Discover the 4 p’s of Manage your mind

“One must deliver himself with the help of his mind, and not degrade himself. The mind is the friend of the conditioned soul, and his enemy as well” – Bhagavad Gita (6.5)

Have you ever been so stressed at work that you felt your mind could explode any moment. Last minute deadlines, rushing from one meeting to another, constant travel, and a host of other stressors could take a heavy toll on our physical and mental health. Besides, on the relationships and home front, there are daily challenges and worries.  Is there a well-tested and effective method to cope with mental stress?

The 4 P’s are simple, yet effective. I have tried it and it works wonders.

Pause to breathe (pranayama)

Just breathe! Most of us are so caught up with the daily passion that we forget to breathe. Just try this for a moment. Pause, and close your eyes. Relax your muscles and inhale deeply. Then slowly exhale, and observe your breadth.  Try fifty slow breadths, and then open your eyes and you would for sure feel a world of difference. It hardly takes fifteen minutes, and if you are too hard pressed for time, you could try a shorter five minute break of twenty breadths.

The exercise helps you observe your mind’s frenzied pace; you would also realize that often you are helplessly dragged by your mind to various thoughts and activities that aren’t really important to you. ‘Pause to breathe’ slows you down physically, calms you mentally and rejuvenates you spiritually.

Pen down (your feelings, thoughts and goals)

Journal writing is a well-recognized self-help tool that also has tremendous therapeutic benefits. A book I read five years ago, ‘writing down the bones’ by Natalie Goldberg revealed the wonders of ‘free writing’. ‘Free writing’ is an exercise where you write without stopping your pen for a pre decided period of time, or a pre-determined number of pages. For example let’s say you decide to write for the next twenty minutes. As you start, initially you may feel lost and even bored. But do not stop; you could even write you are bored and want to stop. But don’t stop; just keep pushing your pen or punching the keys and soon ideas will flow, thoughts would pour out of your mind. The hazy picture would clear and at the end you will be surprised by your own writing.

On a speeding car, the scenery outside appears fast moving and you wouldn’t be able to recognize or appreciate the landscape. But if the car were to slow down, you can observe, evaluate and judge more clearly. Similarly our minds rush at a jet speed throughout the day. Often people are confused about what they really want in life; writing journals slows down the mind and you can see, introspect, evaluate and judge yourself with more clarity.

Preach to the mind

Close your eyes and talk to your mind. Sachinandan Swami, a close friend of Radhanath Swami once shared with me this amazing tool for managing your mind. A five minute sermon to the mind to cooperate with your plan of action will help you attain your goals, with a more focussed vision. Be careful not to exceed five minutes or else it wouldn’t be a happy experience; the mind could quickly drag you to lament about the past or worry about the future.

The exercise will soon reveal to us our helplessness in quelling the mind to subjugation. Repeated exercise of observing the mind helps us realize that our mind isn’t our best friend, rather it’s an enemy. Since we can’t do without the help of our active minds, we need to transform this restless enemy to a cooperative friend.  As repeated five minute exercise of preaching to the wandering mind appears futile, we’d feel helpless. And that’s when we tap ‘Prayers’- the fourth and most effective tool- for mind management.

Prayers

Now instead of talking to the mind, you talk to God. This raises our level of consciousness to a new height, and helps us see the trivial nature of most issues that bug us day in day out. Many spiritual paths advocate meditation or mantra chanting as an effective prayer tool. Through these spiritually uplifting exercises, one connects to the spiritual powerhouse called God. The energy tapped by this exercise helps us to soberly deal with our stressors.

Regular prayer sessions fill the heart with serenity and peace; a spiritual leader then realizes that prayers may not always solve problems but it certainly brings us closer to God. And as we experience that closeness, most problems appear insignificant and life appears meaningful and worth living, as an offering of sacred service.