If It Works for Crops and Cattle

Take rest, sounds simple. However if your brain works like mine sometimes rest is harder than it sounds. Thoughts, ideas, concerns, scenarios rattle around the mind preventing any type of rest or relaxation. Before being able to relax these things need to be managed.

What helps me is writing things down. I have multiple notebooks each of which is dedicated to a specific topic. When ideas take over my head I write them out – using pen and paper – into one of these notebooks. It may sound old school and yet our brains process information very differently when we write it out versus typing it out. Once my mind knows the thought or idea has landed in a safe place it releases the tension and calms down. After these writing moments I am able to actually rest, relax and find peace.

Getting your thoughts and ideas down shifts things. It creates more space for more thoughts. There is a reason farmers and ranchers rotate their crop or cattle to different areas of their land. The land needs a rest in order to produce more, better, stronger crops. If they do not rest the land eventually it stops producing. Our brains work the same way. The mind needs rest and peace in order to produce a bounty of new ideas, if the mind gets no rest it eventually stops producing.

We all have our own coping mechanisms that allow us to process our ideas, thoughts and concerns in such a way that they are not able to drive us mad. Or maybe you have not found your own method and THAT is the real challenge. It is worth all the time it takes to look introspectively and figure out what makes you tick, and then what makes you tick better. Maybe it is manual labor, or a hot bath, running, cleaning, napping, or even a long drive down a quiet road. Maybe writing things down will help you clear your brain. Whatever it is that helps you process your own thoughts figure it out, do it and do it often. Make time to give your brain relief and release such that new, better, grander ideas are able to come forward and broaden your horizons. If it works for crops and cattle it will work for you.