All right, welcome back to the show.
As we've been telling you,
there are other things that we are going to bring you on the broadcast tonight,
including this.
Do you have noisy or overwhelming thoughts circling your
brain when you're trying to fall asleep at night,
raise your hand If so?
I know I'm not alone. Are you?
Oftentimes consumed with the amount of daily tasks,
reminders chores you need to do every day?
Do you ever feel like you just got too much going on
up there?
The answered yes to any or all of these
questions you should probably consider a brain dump?
Yes. A brain dump is basically the physical act of untangling your brain
and getting all of your thoughts,
your anxieties, the things you're worried about, the ideas, the errands,
the complaints, the to do list items all in one place.
It might sound a bit daunting, but it's easier and more rewarding than you'd think.
People have tried it for just a week.
Have reported actually an easier time focusing a clearer head,
an easier time staying organized on day to day tasks. Joining us.
Now to discuss is Dr Marshall Brown
forensic and clinical psychologist. DR Brown, welcome to the show.
So from a psychological perspective,
what is your definition of a brain dump and why is it useful?
A brain dump is basically an exercise where you're
transforming information in your head to another space.
So basically think something tangible like a piece of paper or electronic,
like a notebook or a laptop.
Anything like that?
So it's transferring that information so that it doesn't have
to be swirling around in your head all the time,
is this
a new thing has just been something that people have been doing for a while.
There are specific emphasis on it.
If it's not new itself,
I'd have to imagine it has renewed importance
because we live in this constantly chiming,
there's noises, there's distractions, There are shiny things for us to look at
all the time. Too many of them always.
Absolutely, it's not something new,
but it has uh sort of had a resurgence gaining popularity because as you said,
we are always inundated with a lot of information coming at us at any given time.
And so we have a lot of stuff basically swirling in our minds. And so
this has been helpful and a lot of people have found it helpful to
stop that overthinking to get all that
information from their head to somewhere else.
Are there types of people that might benefit the most from something like this?
Definitely people who suffer from anxiety or people who overthink things a lot.
So, a person who struggles with anxiety,
they anticipate some kind of future threat that, you know,
may not have happened yet, but they think that something will happen.
So they can get caught up with ruminating or
constantly thinking about all the things for example that
they have to get done or tasks that haven't been completed yet,
Things that they should have done already,
Things that have happened and they think
maybe they should have happened differently.
And so people who struggle with anxiety are also
often afraid that they're going to forget a task,
right?
So I have to remember to do that tomorrow, I have to remember to call.
So and so whatever the case may be,
and so people who struggle with that
with ruminating thoughts are constantly thinking about
things over and over and over will
definitely benefit from something like a brain dump
I to any degree you're comfortable.
Is this something that that that you do and and do you recommend this to to everybody?
Absolutely.
I think it can be really helpful um if this is something that you struggle with.
So for me, I have definitely had uh some experience with doing a brain dump,
you know, you can do it at different times a day.
For some people it's more helpful to do it in
the morning so that they can start their day,
you know, without all that stuff in their head,
they can be focused on the task at hand.
And some people like to do it at night so that before they go to bed they won't have,
as you mentioned before,
all these thoughts just going in their heads and
going in their heads and then they're not able to
go to sleep. If you talk to a lot of people who have issues with this rumination.
Um sometimes they say I lay down to go to sleep at night,
but my brain will not shut off, it just keeps going,
you know because our brains are the ultimate problem solvers, right?
So our brains are constantly in that mode of
problem solving and we're trying not to forget anything.
And so with this task with this exercise
um we can get that information out now for me
personally um I do it in the morning or at night
depending on how difficult my day is going to be or
how you know difficult the week is going to be.
If I do it in the morning I give myself five minutes to just sort of write
everything down that I'm thinking about in terms of what tasks I have to get done,
whether that's
make sure I call a certain person. If I'm preparing for
for example if I have to appear for expert witness testimony um at some
point during the week or you know coming up whatever the case may be,
I have to write all that stuff down so I give myself five minutes,
I write it all down and then at the end
for some people just getting that out is helpful.
Um What I do at the end of it is I highlight the three most important things
um that I have from that list from that
brain dump list and then I highlight the most the
three most important and then those are the three things
that I have to get done the next day.
If I do the brain dump at night or if I do it in the morning,
those are the three things that I have to get finished that morning.
And so yes, for me this has been, you know, very helpful.
Different people use different techniques.
But I think it can be very beneficial if you always are, you know,
on the go and you have a lot of things going on
and you just have a lot going on in your head.
Why are we so anxious? What is happening to?
I mean obviously like this is amazing because you and I
are having this conversation 40 minutes into the broadcast tonight.
Obviously we are dealing with war that has just
broken out in europe and it's we're on social
media and we're on our phones and before there
was even war that just crossed the Ukrainian border,
we're dealing with a pandemic and protests and disagreements
and things that have split across our family.
Like I know I can't be alone here Dr marshall Brown when I say it truly feels like
the world is on fire and I have no
place else to channel my anxiety except for internally,
I'm not alone in this right.
Like there's something big, very wrong going on.
Absolutely yeah, there's a lot going on.
We're inundated with all sorts of news at any given time.
We have, you know the 24 hour news cycle where it's just, you know,
one thing after another, we had the pandemic,
which really changed our lives because it impacted, you know, the entire world.
So there's just a lot going on. Um, and so
there's anticipation of some sort of future threat.
We're all trying to sort of navigate our way through
a feeling that we're trying to avoid future problems.
And so the anxiety builds up.
Um everyone has, you know, something that they're struggling with.
And so
it's,
it can be difficult to find a way to
sort of discharge that or disconnect from that and,
and reset,
find hit the reset button and oftentimes we don't have time to hit the reset button,
especially if we, you know,
have responsibilities like family or work or school or anything like that.
And so we end up being spread very thin
and I think that that has, you know, amongst other things,
led to this increased anxiety that we're in an anxiety that we're all feeling and
also just being surrounded by a world of unknown not knowing what's gonna come next.
Not really sure. You know, the pandemic,
we are in the third calendar year of the pandemic.
Um and you know, I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that for, you know, me,
I never imagined in March of 2020 that in february of 2022
we would still be in this place of sort of not knowing,
you know where this is going, how it's gonna go.
Part of me having you know ups and downs of outbreaks and
then also of course the war going on and so yeah,
it's a lot,
there's a lot of um there's a lot of stuff going on right now in the world and
I think that it's just it's impacting us all
in different ways but it's definitely impacting us somehow.
You know, this has been so nice to have this conversation with you.
There's just there's something very like the fact that I can like
be open and like I've had my own personal family trauma the
last couple of months especially and like to carry it around to
try and come out and do a television show every night.
Honestly you just got times you just like you just don't feel like
getting out of bed and I don't mind saying that out loud,
you know why dr marshall Brown because I know I'm not alone.
I know there's someone else out there saying my God, my anxiety is so high.
My to do list is so big,
I do not want to face the world and there's
one person watching this interview right now who says,
oh man, that's me, you are not alone.
I all of us dr marshall Brown,
I'm sure we have our moments where we are not our best because of the state of
the world right now and we're all in this together and we're gonna figure it out.
And I'm very appreciative dr Marshall Brown,
thank you for letting go on that tangent
for you being on the show tonight,
forensic and clinical psychologist.
Trust me folks, we're gonna get there, we're gonna be okay. Things are gonna be okay.
I promise. At least I think they are.
We're going to continue to have a smile and put on a suit in the meantime.