In this post I wanted to talk about a very crucial part of the well-being process. I am talking about a thought download. I may have mentioned this from time to time in some of my content, but this is really so valuable and important in and of itself that I wanted to take the time to focus on this specifically in one of my posts.

I want to share with you what a thought download is, why it is so important, and what you can experience in your life as a result of making this a part of your daily routine. 

If you think you already know all about the thought download and have heard me speak on it, stick with me because I will also share some of my personal stories of how I have applied and benefited from this routine practice.

Ok so…the Thought Download. This is a practice of downloading all the thoughts in our brains. You may have heard this also referred to as a brain dump. So what does this look like? Ok, each day I spend at least 5 minutes writing whatever comes up in my brain. I typically try to do this in the morning but if I miss that routine time slot, I have also done it in the middle or at the end of the day. 

So I have a journal because I like to look back at previous writings but you can grab any notebook or piece of paper that you have available. I just grab my pen and paper and I start writing. Literally whatever comes up in my mind. Sometimes it will be something that has been weighing on me or it could just be something random that pops up.

I don’t judge it, I just write. If it’s negative I let it be negative. Sometimes I feel light and so the thoughts are lighter too. It’s all ok. I still write. I’ve noticed that sometimes I jump from one topic to something completely different and it’s all ok. I just let it flow. Maybe some days I’ll write for 5 minutes and some I may write for 10 minutes or more. I just go with whatever I am feeling at that moment. There really is no right or wrong. The most important thing really is….to just do it. To get into the habit of doing this. 

Now I will warn you when you sit down to write, don’t be surprised if your brain tries to tell you that it has nothing to write about. This happens to me sometimes and I think, come on brain I know you have a lot of thoughts to offer me. In fact, it is said that we have over 60,000 thoughts floating through our heads each day. So we really should not find ourselves with a lack of thoughts to write about. But if your brain tries to tell you that, and it probably will, just challenge it. In fact, I have a list of questions or prompts I’ll share with you now that you can use to get started if you are coming up blank. 

So if I don’t know where to start or I’m just having one of those days where my brain is resistant, I will ask myself these prompts. I have never had it where one of these didn’t connect and led me to write. 

 The prompts are…

       What am I worried about today?

       What scares me right now?

       What do I wish was different?

       What are my problems? What doesn’t feel right?

       What decisions am I struggling with right now?

       What is a goal I want? What is stopping me?

       Who is not acting in a way I wish they would?

I bet your brain already started buzzing from some of those right?? I know mine does. Trust me it works. Just ask yourself one of those questions and write!

Now you may wonder, why can’t I just ask myself these things and talk it out in my head. Well, writing it on paper is extremely powerful so I ask you not to shortcut this. Studies suggest we have greater brain activity when we write. Pen to paper allows you to look at the thoughts coming out of your mind and begin to recognize any negative thoughts and patterns in your thinking. Sometimes it just looks different on paper and I begin to notice flaws or thought errors which sometimes seem to rectify themselves. Or sometimes, I am just feeling so out of sorts that writing all that is floating around in my head creates this much-needed space to allow other thoughts and alternative thinking to take place. 

I really liken it to cleaning out the lint trap in the dryer. When you don’t clear out the clutter in your mind, it just gets bigger and bigger until it is a major problem…like ultimately a risk of starting a fire in the dryer. You wouldn’t let your lint trap become so full, would you? Why? Because you would fear a fire. That is the way I want you to look at this. To place importance on it. 

So many of you may include exercise in your life and routine because you know you are being preventative right? You are doing things that are good for your body to prevent illness or unhealthy habits that will take a toll on your physical health. 

A thought download is the same type of effort for your brain and your mental health. Your brain can only hold so much. Picture your brain for a moment, and I ask you to visualize all this stuff floating around in there. Your relationships, your career, the baggage we all carry from childhood, your negative self-talk. And the next day you add more, and the next day more. You just keep adding more and more until it becomes too much and that is when we may have a forced cleansing of sorts. This may not always be ideal. Your brain is so overloaded it is forcing you to clean some of it out. We don’t want to find ourselves in this overloaded reactionary place. 

Wouldn’t you want to be proactive? To clean this out before the fire starts? My last post before this one was all about our emotional temperatures. Knowing what our temperature is and if we are headed for a full-blown fever. Well, the thought download is a prescription for what you can do to lower your temperature. 

Look, I know this is hard. It can be so darn difficult to make this a part of your everyday routine. I am not perfect by any means. Most weeks I hit 4-5 days a week. But some weeks I have missed nearly every day. And you know what? I’ll have this moment where I say to myself I feel off. I feel like my temperature is elevated. My brain is overwhelmed. What is going on? Well, I haven’t been doing my thought downloads. There it is. Get back in the habit Carisa. And I feel better every single time!! So yes, it is a challenge just like anything that is good for us. 

So won’t you give this an honest try? Take 30 days and aim to write 4-5 days a week and then see what you notice at the end of that month.

What I can tell you is that you will feel calmer, a lightness, you may create room for creative solutions to come to you, you won’t ruminate over things, and you will be less bothered. You will get clarity on troubling situations and not feel stuck. I would love to hear what happens for you.

Until next time, my hope for you is that you can make the thought download part of your daily practice or at the very least multiple days per week. Remember, when we don’t give something the attention it should have we drop it from our routines. Then it becomes so much harder to pick it up again. Make this an experiment. Commit to doing a thought download for 30 days and then honestly reflect on how it has impacted your life.

“The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.”

Marcus Aurelius