#371: How to Reset Your Mental Clarity by Giving Your Brain a Short ‘Fast’

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.

Hey there.

Welcome to another episode of the High Income Business Writing Podcast, the number one podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. With over 1 million downloads from listeners just like you across 101 countries, this episode is much shorter than usual rather than my typical 45 minute format. Today I'm sharing a quick tip with you. This is part of the audio Insights I publish for my private coaching clients every weekday and I thought you'd find it helpful. So here we go. Hope you enjoy it.

Ever notice how sluggish you feel after binging on junk food? Well, your mind works the same way. We're constantly feeding our brains a steady diet of notifications, news alerts, social media updates and endless emails. It's like mental sugar giving us quick hits of dopamine, but then leaving us mentally foggy and unfocused. Just like your body needs periods of fasting to reset and heal, your mind meets breaks from the constant input. Think about it. When was the last time you sat in complete silence for 15 minutes? No phone, no music, no book, no podcast, no magazine, just you and your thoughts. Feels uncomfortable even thinking about it, doesn't it? That discomfort is telling us something important. We've become so addicted to constant mental stimulation that the mere thought of quiet makes us a bit fidgety. And lately, I'll be honest, I found myself falling back into this trap once again. Which is why I'm recording this. The input fasting habits that I had developed have gradually eroded over the past two, three months. And I'm feeling stressed, I'm feeling over committed, anxious, sometimes even hypersensitive. And I need to get back on track. Because here's what I've learned. The best ideas, the clearest thinking, the most creative solutions. All those things come during periods of mental fasting. Those precious moments when we give our minds room to breathe. So today, I'm committing to getting back on track. And I'm going to give myself the same prescription I'm about to give you. Start small. Don't try to solve the whole problem overnight. Start by doing a 15 minute mental fast each morning. You don't have to do it in the morning, but it's a kind of a logical place and time to do it. Whatever you do, make it just 15 minutes. No inputs, just quiet reflection. And watch what happens to your clarity and focus just from those 15 daily minutes. Once this becomes a habit, you can expand the idea to putting your phone in a drawer, let's say for half a day on the weekends, or avoiding all screens on Sunday from sunrise to sunset. Or maybe no inputs in the evenings after 7pm or something along those lines. Whatever makes sense for you. You might find when you do this, like I have found, that these periods of mental fasting become the most productive part of your day. Not because you're doing more, but because you're finally giving your mind the space it needs to process, connect, and create. Remember, a quiet mind isn't an empty mind. It's a mind that's finally free to think.

Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the episode. And just a quick reminder to grab your free copy of my latest book, Earn More in Less Time the Proven Mindset, Strategies and Actions to Prosper as a Freelance writer. You can get your free copy@b2b launcher.com or you will also find the detailed show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.