What to keep and what to throw?

We take our brains for granted.

In what I call as a never-ending research program of the human brain, scientists have had an immense success in finding out the nuances of brain; No doubt. However, think about it for another moment. Would the scientists know or tell us how not to store things that are actually an overload to our brain?

I doubt that part.

In today’s fast, technological, over-sensitive, sophisticated, money-wise, rich world, we have toned down in our memory power, speed, efficiency, health, and happiness. I need not tell you data points for these; I hope. Most of us agree. Those of us who do not feel so, are blessed and may not need this article. You can just thank God and stop reading here. You do not need this information. All the best, happy brain!

Now for those of us who agree that we need help to ensure that we store less of the data (information/feelings/moods/memories) dumped on to us day after day from media, society, books, family, office, road, and anywhere this article is for you.

This is my humble attempt to help us do some house-keeping in our brain. Like a house that needs cleaning, our brains need cleaning too.

Clean the Rusty Past and Trash what you must

We have a lot of rust from the past accumulated inside our heads. The thoughts that we have not used in a long time and forgotten or useless thoughts occupy a fair chunk of cells in our mind.

Action: Apply some anti-rust here. Take it out, ponder the lesson and resolve to follow what you learned. Forgive each of the individuals in the rusty path and say God Bless you once. Write about the incident and trash it. It is over. It happened before and has to be trashed from your brain space.

Result: You have free space now for new things and people and experiences and you can make more memories that you may cherish and keep for joys.

Keep news channels as just that and not your hobby

Newsfeeds are to tell us what is going on. Do not store all the names and incidents and people and decisions in the news. You are not going to be crowned for your memory or be given an extra dime for the excellent memory with which you recalled the president of the early 1970s.

Action:

Keep only those dates and events that mean something to you. Jot it down in a notebook — digital or physical and use as required. Do not waste brain cells on these.

Result: More space in your brain for better things.

Knowledge from the past should not clutter space!

There is a lot of knowledge that we have gained from the past years of studying, residential schooling, University and work lives. Those that you often cite in your circle as your experience for their benefit. You may help someone grow or you may tell things to people because you care. You may repeat things to people that may go unheard.

Action:

After a point, stop and write it out in some medium — site, book, like I am just doing now, so the reader knows your lesson, meaning or intent. Address it to a general population and write your thoughts out.

Result: Brain becomes calmer and releases that space for something else.

Movies, Web TV, Books, and Music should have a shelf too

Some of these stay in our minds for longer, as long as we don’t even remember. They mean (do not mean sometimes) a lot to our emotional well-being.

Action: Keep the thoughts around these in the form of a playlist that you listen to often in case of music. With a book and movie, write your thoughts and store it away. With the Television and Web, ensure that you discuss the same with someone like-minded and be done with it.

Result: More space for new movies, web, tv, books, and music.

Other core brain-keeping work that we must strive to do are:

1. Have a routine and stick to it.
2. Sleep for 6 hours minimum each night.
3. Meet and greet people.
4. Practice a hobby or sport.
5. Exercise daily.
6. Meditate on Nothing in particular or something based on what you want out of the exercise. If you need calm, sit idle doing nothing for five minutes every day. If you need to clean your brain cells of the day’s toxicity, focus on something and meditate.
7. If you have not spoken for straight two hours in a day, then you must at least write a text message to someone.

Keep a ‘Let it be’ desk

Last, if something is bothering you, find someone to talk to. You are not dumping your issue to them. Mere listening can help you clear your head. If you get helpful suggestions, your problem is solved and your brain doesn’t have to store all the details. More space!

If you do not find a solution, you need to store it away in a ‘Let it be’ desk with low attention quotient. This is where we save things that we are allowing time to resolve. No point in investing too much of active brain space each day on these things. After a point, the issue will either mend on its own or lose its importance or significance. Then it can be rusted off your brain.

All these efforts contribute to a healthy brain whose cells are free of litter — hurt, pain, past, unused information, and experiences.

The best part is we are going to do this just to stay sane, as life’s on and there is more to come into our lives and we need more space.. especially in this information-overloaded lifestyle.