Have you ever felt totally overwhelmed with everything on your mind? Maybe you got in a fight with someone and you’re full of anger or confusion, and you can’t sort it out. Or maybe you’re anxious about something that happened and you can’t stop over-thinking it. Or maybe you’ve felt overwhelmed with your to-do list and your long list of responsibilities, and thought to yourself, “How in the world can I get all of this done?”

It’s super common for our brains to get cluttered with all of these wild thoughts and feelings. It can incredibly stressful and confusing to have so much on your mind. I’ve totally felt this way before- when my brain is just on overdrive and full of craziness! If you’re looking to get more mental clarity, sort your thoughts and feelings out, and gain more inner peace, a brain dump can be a really helpful solution.

In this article, I’m going to take you through the WHAT, WHY, and HOW of brain dumps so you can use them to gain mental clarity and stop feeling so overwhelmed. Plus, grab your FREE brain dump workbook at the bottom of this page!

What is a brain dump?

A brain dumb is basically dumping all of your thoughts and feelings on to paper. I want you to imagine literally leaning over and just allowing everything in your brain to pour out! Let it all out- the stress, the annoyance, the frustration, the confusion, and whatever else is on your mind.

It doesn’t need to be all negative either. You could write about what makes you happy, what you’re most grateful for, or all of your accomplishments. But for me, I find a brain dump to be most therapeutic when I’m releasing my negative feelings.

There are a few different ways to go about doing a brain dump, which I will explain in more detail below.

Why is a brain dump helpful?

It allows us to process

Have you ever been upset, talked it through with a close friend, and then felt better after? Sometimes it’s really helpful when we get the chance to work through what’s going on for us. Processing our feelings by talking with a friend, family member, or therapist can be incredibly helpful. Sometimes saying out loud how upset we are, or how frustrated we are, helps us to understand our feelings and find ways to move on.

While talking about our issues are incredibly helpful, I think a lot of people underestimate the power of writing about our issues! In some ways, I think writing can be an even better way to process our feelings! How? Well, we might not always want to share how we’re feeling with others. You might prefer to keep certain things to yourself and there’s nothing wrong with that. In this case, writing allows us to release and process our feelings, without needing to share them if we don’t want to.

It helps us organize our thoughts and gain mental clarity

Starting from the time I was in the 5th grade all the way up through high school, I kept a dairy where I wrote almost every night. I wrote about issues with my friends, frustrations I was having at school, and whatever was bothering me.

By the time I was done writing each diary entry, I always felt so struck by the amount of clarity and understanding I had gained. I might’ve started writing feeling totally angry or annoyed, and by the end, reached a conclusion where my perspective was completely different. By doing a brain dump, I was able to organize all my thoughts and make sense of them. Sometimes our thoughts and feelings don’t make sense until we get them all out.

It helps us feel less overwhelmed and stress

How stressful and overwhelming does it feel when you’re brain is a cluttered mess?? A brain dump allows us to process our feelings, gain mental clarity, and find relief from stress and overwhelm. And ultimately, that’s what this blog is all about; simple living for a balanced, stress-free life!

So how do you do a brain dump?

There are a lot of different ways to do a brain dump, so I’m going to share a few ways that work well for me in hopes they work for you too. Don’t forget to grab your free mini-workbook at the bottom of this page where you can see examples of these different types of brain dumps!

1. Free Write

Sometimes it feels great to just put pen to paper and WRITE! A free write session is exactly how it sounds, it’s writing freely without any rules or restrictions. Don’t worry about grammar or spelling or if you’re sentences make sense. Free writing does not need to be perfect. The purpose of free writing is to just let the thoughts flow without judgement. After all, this writing is for nobody except you, so have the courage to be imperfect.

2. Make a list

I’m a total list person. I love making to-do lists, pros and cons lists, and lists of ideas I want to remember. Doing a brain dump in the form of list making can be really helpful in creating structure to your thoughts.

Plus, lists are quick, easy, and to the point. While long, free-written paragraphs may feel useful in some cases, other cases may only call for simple bullet points in order to organize your thoughts.

For example, if you’re overwhelmed with all of your responsibilities, you could create a “priority list”. Write down everything you need to accomplish for that day or that week, and then number them in order of importance. This is an easy way to organize your thoughts and be able to move forward with a course of action.

3. Write in categories

Have you ever felt like, “I’m just feeling so many mixed feelings!” ? If you’re ever feeling like this, doing a brain dump by category can feel really useful in untangling these mixed feelings and figuring them all out.

For example, if you’re feeling several different emotions, you could create a category for each one. Maybe you’re feeling excited, nervous, and anxious at the same time. Create a category for each emotion, and then underneath, right all the ways in which you’re feeling that emotion.

For example, under “excited”, write about why you’re excited and how that particular emotion feels. Do the same for each category and by the end, all these mixed emotions will be sorted out in a way that feels WAY more manageable and less stressful.

I really hope this article was helpful in explaining what brain dumps are, how they may help, and some ideas for doing them! Writing really is SO therapeutic and close to my heart.

Want some of my favorite mindfulness & gratitude journal prompts?! Grab them for free below!