Welcome to the Very Well Mind podcast. We've interviewed over 100 authors, experts, entrepreneurs, athletes, musicians, and others to help you learn strategies to care for your mental health.

This episode is hosted by psychotherapist and bestselling author Amy Morin. Now let's get into the episode.

Okay. You're listening to the Friday fix. Every Friday, I share a quick mental strength strategy that can help fix the thoughts, feelings, and actions that can hold you back to life.

Do you ever think your brain just won't shut off?

Do you have so many thoughts swirling around in your brain that you struggle to focus on one

task at a time?

Do you rehash things that already happened in your head over and over again?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, today's episode is for you.

I'm talking about three strategies that can help declutter your mind. I've read several studies that estimate we have

somewhere around 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts every single day. Now, I'm not really sure how they

measured how many separate thoughts we have. And all the researchers can't agree on exactly

how many thoughts. But one thing they do seem to agree on is that many of the thoughts we have

are repetitive. We replay events that happened over and over again. We worry about the same things

every day. And we get caught up in the same old thinking patterns. All of those thoughts

clutter your brain and make it difficult to be creative, to develop new ideas, to solve

problems from a different angle, or to even just get things done. Part of mental strength involves

managing the thoughts that run through your brain. Sometimes that means not believing everything

you think.

At other times, it's about responding to unhelpful thoughts with more realistic or more helpful

statements. When you deal with those thoughts in a healthy way, you can feel and do your best.

But that's tough to do when you feel like your brain is just filled with the same old thoughts

over and over again,

...