By Remez Sasson
Why should you want to calm your mind?
- Do you get easily nervous and irritated?
- Do you have fears and doubts that cause you to suffer?
- Do you have difficulties falling asleep at night?
- Do certain thoughts keep obsessing your mind, giving you no rest?
- Do you get agitated in every situation?
- Do you have difficulties focusing your mind?
If you experience any of the above situations, then you certainly need to learn how to calm your mind.
Frantic thinking, restless thoughts, impatience, fears and worries cause lack of inner peace, lack of concentration and the inability to think clearly. This leads to making errors, confusion, the inability to make decisions and to failure.
If you want to achieve more in life, you must know how to calm your mind, so that you stay focused and think clearly.
How to calm your mind:
Spend time doing something you love
Find some time each day to do something you love doing, such as a hobby, reading, listening your favorite music, etc.
Spend quiet time alone
Find the time to be alone, to relax your body and mind, even only for a few minutes if you cannot afford more. Give yourself some time for reflection, meditation or any activity that relaxes, such as yoga, Tai Chi, or walking on the beach or in the forest.
Use positive words or language
Your words affect your subconscious mind, your behavior and how think and feel. Develop the habit of using positive words and positive language both externally, when talking to others, and internally, in your inner talks. Using positive words and language would help your get rid of feelings of discontent, unhappiness and negative attitude, which lead to lack of inner peace. Positive words and language would increase your self confidence, self esteem, and decisiveness, and drive away thoughts and attitude that lead to lack of inner peace.
Try to be more aware of the words you say, and work at replacing negative words and language with positive words and language.
Change the DVD in your mind
What kind of pictures and images occupy your mind? Are they pictures and images of problems, difficulties, failure or disaster? Such pictures and images deprive you of inner peace, but you can change them with a little effort. It is like ejecting the DVD that runs in your mind and putting there a new one. Every time negative pictures and mental images appear in your mind, replace them with pictures and images of success, happiness and joy. Be patient, as this might take some time and effort.
Avoid mental pictures and images that are upsetting, and which cause apprehensiveness, worry fear and negative feelings.
Breathe deeply
Breathe deeply a few times when in stress.
Exercise your body
Exercising your body improves your health and mental attitude, making you more positive, focused and relaxed.
Meditation
One of the best ways to calm your mind is meditation. Even a few minutes a day would help, if you meditate regularly. Any sort of meditation would do. You can try the watching thoughts meditation.
Enjoy nature
Being out in nature has a great relaxing effect. Trees, lakes, streams, the sea, sunrise and sunset are naturally relaxing and calming. Watching them can make you feel calm, happy and serene.
For a complete program teaching how to calm the mind and enjoy inner peace in your everyday life, read Peace of Mind in Daily Life.
Remez Sasson is an author and blogger. He is the founder of SuccessConsciousness.com, a website and blog about self improvement and spiritual growth.
Remez Sasson is the author of several life transforming books, containing a wealth of information, advice and guidance.
I prefer to go for a walk when it’s cold and windy, not because I like to suffer, just because it makes me feel alive… feeling the cold on my skin – in the same way as taking a shower, it makes you feel alive knowing that you can still feel things! Try it, it could well make you forget your troubles for a while.
THe above methods would give impetus for greater discoveries about self ! A calm mind can be achieved only through cutting down unwanted thoughts and sometimes even the wanted thoughts. All men is still in search of something in spite of possession of metarilistic values. Finding what we need in our life may take the entire life term. Believe that you are here for a purpose, whether you like it or not you will meet them. It could be intentional or accedintal.
this is the the most helpful thing i have done so far. buy slow moving fish and decorate their tank beautifly. staring into it makes ppl feel serene. try it
have a puff of your favourite cigerette…think of your favourite person….close your eyes think of the beautiful moments that u ever enjoyed…then check the result
Yes the above steps will help people who are lost in this Mad Mad Mad world..people are under constant stress including myself..but I was lucky enough to understand this fact of ‘Calming the mind’ to ensure a healthy and spiritual lifestyle..
Yes..its a very difficult task to calm our minds with so much running within us and we think we are in control when we have no clue that there are thousands and millions of unconscious processes happening in our body that is beyond our
perception and control, yet we believe, we are in control, of what ?,
no one clearly knows.
Yes calming our minds is the only way to ensure your spiritual and personal elevation..a still water is something which reflects anything about it but a small stone dropped into the water its disturbed with ripples..just like our mind with ripples from all corners of our brain..running simultaenously..
When all the events in your life or mine, is predestined, our analysis-paralysis and the illusion of control, is like trying to taste the honey by licking the bottle from the outside…
How I started was to try and sit alone in a room facing greenery or ocean and meditate..not chanting any prayers or mantras..but just go deeper into what comes into my mind it might be flower or ocean or my son..just go deep..if we do this without thinking anything else then we have achieved the first stage of meditation..slowly as a next step you can improve your meditation by concentrating on what you want to mediate about or on..thats when you develop inner dialogue..
Thanks to this website..its a really a thoughtful website to help people to get back on track before its too late..
Think..what is our relative size when compared to the universe..!!!
Thank you Sathish for your comment.
I have many problems, such as mind, body of myself, as such wife, children, money
and other bad and good thinking, evenif it is necessary or unnecessary and enacting the
life drama, and so on……..but after the next morning i forgot the past and seeing the
distance to expect a good things….. today…….. such as…. whenever the mind become
gloom….. i think at that time closed two eyes and take deep breath and concentrate
the inner and inner and ask question to myself…..what is this and why???? if i am alone? i can suffer it
i will do it… repeat this and open the eyes ane ready to face the sorrounding related
problems…… may be get little good first and then it make a habit………..
People stress me out, emotions stress me out, and emotional eating is a problem for me. I’ve not yet mastered this calming of the mind but I’ll never give up either. It’s really annoying to let things bother your mind, and it frustrates me when I let that happen but there’s just no stopping it sometimes, or it just feels that way. Emotional eating is currently sabotaging my diet and I feel very disgusted at the moment but music and the outdoors really helps alot. I love extremely early morning walks and listening to some music always helps. Good luck to all those out there experiencing the same problems. You’re not alone.
I love each and every article of this website…it is very helpful…!
I was searching for this information because during meditation I cannot stop thinking unnecessary thoughts. For now, I am calming my mind by listening sounds of nature (ocean waves, birds singing, mountain streams…) while I am meditating, but those sounds can occupy my mind just for some short time. If my thoughts stopped appearing that means that I have fallen asleep
For sure, I need to apply steps you provided in the article. Thank you!
I just want to improve myself i tried this thing mostly but its work for four or five day but than i again in found myself in earlier stage which degard myself and my capability
While all of the above methods have the potential to calm the mind, I think that each individual is unique, therefore what works for one individual may or may not work for another.
For me, the realization that thoughts are merely thoughts and not reality, is the key to stillness and calmness. By not taking your thoughts so seriously, by differentiating between thoughts and physical objects, we can escape from suffering and stress by removing the often negative lens that distorts our worldview on a regular basis.
Life is short, life is sweet. Something as simple as a smile can help your neighbour
Thank you Evan for your comment.
I agree with you saying:
“the realization that thoughts are merely thoughts and not reality, is the key to stillness and calmness. By not taking your thoughts so seriously, by differentiating between thoughts and physical objects, we can escape from suffering and stress by removing the often negative lens that distorts our worldview on a regular basis. ”
Thoughts distort reality and can cause suffering. Adopting a detachment point of view removes this distortion, and then, things that we were afraid of, and which caused worries and stress lose their power over us.
I am going through big stress from last 2 years since when I got married. I am having 10 months old baby also. Initially joint family problem and now conflict with husband. Pls if you can tell me how do I keep my mind cool and resolve all problem for forever.
I am really excited to be part of this memorable events unfolding in this website. The above methods on how to calm your mind is really helping me a lot.