10 tips for clearer thinking

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On my journey into exploring thinking and improving my own mental clarity and efficacy I have discovered techniques that have helped me lift the brain fog. These are things I know work from my experience. As I implemented each strategy I noticed improved my clarity of mind. Here is a summary of what I have learned.

1. Being in Nutritional Ketosis

This is a sure fire way to lift brain fog, and improve mental clarity. Restrict your net-carb intake (total carbs minus fibre) increase healthy fats and moderate protein intake to get into ketosis. The brain prefers to be fuelled by Ketone bodies even while requiring some glucose. Additionally as part of your diet you may want to consider regularly consuming sardines and/or anchovies for Omega-3 oils along with raw butter from organically raised grass fed cows as a means of getting the healthful fats required for optimal brain function.

2. Regular Exercise

BDNF or Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor is released through aerobic exercise. This substance boosts your ability to make new brain cells. It’s like spraying “easy start” into the engine of your brain! Its an entirely natural chemical pathway, your body does it anyway, but earobic exercise is a simple and very ewffective way to stimulate its release. Get a pair of running shoes and get out in the fresh air to boost your ability to regenerate brain cells. Google it, it is scientifically proven. There are various supplements (listed below) that also release this brain fog lifting chemical, but aerobic exercise is the simplest and least expensive option. There are stacks of other health benefits from it too. I had been meaning to get into something regular for years, but when I found out that it was a great way to maintain and improve your brain, i was sold!

3. Think rationally and deliberately integrate all thoughts, ideas and convictions

This means consciously cross-pollinating ideas in your own mind. It means ensuring that thoughts rub up against each other and affect each other even across seemingly disparate subject areas. Specifically it means making sure none of our thoughts or convictions contradict each other since this indicates an error. There are no contradictions in reality. Accurate thinking with knowledge of reality as its goal (truth) must accurately reflect reality by similarly not containing contradictions, and above all reason must be our only guide to knowledge.

4. Create Mental standing orders

We can use our intention to give a set of instructions for our subconscious mind to follow. This is what it does. The subconscious is our supercomputer available to run any applications we care to program it with. So if we give it a ‘standing order’ to always perform specific mental tasks to increase awareness and knowledge we can harness its immense power. Intention, tapping and affirmations all help to back up this programming. Instruct your subconscious to always prompt you with appropriate information, to always suggest appropriate questions so we can discover what we don’t know! Program it to seek out buried contradictions in our beliefs and always to seek to understand and expand your total sum of knowledge. This is a massive tool to tap into un-used brain capacity. I have found regular EFT sessions on myself combined with deliberate and concious intent (Deciding that I am going to do this, I am going to change my behaviour, my subconsiously controlled learned habits and patterns of response) to be very effective at reshaping habits and consciously re-writing chosen habits preferences and choices..

5. Consider Using These Supplements

• Coconut oil and/or MCT oil: These are known to boost brain function because they are saturated fats that readily convert into ketones – the brains favourite fuel.
• DHA and EPA from Cod Liver oil tablets as well as Omega-3 fats boost BDNF and therefore brain function.
• Tumeric and its active ingredient curcumin are known to boost BDNF and therefore brain function.
• Whole Coffee Fruit Concentrate (WCFC) has recently become available in health food stores and is another way to enhance levels of BDNF.
• Resveratrol: This is a substance found in red grapes and other foods that has been shown to boost brain function. I use a form of this in a supplement created by Dr Joseph Mercola called Purple Defense for improved brain function and mental clarity.

6. Give up multi-tasking

In his book “Brain Chains” Thoedore Compernolle proves that the human brain cannot multitask – it is a myth. The brain is a serial processor. We need to periodically shut down our conscious mind and allow our subconscious mind to do the necessary archiving work. Like a librarian filing away important documents when the office is closed (after conscious deliberation). He also highlights the need to avoid being distracted by modern technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones. Be single minded and serial process. Don’t even try to parallel process. Then disconnect and rest in order to batch process with the archiving brain (the sunconscious).

7. Perform A daily 2-minute headstand

I perform a daily morning headstand to get that rush of blood to the head. Of course no blood actually goes into the brain due to the blood/brain barrier, but the pressure is believed to help nutrients pass through. Yoga is useful for many reasons but adding a headstand into your routine is great for maximising brain function for obvious reasons.

8. Avoid or restrict recreational drug use

Alcohol and cannabis use, along with all other recreational means of self-medication, are known to be unhelpful if our goal is greater mental clarity. Cannabis can sometimes serve to open up otherwise unavailable channels of inspiration in the short term, but the benefits are lost if use is continual. The trick is usage management. Self mastery demands that we assume control of the substance and do not allow the substance to take control of us. Ultimately recreational drug use is a form of escaping reality as opposed to connecting with it. My own mental productivity has increased enormously since putting down this means of self-medication.

9. Externalise your thinking

Using a note pad or laptop to make notes and even draw diagrams is very helpful. Our mental RAM is effectively increased if we jot down notes and scribbles because we can only hold a certain number of concepts in our conscious thought at one time. Externalising them in note form frees up the mind for other thoughts.

10. Mind maps

Because our right brain does not think linearly as the left brain does, it can be helpful to draw a mind map with the purpose represented by a word or phrase in the middle and then various connecting issues spiralling out from the centre in what ever way the thinker finds appropriate. I have used this technique with great results, often developing the ‘drawing/image’ as the thinking develops and filling the waste paper basket with many developmental stages before arriving at something that summarises my exhaustive thinking on that subject.

Bonus Tip!

Go for a series of 3 colonic irrigations. I am not kidding! Give your toxin disposal department a long awaited overhaul or spring clean! Then, dont forget to repopulate your gut by breathing in airborn bacteria from as many likely sources as you can think of – basically variation of healthy outdoor environments. Walk in the woods, pet your animals, Swim in the pond, go to the beach, dig over the vegetable patch, or pull some weeds. Just lay in the grass face down and breathe (chose the spot wisely). Your toxic removal system relies on an efficient colon. Even if you are on a great diet and apparently have no health issues, I still heartily recommend colonics. You will be astounded at the shift in your head by a cleanse of the gut. £150 is small beans for the massive all round health benefits of this treatment. If you live in the south east area of the UK north of London go and see Tracy at Vitality colonics in Hoddesden, near the A10. Her website is www.vitality colonics.co.uk.

Start thinking today

The results and benefits of thinking are cumulative. An integrated non-contradictory sum of knowledge of your world takes time and effort to acquire. It’s like building a huge skyscraper where each successive floor of knowledge rests upon concepts understood by previous thinking already done. Ask yourself why you hold certain beliefs and attempt to explain your reasoning – if you can’t, then you don’t fully understand conclusions you have accepted. This informs us where to do our homework and where to focus subsequent thinking in order to improve understanding.

Stop thinking to rest the mind, and also to ACT. Action is best taken in the now and in the absence of thought. Think first, then be present to act, and enjoy the considered action. There is considerable pleasure in achieving desired goals through executing considered action. (I did it!) A great incentive to look for the next challenge!

Take control of your life by controlling your experience of reality. You cannot control what you do not know about, so you must first acquire knowledge. Knowledge results from thinking. To control your life you must choose and be conscious of all your convictions, all your assumptions, generalisations, premises, conclusions and beliefs. You must be in accurate touch with reality in order to function effectively. In short, you must be conscious of your philosophy, and it must be demonstably true. Choosing ones philosophy is deliberately reprogramming your operating system.

Conclusion

The evolutionary advantage will be with those who think rather than those who evade the effort. Also happiness is the reward for those who think and suffering is the inevitable consequence for those who choose not to. Anxiety is an inevitable result of not knowing what to do. Knowing what to do is the result of one’s cumulative efforts at thinking, reasoning and figuring stuff out. Making a habit of  ‘Thinking’ is the proper method to avoid anxiety. Give your self the best chance and lift the brain fog.

Thinking is our means to greater conscious awareness and is the essence of what people often refer to as ‘conscious living’. Meditation will not result in enlightenment or realise goals or figure out what to do, thinking will. Thinking is our salvation.The importance of lifting the brain fog cannot be over stated.

I offer my sincere gratitude to Ayn Rand (1905-1982) and Nathaniel Branden (1930-2014) for their inspiration. I stand on the shoulders of giants.

As always I encourage you to join the conversation and leave a comment below.

Nigel Howitt

July 2017