Many people feel their mind is unsettled. 

Settled is a nice word. We settle babies when they are restless. We settle down into families, house, places, jobs, gym routines, diets.

But being unsettled in not nice. Particularly if it’s your mind that feels unsettled because somehow your mind feels like it affects everything about you. If you have a toothache, it’s unpleasant and painful but it doesn’t upset your whole body. It’s isolated to your mouth and your mouth feels ‘unsettled’. You just want it to be ok and ‘normal’ again.

But when  your mind feels unsettled, it will affect all of you. Your mood, your energy, your ability, your communication and it might make you feel very restless and uneasy. Maybe physically sick or dizzy and you want to escape these feelings but you can’t because it’s your mind and you are stuck with it.

The symptoms of an unsettled mind:

Disturbed sleep

An unsettled mind makes for an unsettled sleep. The brain likes to empty itself of anything unnecessary during sleep. But if your mind is unsettled you might find yourself tossing and turning in bed when it’s time to go to sleep. Or you might be able to get to sleep but wake in the night and find it difficult to go back to sleep. This can be very frustrating and the more you get frustrated the harder it is to get back to sleep. Or maybe you know you operate best on 8 hours of sleep but you keep waking up early before your alarm goes off and you can’t get back to sleep.

Unable to concentrate

You know how this feels. You want to do something but you don’t know what. When you feel negatively aroused your brain can go into a survival state, looking and listening for danger so it can keep you safe. The problem is that if your brain believes there is a danger lurking it will want to concentrate on that, not what else you want it to do. This can actually turn into an anxious state. If you are focused on feeling anxious or unsettled, it’s unlikely you will be able to focus on anything else. The more you worry about not being able to concentrate, the more you flit from thing to thing, not achieving much at all. Sometimes you are better to just give yourself a break. Do something that will make you feel better rather than one of the things on your to do list.

Appetite

Appetite can go either way when people have unsettled minds. But whether you overeat or under-eat the likelihood is that you will make bad choices. It’s unlikely you will feel as in control of your eating as you would like to be. When you feel strong of mind and in control, it is easy to meal plan and create healthy food to nourish yourself.

Confidence

When your mind is unsettled you won’t feel your confident self. You will be distracted and you will not have your full power. Because you feel less confident you might withdraw. This could give you time to heal but sometimes the right people can help lift you up. Help you understand that this will pass and you can get control back.

Here are some things you can do to settle your mind:

1 – Give yourself a sense of control. Do something easy and small which helps you feel back in control.

2 – Relax. Reassure your mind that there is no reason to worry.

3 – Be kind towards yourself. Life is full of challenges and this means that we will feel unsettled from time to time so ride it out and it will pass.

If feeling unsettled is not an ‘every now and then’ occurence and it is causing you a problem. Get in touch and we can work together to settle your mind and give you techniques for the future.

Write your ‘getting ‘settled’ list.

Try to write a couple of things down that would make you feel more settled or things you can tell yourself the next time you feel unsettled. Then you have something to refer to in the future.