QUIETING THE NOISE: OPERATION MIND RESET!

Within the last few years, I am sure life has gotten busy and hectic by the minute for most of us. From our daily grind and hustle, to running business ventures and endeavors, exploring various avenues, and being breadwinners and providers for our families. Additionally, due to the constant threat we face as black people in general, with the recent increase in police violence against our community, Black Lives Matter movement alone has reopened a psychological wound on us. Both direct and indirect micro-aggressions, continues to affect black women’s mental health on the regular and this alone has created a level of racial trauma, depression, hypervigilance, and anxiety for us all. As someone who takes in a lot of social justice and global human rights information and due to the nature of my work, I often have to use my cerebral to the absolute max, which means my brain is constantly on overdrive into the wee hours of the night, and I’m lucky if I can squeeze in 4hours of sleep.

With all of this craziness as a backdrop, we need a moment to breathe and just woosah! To mitigate this, below are a few quick tips that can help us all quiet the noise, recenter, and reset our expansive minds.

Below are 5 easy quick tips to help you reset your brain while on the go!

Let Go of Any Negative Self-Talk: Often when life gets out of control, it's easy to become more pessimistic. We turn into our biggest critics, which eventually takes a toll on our mental health and brain power. By speaking more positivity into our lives, it can help us better maneuver different situations that comes up during our days. Use daily positive affirmations and mantras to train and reset your mind. The more positive and or optimistic you are, the better your manifestations become. The more self-disciplined your mind has; it allows you to take in positive information and express your emotions in a healthy manner.

Remember, from your mouth to God’s ears. What comes out of your mouth whether negative or positive, can truly determine what results you gain in life.

• Every morning, write something positive about yourself that you love and put it on sticky notes and post it in visible areas in your home as a reminder. So, every time you need a quick pick me up, you can refer to them.

• Download affirmations and mantra apps from your Appstore. I like these because, they provide daily notifications of great positive affirmations at your fingertips. You can pull them up before a work meeting and or when you have a quick break.

• Depending on what your faith is, turn to that to sharpen your positive self-reflection. For me, downloading my fav bible apps does just that. I have daily scripture verses that helps me refocus during the day when I feel stuck and or overwhelmed.

You Can Never Go Wrong with Guided Meditation: To decrease stressful situations, reaffirm our intuitions, connect with our inner self, and adapt healthy mind reset habits, below are some of my favorite guided mediation platforms and gurus.

• Black Girl in Om absolutely love them. Their mediation selection comes accompanied with relaxing music, while you let your mind and thoughts explore freely.

• Liberate Meditation: they are pretty much the bomb.com. this is a go to meditation spot for (Black, Indigenous and people of color). You can easily download their meditation app to reduce any anxiety or chronic stress you may be experiencing. My favorite part is their guided meditation that covers microaggressions, internalized racism, and the willpower of our ancestors.

• Black Zen: such a dope social movement focus on human tolerance. They have podcasts that covers wellness, grief, strengthening your wellbeing, and it’s done through humor, which I absolutely love.

Create a Self-Care and Positive Mindset Playlist: I like to think of myself as a music connoisseur at least that’s the lie I tell myself lol. I am a huge music fan and I have an eclectic collection of playlists from all genres. I think music is a great tool to help restore a positive brain power and reset your mind.

Create different playlists via iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, or whatever streaming service you prefer. These playlists should reflect your different mood and vibes. When your days get long, hectic, busy, and your mind is in overdrive perhaps a jazz playlist may suffice in calming you down regardless of the chaotic environment you may be in. And if you are feeling down, sad, and depressed, turn on your Bad Boss Bih Chunes—I'm talking Latto, my girl Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B etc. And when you are looking for that women empowerment jam to shut ish down at work-you can never go wrong with a little Queen Beyonce etc.

Delete Your Social Media App and Take a Break: Ok let me not tell a lie and shame the devil lol…I’m still working on this lol. Sometimes the amount of social media we consume can be addictive, a complete distraction, and an overload on our brain. The time spent and hours wasted could actually be refocused and invested in other areas of life that can yield more positive result as it pertains to our wellness and mental health.

If you are scrolling through social media at odd times of the night trying to see what’s happening on the shaderoom then it’s clearly time to go into recovery mode. You may have a little withdrawal, but you can do it lol. I’ve been adapting these steps lately and it has helped me spend my time more wisely in connecting with the ones that matter the most to me in person.

To jumpstart this:

a) Set calendar reminders and timeline of when to de-active and reactive your account!

b) If option A is impossible for you, just delete the app from your phone and regain your liberation.

c) Go on a social media fast like you would with lent. Dedicate a few weeks or months to being offline and utilize that time to commit to your faith and positive activities that are more conducive to your life.

Prioritize Your Rest: This is a luxury but let’s turn this into a daily routine. The negative part about being someone who multi-tasks and is always on the go due to my own hyper independent nature, I tend to take on a lot more than I care to admit, which eats away from me adapting a healthy sleeping habit. For years, due to my hectic schedule and career, I thought I could survive on 4 hours of sleep a night, but that has come crashing down.

Now, I am making a conscious effort to slow down a little, to take on less, delegate more, channel my effort and investments into what serves my higher good and work smarter not harder. I've set a goal to turn my laptop off, not answer any emails or phone calls past a certain time. I utilize 30mins to meditate, go through my mindfulness and faith routine, and then turn the lights off and put in about 6-7 hours of sleep. We haven’t gotten this packed down entirely, but working on increasing my resting hours as much as I can.

Xoxo,

@Blackgirlsnamaste