Quiet your mind
It is not as easy as you might think - turning off the chatter in our heads- that crazy cacophony of chaotic consciousness that monopolizes our thoughts most of the time.
We have discussed the benefits of a quiet mind before - decreased stress and blood pressure, for example. Remember the prolonged stress and the “fight or flight” response can be the precursor for many chronic diseases, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity. Increasing the time we can spend in a quiet, calm state reduces the risk for most disease states and generally improves our quality of life.
How do we find this quiet state of mind? Of course meditation is a great way to do this, but it is impractical to remain in a meditative state for too long during the day.
But there are other ways to achieve the quiet mind, even during a regular day. Just learning to focus on the task at hand, moving past our stress inducing random thoughts, whether it’s attending to errands, sitting through a meeting, or typing a report for your boss, can calm our “crazy” brain.
The trick is to be able to find this quiet place even during the chaos of your daily life. Imagine you are sitting in traffic. You are stressed because you are late for an appointment. You’ve got lots on your mind: your spouse’s complaints, your kids’ poor performance at school, your financial pressure, and much more. All this amidst the honking, yelling and construction noise that meets us every day on our drive through town.
Find your quiet place by focusing on the moment - you are driving, you are alive and breathing, slowly in and out. Think about how you cannot do anything about all the noise in your brain, especially not right now. But what you can control is your reaction to it. So for right now, do not react to the stress. Let the stressful thoughts and sounds pass through your consciousness. Acknowledge them, but try to not fix on them. Turn on some music you enjoy. Revel in the beauty, breathe and enjoy your quiet world within the chaos. Feel your blood pressure drop and your stress dissipate.
There are other strategies for lessening your stress response to brain noise. It turns out that viewing great works of art, breathtaking natural beauty or anything that truly moves us can allow us to focus and move beyond our ego driven chaotic thoughts, so we can find our peaceful place. So if you live in a locale where you can walk silently through nature, or near an art museum where you can lose yourself amidst the beauty and artistic genius, you will more readily find your peaceful, quiet brain space. Viewing a great film, concert, or reading an excellent book can also calm your body to its healing focus. The goal of finding your quiet place is to find the healing energy of peace and tranquility. I know you can!
In health,
Dr. John Monaco
MONACO Wellness
(813) 252-6378
info@monacowellnes.org