To calm an overactive mind, use grounding techniques like deep breathing or focusing on sensory details, engage in distracting activities (walks, music, hobbies), schedule "worry time" to contain anxious thoughts, practice mindfulness and meditation, and try gentle movement or journaling to process emotions, while also avoiding stimulants like caffeine. Creating a consistent bedtime routine also helps signal your brain to power down.
How to Quiet Your Mind
Here are five strategies to try.
Spend a few minutes stretching out your neck, shoulders, arms and lower back. This is also a great way to refocus your mind and relieve mental stress. Walking: You can walk for 30 minutes or an hour for exercise, but even a brisk 10-minute walk can naturally calm your nerves. Try to take your walks in nature.
Anxiety/Panic
Sometimes, anxiety can feel like a buzzing in the mind. It might feel like something is seriously wrong, like an alarm that can't be turned off. Often, people experiencing anxiety report that they can't get worries out of their heads or that there is a vague sense of unease. Anxiety can be very troubling.
5 grounding techniques to quiet a busy mind
Matcha and green tea
Both have L-theanine with calming properties. Green tea is often in the form of crushed leaves and is steeped like traditional tea. Matcha is the entire tea leaf ground into a fine powder. It has a rich, buttery flavor when mixed as a drink.
Five key signs your brain might be in trouble include significant memory loss (forgetting important things or familiar routines), difficulty with everyday tasks, confusion about time/place, problems with language/communication, and noticeable personality or mood changes, such as increased irritability or loss of interest in hobbies, which signal potential cognitive decline or neurological issues.
The ADHD "30% Rule" is a guideline suggesting that executive functions (like self-regulation, planning, and emotional control) in people with ADHD develop about 30% slower than in neurotypical individuals, meaning a 10-year-old might function more like a 7-year-old in these areas, requiring adjusted expectations for maturity, task management, and behavior. It's a tool for caregivers and adults with ADHD to set realistic goals, not a strict scientific law, helping to reduce frustration by matching demands to the person's actual developmental level (executive age) rather than just their chronological age.
Common Anxiety Triggers
Here are six techniques for taming an overactive brain:
The 3-2-1 bedtime method is a simple sleep hygiene strategy: stop eating 3 hours before bed, stop working 2 hours before bed, and stop using screens (phones, tablets, TVs) 1 hour before sleep, helping your body transition to rest by reducing stimulants and digestive load for better sleep quality. A more detailed version adds 10 hours (no caffeine) and 0 (no snoozing) for a 10-3-2-1-0 rule.
Egged on by caffeine, anxiety or everyday stress, our brains start acting like a pinball machine as thoughts ricochet from one place to another. Psychologists call it rumination or mental perturbance. It's a repetitive pattern of negative thinking, and some of it is not even conscious.
The koala is famous for sleeping around 20-22 hours a day, which is about 90% of the day, due to their low-energy diet of eucalyptus leaves that requires extensive digestion. Other extremely sleepy animals include the sloth (up to 20 hours) and the brown bat (around 20 hours), with some snakes like the ball python also sleeping up to 23 hours daily.
Early warning signs of a brain tumor often involve headaches (especially morning headaches), seizures, persistent nausea/vomiting, vision changes, and unexplained weakness or balance issues, alongside potential changes in personality, memory, or difficulty with speech, though symptoms vary greatly by tumor location and size, so any new, concerning neurological changes warrant a doctor's visit.
Problems thinking — Problems with concentration, memory or logical thought and speech that are hard to explain. Increased sensitivity — Heightened sensitivity to sights, sounds, smells or touch; avoidance of over-stimulating situations. Apathy — Loss of initiative or desire to participate in any activity.
Benzodiazepines can increase the calming effect of certain chemicals in your brain. When you take a benzodiazepine, it can reduce anxiety and may help you sleep. Examples are diazepam and lorazepam. Other benzodiazepines have a sedative action.
Foods rich in zinc such as oysters, cashews, liver, beef, and egg yolks have been linked to lowered anxiety. Other foods, including fatty fish like wild Alaskan salmon, contain omega-3 fatty acids. A study completed on medical students in 2011 was one of the first to show that omega-3s may help reduce anxiety.
The Four-Word Sleep Phrase: “This Thought Can Wait”
This simple sentence packs a surprisingly powerful punch. When you say it to yourself—gently but firmly—it creates a boundary between you and your runaway thoughts. It doesn't require solving, denying, or arguing with your brain.
Teas for stress and anxiety relief
Symptoms of stress