In the closing stages of 2021, I started to notice some old habits creeping in. Or should that be, I’d noticed a tailing off of the new habits I had developed that were previously bringing me emotional stability.
Meditation had dropped by the wayside, to the point that I hardly practiced at all, and I spent very little time focussing on my mental health.
I had fallen into the trap of feeling that I just didn’t need to, as things seemed to be ticking along just fine.
Reading in the evening had been replaced by binge-watching whatever new TV show was on everybody’s watch list. And the device dreaded screen time had undoubtedly risen by an order of magnitude
At the back of my mind, I knew this trajectory would only lead to one place, and so it did.
Anxiety started to creep back in – the feeling that wherever I was, I should be somewhere else, I should be dealing with some other issue.
Never content with just being. A vague sense of urgency never leaving me, and the ability to truly settle my mind and relax seemed to have deserted me.
Despite this feeling growing over time, it took me a good few months to act. That’s the problem with maintaining good mental health, you don’t notice its steady decline until it’s too late, and you have to begin again.
Begin Again
Whenever you find yourself at this point, it is important to do just that – begin again.
Without regret, without self-judgment, and without delay.
I’ve always preached that we should look at our mental health the same way that we look at our physical health. This is not something we should leave until we are unwell to deal with.
Constant maintenance and training are required to keep our minds as fit as we keep our bodies.
What we put into our minds is as important as what we drink and eat.
If we live on a diet of junk food, snacking whenever we want to, would we be surprised when we put on weight, feel lethargic and potentially develop health issues?
So too if we succumb to the ever-present temptation of social media, 24-hour rolling news channels, the endless TV shows, never stopping to ask ourselves if any of this is bringing our lives any kind of emotional enrichment, is it any wonder that the demons lurking in the backs of our minds will eventually make an appearance.
This fragmentation of our attention inevitably brings with it a decline in our emotional reasoning and cognitive fitness. Our minds are bombarded and cluttered with a thousand pointless pieces of information every day.
The threat is real – and our attention spans are suffering as a result.
And so, the realisation that we are a bit mentally “soft around the edges” brings with it a fresh opportunity to re-center, strip back, and re-focus on what it is in life that brings us fulfillment and purpose.
What steps can we take to bring ourselves back to a place of mental equilibrium?
A Mental and Psychological Detox
This begins with the identification of what we need to detox from. In my case, the ceaseless bombardment of irrelevant information that seemed to be fired into my eyes and ears at every turn.
Through the TV, my phone, or my work laptop… the sheer number and ferocity of things battling for my attention is frightening.
It’s inevitable that would I succumb to at least some of these attempts to lure me in and tap into either my fears or desires in order to keep me hooked.
Is it newsworthy?
The primary purpose of news sources is not to bring us the news. Certainly not any news that is useful to us, or news that will enrich our lives. They are in a battle for our attention.
Their very survival relies on our eyes being focused on them and nowhere else. They have no interest in bringing value to our lives. A lot of what is considered “newsworthy” is little more than fear-mongering or gossip, and we are tricked into thinking that keeping up with current affairs is vital to our existence.
It is not.
What is it in your life that you are subjecting yourself to that brings you no value? Does nothing but degrade the very fabric of your being, that prevents you from being a fully-realised version of yourself?
Social Media
As interesting as it is looking at someone’s fifth cup of coffee of the day (it isn’t by the way), the scattergun approach of social media, to bombard us with endless tiny bits of information like an uzi 9mm emptying it magazine of pointless crap bullets directly into our minds, is doing nothing for our attention span.
Is it any wonder that our minds are becoming more fragmented?
Is it any wonder we struggle to settle, focus or concentrate on anything meaningful?
The infinite scroll feature adopted by all of the major social media platforms is the reason they are so successful… because we are hooked.
Unlike the traditional news media sources, social media has wormed its way into our lives and perpetually exists in our pockets as a constant distraction from reality.
While we may have managed to weed out anything toxic from appearing in our feeds, the very act of scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter is having a negative effect on our mental health.
We are actively training ourselves to have the attention span of a goldfish.
Not to mention the fact that we are constantly subjected to the digital equivalent of the “dream life”.
We end up comparing our lives to the tiny snippets of carefully curated and selected information of others.
Put your phone down!
Contrary to the evidence of our own actions, we don’t have to spend our time being constantly updated with what everyone is up to 24/7.
These platforms are deliberately tapping into our “dopamine seeking reward loop”. The dopamine reward loop is a big enough topic for a post in itself.
Needless to say, we are all hooked like junkies.
Now for the good stuff.
So far we’ve managed to identify and remove some of the “junk” from our mental diets.
But what do we replace it with? What are the healthy things we can put in their place?
Practice Mindfulness
For me, this is a big one. If I could underline this and run a highlighter through it I would. I look at this, not only as the fundamental conditioning that my brain needs but as the philosophical underpinning of my very existence.
When we meditate, the act itself is conditioning our minds to become detached from the thoughts that spew endlessly into our consciousness.
It can be quite a jolting experience to realise how out of control our thoughts really are. It soon becomes apparent when we analyse our thoughts, how they become coloured by the junk we are putting into our eyes and our ears every single day.
If you haven’t tried mindfulness meditation, or are sitting on the fence about whether it can do you any good, I urge you to try it, and consider reading my article on Mindfulness here.
Strip it all back
What I mean by this is a re-focusing of our attention on those activities that bring us fulfilment. Living a minimal existence and decluttering our lives will in turn declutter our minds.
Ask yourself every day; Is what I am doing right now that important? Am I watching this TV program on autopilot? Am I endlessly scrolling again? Is what I am doing right now increasing my sense of purpose or bringing me any fulfillment?
What is it in your life that you are subjecting yourself to that brings you no value?
What is it in your life that does nothing but degrade the very fabric of your being?
What is preventing you from being a fully-realised version of yourself?
Work out what these things are and cut them out. Then you can replace them with good things.
It may be spending time with family, a hobby you are passionate about, charity work, getting fit, reading, fishing…
What are the 5 or so things that are most important to your life?
Answer these questions and make sure you spend your time focusing on them.
Conclusion
Living on a mental junk diet has a similar effect to living on a physical junk diet.
You crave refined carbohydrates, hydrogenated fat, and sugary food, not because they’re good for you, but because you get high off them. When the high wears off, you’re left feeling empty and guilty because what you’ve just consumed has no nutritional value.
It’s not your fault, you’re hard-wired this way.
And as with a junk mental diet – we crave acceptance and recognition, we’re triggered by certain topics. We seek out negative comments in Twitter threads, we have a morbid curiosity in negative news stories.
Why is this?
I’m sure a psychologist with plenty of letters after their name would give us a good explanation as to why this is the case, but as fascinating as that may be – it doesn’t really get us anywhere. The fact is these are the cards we have been dealt, so we must make the most of them.
Even when you know these things are bad for you, it can be incredibly difficult to give them up.
Developing a greater appreciation for those things that bring you back to mental equilibrium, a greater appreciation for those things that contain inherent cognitive nutrition, will allow you to start making a shift in a positive direction
Make a habit of listening to your mind and your body.
Examine the colour and consistency of your thoughts,
They will tell you all you need to know.
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