The Jettison Jar : A Reset Ritual for an Overwhelmed Mind

Because human brains weren’t designed to hold this much!

For years, switching off my mind felt impossible.

Most nights, while the rest of the world slept, my brain shifted into a frantic overdrive — spiralling through endless to-do lists, half-formed creative ideas, anxieties about tomorrow or replaying a disagreement from 2012 with a perfect monologue list of everything I should have said.

By 2am, I was still wide awake. By morning, I was exhausted before the day had even started.

Everything felt stressful.

Because when your mind is a loud, unorganised construction site, it doesn't just affect your sleep — it affects your mood, your patience, and your ability to make even the smallest decisions. A simple question like "What's for dinner?" started to feel like a hostage negotiation between my stomach, my purse, and my complete lack of willpower to cook.

I'd try to stay motivated, but the mental noise left me too drained to focus on the things I actually cared about.

Something had to change.

Discovering the Brain Dump

When researching ways to help quiet down my noisy noggin- I came across "brain dumping", the practice of writing absolutely everything down to clear mental space.

At first, I dismissed it. Surely sitting down with a pen and paper was just another thing to add to the list? More time away from the things I "needed" to do?

But one night, I tried it.

I sat at my desk and scribbled down everything: the to-do lists, the worries, the ideas, the half-thoughts that had been rattling around for weeks. And finally, I hit mute on the internal blethering long enough to step back and see what was actually going on in there.

What I noticed surprised me. Some of it was out of my control and just needed acceptance. Some of it wasn't nearly as catastrophic on paper as it had felt bouncing around my head at midnight. And the things that genuinely needed my attention? Those could be prioritised, broken down, and turned into small, doable steps.

That single exercise gave me more relief than I'd felt in months. So I turned it into a daily ritual. I called it the Jettison Jar