Sometimes we make decisions unreflectively. We go to a shop and pick a strawberry yogurt instead of a blueberry one that we wanted to have in the first place. Or, to give an insight into more serious matters, we stay in toxic relationships despite all the logical arguments to break up. But we just can’t let it go, God knows why. So let’s stop here for one moment. If you’re never stated that you’re a fan of strawberries, or you are aware that you should let go of your toxic partner, who stands behind your decisions?
There’s nobody who controls you in your head. It’s your mind and subconsciousness that involuntarily push you towards specific thoughts and actions. However, you can still control your mind to some extent if you pay attention to how it functions. Your mind needs as much exercise as your body, so get to know which activities you should implement to your brain-workout.
How To Understand Your Actions Better
Observe the Flow of Your Thoughts
There’s a culprit of the unwanted flow of thoughts in your head – something that you can blame for all the actions that you seem to have no control over. Namely, the responsibility lies on the side of your subconscious mind.
What is the subconscious mind? In short, it’s the part of your brain that stores your memories, skills, and habits. And the tricky part is that you usually don’t have access to it. One of the ways to have a connection with it is to meditate.
Meditation
Meditation and deep breathing aim to observe your thoughts flow and to try to be distanced from them. You can watch plenty of meditation videos if you’re a beginner and want to learn how to be in peace with your body and mind. The so-called “mindfulness” helps you be more self-aware and train your brain to be more focused on what you’re doing at a particular moment.
Clear the Clutter Out of Your Head
Another reason for the brain wave mess is mental clutter. If you feel that you struggle with achieving your goals and can’t pay attention to what’s really important in life, you might be overloaded with unnecessary information.
Think about it as an email box. If your inbox is full of spam emails, your email communication is disrupted, and finding useful things takes more time than it should. Similarly, you might feel that there is always something on your plate if you’re overloaded with stimuli. In fact, it’s harmful not only to your self-awareness but also to your mental health.
Therapy
Aside from meditation, one thing that might be helpful in clearing your mind from unwanted thoughts is changing the circumstances you’re in and cutting off from the toxic people. Find your support team in your family and best friends that can help you cut off of what disrupts your healthy thinking process.
In extreme cases, if you feel like you’ve really lost control over your life, the best option is to join a therapy. Then, you might start to work on the reasoning of your problems and cutting off from the past that can negatively influence the way you think.
Improve Your Executive Functions
If you struggle with solving problems and controlling impulses, you might use some techniques to work on the prefrontal cortex. It’s the part of the brain that is responsible for comprehension and creativity. Research shows that you can exercise it to improve your academic and life outcome and have greater control over the decisions you make on the spur of the moment.
Those exercises don’t go beyond following the healthy routine in your life. It turns out that having a good sleeping routine, close relations with other people, and regular sport exercises positively influences how your brain functions. What is more, you can try working on your memory by remembering short sentences and acronyms, and, what might come as a surprise, learning how to juggle.
Understanding your actions and finding a more in-depth focus can be hard work. However, it’s not impossible to connect with your brain again and to be aware of the deep reasons that stand behind your deeds. Once you’re aware of some of the mechanisms in your brain, take the time you need to look into your process of thinking by meditation, thought analysis, and implementing healthy habits that can improve your mental and physical health.
The key to clarifying your mind is awareness. Once you’ve made this first step, you can start developing better cognition, more effective thinking, and greater life satisfaction. So to work on your aware thinking, next time you’ll be about to make a decision impulsively, stop, and try to understand why your subconscious mind is pushing you to say “no” when on the conscious level, you know that the answer should be “yes,” or the other way around.