Brain Dumping

Hey - It’s Michael.

Flying via Dubai today - this is going to be interesting. Enjoy the newsletter.

You leave work physically, but mentally you’re stuck in that project / meeting / task / discussion. While your friends talk to you, your thoughts race around that big issue.

You go to bed and wave after wave of thoughts come up. It’s impossible to sleep so you numb the thoughts with some distraction until you fall asleep.

When you externalize information and store it in a trustworthy place, your brain stops looping.

You can use this to your advantage for calm evenings & nights by doing brain dumps.

Brain dumping is simple: you take a notebook and write down whatever is going on in your head. Just start and keep on writing until your head is as empty as the Atacama desert is dry.

Don’t judge the thoughts that come up. The important part is to keep going until there is really no thought left.

You’ll find that sometimes that’s the case after a few sentences, sometimes after 1-2 A4 pages. Eventually, you will run out of things to write down and that’s when mental calm will arrive.

Principle:

Write down all your thoughts to calm your mind

A nice side effect is a much higher awareness of body sensations - you’ll be able to feel with much more clarity.

Write down all thoughts you have when you’re about to finish work. This will close potential loops and let you recover much better after intense days of work.

Personally, I write down random thoughts, mistakes, learnings & observations after work and it gives me great calm after closing my laptop.

Before sleep, brain dumping is even more effective: Clearing your mind before bed avoids any mental spiral in bed and will let you fall asleep much easier - especially on days where you’re physically not very tired .

Stop Rule:

Stop carrying thoughts.

“Writing is meditation in motion.” - Julia Cameron

How would I experience this moment if I wouldn’t add any thought to it?

See you next week - Michael