As a perpetually anxious person, I often find myself overwhelmed by the sheer weight of my own thoughts. So, when Glamour asked me to try ‘Brain dumping’, you could say they found their perfect test subject.
It’s not excessive to say that I worry about everything. From the mundane to the damn right ridiculous. To give you an example, I recently threw away some out-of-date chicken. However, I was so worried about the smell leaking from my dustbin and travelling through my neighbour’s window, that I ended up removing the black sack the next day. Driving it to a nearby park and disposing of it under the cloak of darkness in a public dustbin. Of course, all that did was replace one worry with another and I’ve had the weight of a salmonella outbreak on my shoulders ever since.
So, while in some ways I’m the perfect candidate to get my thoughts out of my head and onto paper, in others I’m the absolute last resort.
That’s because I am the embodiment of the saying, ‘all the gear, no idea’. I’ve lost count of the number of planners, journals, 5 minute/one line a day diaries I’ve bought over the years in the hopes I could - *Ross from Friends hand gesture* - silence some of that noise.
Despite being purchased in good faith - with an accompanying set of highlighters and multi-coloured pens - I’ve only ever filled a maximum of two pages, before becoming frustrated that I’m not a changed person overnight and giving up.
So, with renewed drive and a refreshed pencil case, I set about discarding the inner workings of my mind.
But what is brain dumping I hear you ask? Good point. Essentially, it’s taking all those thoughts that run through your head on a daily basis and committing them to paper with zero filter. It’s a declutter of the mind which can help rebalance and provide some perspective on your to do list/worries. The key is that you must be honest. No thought is too big or too small. They all deserve a place on the page.
Pen Heaven, an online gift emporium, recommend finding a quiet moment in the day and spending between 10 and 30 minutes free flowing whatever is on your mind in that moment.
Once your thoughts are all on the page(s), they suggest categorising into groups like personal, work, health, family, friends. From there, you should be able to identify tasks that are high priority, re-occurring thoughts that need addressing and just general mental clarity... hopefully.
My brain unfilteredNow, despite owning an actual fountain pen and more highlighters than WHSmith, I quickly found that for me, the best way to dump wasn’t pretty.
At first, my sheets were just to do lists. I found it hard to unlock or maybe a better word is ‘admit’ my worries and commit them to paper. I just felt silly and had a fear of someone finding them like that scene in Seven where they find Kevin serial killer Spacey’s wall of unhinged scrawled notebooks.
But all that changed one day when I gave up my impractical colour coded dreams and tore a sheet out of my Niece’s A3 drawing pad.
There was something about the size of the paper. I had so much more room to fill. So, I grabbed a Sharpie and the thoughts just came spilling out.
While the, “I need to do a food shop” checklists remained, I gradually began to unpick the thread that had been leaving me with a feeling of dread for weeks.
“I can’t work out if I’m worried about my holiday or something else.” “How do I stop getting so stressed and overwhelmed easily?” ‘I have so many Whatsapps I need to reply to.”
Just looking at the blue scribbles on the white page, it was obvious that I was incredibly nervous about my upcoming holiday and that was underpinning a lot of additional worries.
Not only that, but I was trying to jam pack everything in before I went. Clearing my inbox, pitching new ideas, writing a book pitch. There was no way I was realistically going to get all of that done in the week before I left, but I only saw the amount of pressure I was putting on myself once I wrote it down and read it back.
Yes, there were other bigger worries, like my current housing situation and where I’ll live in three months that can’t be solved straight away and will have to remain in my mind as well as the paper. But, if I could take away or at least be more reasonable about the other ones, my page and therefore my brain, would have a lot more space to focus on tasks than just paralysing myself with worry.
There were some ridiculous ones as well. Paranoia that my beloved niece and nephew would somehow forget me when I’m older and my worry if everyone would be okay while I was away. But again, out of my head they became a lot easier to rationalise. It also made me pre-book a family lunch for the weekend I’m back because clearly spending time with my loved ones is very important to me.
Overall, my main takeaway from this experiment is that my brain is an exhausting and unrealistic place to live with unachievable expectations. So, is it really any wonder I feel so stressed all the time?
By Annabelle Spranklen
View GalleryBut I could only come to that realisation by giving my thoughts life on paper and reading them back. Don’t ask me the science behind it, but it’s a lot easier to rationalise a written statement as opposed to an unattached cognitive process.
As opposed to those journals that encourage you to tick off your daily water consumption, brain dumping is an exercise I truly think I and many of you could benefit from.
Just remember, don’t add to your mental load by pressurising yourself to make your dump look pretty. I know I certainly won’t.
