thing in the morning, avoid drawing on too much of your finite cognitive resource by making a lot of low-level decisions early on. Get up at the same time each day, eat the same thing for breakfast, take the same commute and limit your work wardrobe to a few staples. All of this will help prevent ‘decision fatigue’, which reduces your willpower.
The same principle applies when you are trying to change a habit or learn something new. Avoid over-committing and aim to alter one simple thing at a time. Focusing on a single task will help concentrate your brain’s resources and reinforce the neural pathway needed to learn a fresh behaviour.
Visualisation
Every day, we’re bombarded with information that competes for our attention and make it hard for us to see the wood for the trees.
Having too much to think about makes us stressed, and in this situation the brain often resorts to survival mode. This instinctive reaction, caused by a rise in cortisol levels, will cause blood to be drawn away from the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for regulating our emotions, thinking creatively and communicating effectively.
If you have a particular goal you want to achieve, simplify things by creating a vision board with visual prompts that reflect that one specific ambition. Research has shown that holding an image in your mind will have a longer-term effect on your behaviour change, because pictures follow different neural pathways than those linked with language and conscious reasoning.
