Just like your body needs a detox from time to time, your mind can benefit from a reset, too. A mental health cleanse could be the best solution. It’ll help you clear out the clutter – stress, negativity, and digital overload – and make space for clarity.
If you want to give it a shot, here are seven tips for conducting your own mental health cleanse.
1. Step Away From the Scroll
One of the biggest sources of modern-day mental clutter is your screen. More specifically, the endless scroll of social media, news, and notifications that flood your brain all day.
Take a few days off from social media – or at least dramatically reduce your usage. Turn off non-essential notifications, log out of apps, and give yourself permission to not respond instantly. You don’t need to know every trending topic or weigh in on every hot take.
When you let your mind breathe a little, you’ll be amazed at how quickly your anxiety drops. You don’t need everyone else’s noise penetrating your mind. Put up filters and only focus on what you need to be responsible for.
2. Prioritize Sleep Like It’s Sacred
No cleanse works if you’re running on fumes. Sleep is the time when your body and brain repair themselves. When you’re well-rested, you’re better equipped to manage stress, regulate emotions, and think clearly.
Create a bedtime ritual that actually feels restorative.
- Turn off screens at least an hour before bed.
- Read something light.
- Sip a calming tea.
- Make sure your bedroom is cool and dark.
- Try showering immediately before bed to relax your mind and muscles.
If your thoughts tend to spiral at night, try writing them down before your head hits the pillow. Sometimes, getting it out on paper is all it takes to quiet the mind.
3. Set Boundaries With Toxic Inputs
Not all toxins are physical. Some of them show up in the form of people, conversations, or environments that constantly drain you.
A mental health cleanse means being honest about who and what doesn’t serve you. That could mean stepping back from a friendship that always leaves you feeling worse, or limiting contact with a family member who lives to start drama. It could also mean unfollowing accounts that make you feel inadequate or jealous.
4. Try Journaling as a Daily Brain Dump
Give journaling a try, even if you aren’t a “good writer.” You don’t have to craft perfect sentences. Just let your thoughts spill out. The goal is to declutter your mind.
Journaling helps you notice patterns and release emotional tension that’s been building up for months or years. You might even find clarity you didn’t realize you were looking for.
If you need a prompt, try one of these:
- What’s been weighing on me lately?
- What do I need less of in my life?
- What do I need more of?
- What am I avoiding?
Let the pen move without judgment. That’s where the real work happens.
5. Spend Time in Nature Without a Goal
You don’t need a 10-mile hike or a remote cabin in the woods to get the benefits of nature. A 20-minute walk in your neighborhood, a moment sitting in a park, or even just standing barefoot in your backyard can do the trick.
Nature has a way of grounding you. It slows your pace, pulls you out of your head, and reminds you there’s more to life than screens and stress.
6. Clear Out the Emotional “Junk”
Sometimes, the things that weigh you down aren’t just coming from your daily life – they’re coming from past experiences that haven’t been processed. That trauma, unresolved grief, or old fear doesn’t just disappear. It piles up, layer by layer, until your system starts to short-circuit.
“Trauma creates maladaptive beliefs about ourselves, about others and the world, all of which become lodged in the right side of the brain,” psychotherapist Andrew Kushnick explains. “Add in stress from the present-day, along with what we take in from others, and those beliefs can pile up. I’ve found that EMDR therapy can remove the ‘junk’ that’s weighing you down, clearing the way for your adult self to guide you more skillfully.”
If you’ve been feeling stuck despite your best efforts, this might be the missing piece. Working with a trauma-informed therapist, especially one trained in EMDR or somatic techniques, can give you a way to finally process what’s been lingering too long.
7. Embrace Quiet Routines
You don’t always need to be doing something. Part of the problem is that your brain never gets a break. You jump from task to task, scroll to scroll, conversation to conversation – and wonder why you feel depleted.
Build moments of quiet into your day. It might be five minutes of meditation in the morning. A tech-free cup of coffee before anyone else wakes up. A hot shower with no music or podcasts playing. These pauses have a way of recalibrating your nervous system,
Building a Clean Slate for Your Mind
You don’t need to overhaul your entire life to feel better. A mental health cleanse is supposed to be very intentional and strategic, so that you can give your mind a much-needed break from the noise. Start with one small step and let things expand from there!
