Simple Habits For Thoughts Hygiene

Experts say that a human mind creates anything between 36,000 to 80,000 thoughts in a day. Which means about 25 to 55 thoughts per minute. It is impossible to watch all your thoughts. But you surely have control over the quality of thoughts you create.

How do thoughts originate
There are just six doors to it. Thoughts are created based on what you saw, heard, smelt, touched, tasted or said. They are a result of, the information that you feed to yourself through these 5 sense organs and what you said. Either in the present or in the past.

Types of thoughts
Let’s first understand the various types of thoughts:

Positive thoughts – These are few and fill positive energy in you.
Negative thoughts – These are harmful and suck up all your energy. They are also harmful for health.
Waste thoughts – These are the trickiest to understand. These cause a constant leakage of energy without you being aware of it. It is like a small leakage in a water tank that empties the tank in due course of time. People pay the least attention to these as the damage done by these are not visible.
What are waste thoughts?
Let’s understand this leakage through three-step testing.

One day a known person approached a scholar and said “I heard a few things from your friend about you”

The scholar said “Before I listen to what you have to say, I would like to test it through my three-step testing”

The first test is of truthfulness. What you are going to tell me is it true?
The second test is of goodness. Are you going to tell me something positive about my friend?
The third test is of usefulness. Are you going to tell me something useful?”
Before taking any information do this test. The most important of these is usefulness. Today everybody is surrounded by useless and unimportant information. For example, while walking on the road you will see various advertisements, movie posters, etc… You look at any one poster and this is then followed by a series of thoughts. These are all waste thoughts as the information on the poster is useless. People say that it is required for entertainment. But in the name of entertainment all have become slaves of TVs, laptops, and mobiles. So, check twice. Is it entertainment or useless information?

Here are a few tips to keep a check on your thoughts.

Start your day with positive information
Have you noticed that if you listen to a song early in the morning you find yourself humming the same song throughout the day? This is the impact of morning hours. The information you feed yourself with, in the morning is very very crucial. So don’t start your day with the newspaper or checking your Whatsapp messages. Start your day by reading something spiritual and inspirational. At Brahma Kumaris, we listen to Godly versions every day in the morning. This ensures we start our mornings with positive information.

Then plan your day. Decide what you need to do and what you don’t need to do.

Also, make sure you have enough constructive and interesting things to do during the day. Then you will not find yourself unknowingly surfing the internet for hours.

End of your day with positive information
Fall asleep while watching a movie and you will wake up with the thoughts of the movie. How you go to sleep plays a very important role in how you wake up.

End your day by reading some spiritual books (not fiction or thrillers). These books calm the mind. Meditation is also a good idea.

Pause during the day, even for a few seconds.
Learn to pause. Every one hour ask yourself – what am I thinking, is this what I should be thinking? You will realize that most of the time what you are thinking is not relevant. Stop and change. Make sure you change it. If nothing comes to your mind. Just tell yourself ‘I am a peaceful human being’.

Write a journal before going to bed
This is one of the best practices one can develop before going to bed. Write down how your day went, what was good, what was bad, what went expected, and what was not expected. Then surrender this to God. One thing which most of us lack is surrendering to God.

Once these are practiced which are pretty easy to follow, you will notice that your thoughts are pretty constructive.

Keep a check on what you eat
A lot has been told about eating healthy. The next step is how to eat. Eat slowly, be mindful of what you are eating. Chew your food properly. Give at least 20 minutes to eat. Also while eating most people have the habit of talking or watching television. This way they spend 1 hour eating instead of 20 minutes. This is not mindful eating. Eat-in silence. Know what you are eating. Eating slowly will lead to slow thoughts. Try it.

Create positive thoughts while drinking water
About 70% of the body constitution is water. So before drinking water and while drinking water just create positive affirmations. Affirmations such as ‘I am a happy person, I am a successful person. Thoughts carry energy and positive affirmations carry positive energy. When you create such thoughts while drinking water you charge the water with this energy. Then this water charges every cell of your body.

Watch your company
As is the company so is the character.

We all spend hours with our friends and acquaintances. There are always a set of people who love having conversations on particular topics. For example, whenever you spend time with John you always discuss politics. When you meet Anita you gossip about office colleagues. Even if you try to change the topic they are just not ready as these are their fields of interest.

You are spending time discussing useless things and even after they have left, you land up thinking about the same topic. If you are not able to change the topic cut short such conversations or you can even avoid them.

If in a particular company you are constantly talking about things which are not useful in the long run, keep yourself out of it. All that you get is temporary entertainment and pleasure.

Exercise
Just like there is no substitute for hard work similarly there is no substitute to exercise. At least 15 minutes a day if not more.

Get some fresh air and sunshine
If you have the option of doing a task in your room or in the open-air choose to do it in the open air. Example reading a book.

Read
Spend at least 15 minutes a day reading something inspirational and spiritual. Not world news or about movies.

Affirmations
Pick up any positive affirmation you like and repeat it at least 7 times in the morning or anytime during the day. While repeating it remember to feel it as if it were true.

The points mentioned above helps you keep a healthy mind. These are like exercising. Daily exercise keeps one healthy. Similarly, these daily effortless tips keep one healthy. Next, we will look at managing the self when the thoughts have become unmanageable.