Here's One Way to Declog Your Brain With Zero Effort
A Tuesday morning walk that reminded me what real thinking feels like
I went for a walk this morning.
9:44 am to be exact.
I’d woken up feeling groggy. Maybe it’s the PMS messing with my mood, maybe it’s the weather, or maybe it’s the fact that it’s still only Tuesday.
I lay on the couch for a good ten minutes, wondering if I even wanted to get anything done today. My phone sat there, promising easy distraction, but I decided I should pick myself up, put on my shoes and head out for a walk.
Not just any walk.
A walk, without my phone.
Sounds scary, I know.
But, allow me to sound like a clickbait title for a second.
”What happened next was life-changing.”
Okay, not literally, but it did feel close to that.
Here’s what I noticed when I went on that 45-minute walk:
The foliage around my apartment community is beautifully green, diverse, and my community actually looks like a little urban national park.
Two coniferous trees, at the very corner of the parking lot, looked strikingly similar and swayed, as if they were slow dancing to the wind.
How empty the parking lots looked on a Tuesday, and how folks rushed out of their houses, probably to get to their 10 am meetings.
Birds chirping in the distance—probably communicating, maybe arguing, or simply singing their hearts out.
A big pink rose flower peeking through the balcony railing like an inquisitive child watching the cars go by.
An elderly couple walking, hand-in-hand, smiling and waving at me.
Consciously feeling the wind against my face, forcing out a much-needed exhale.
These were details I would have completely missed while staring at a screen, thumbing through stories of people I barely know, consuming content that would vanish from my memory within minutes.
Coming home from this walk felt weird. Weird because I felt present, my perspective had changed, and the world looked simpler, easier, sweeter.
The walk had declogged my brain. I noticed that for the first ten minutes, I was fighting all the thoughts about my unspoken comebacks, my monologues, my stress about a major move we have in the offing, and everything else that could flood my brain.
By the halfway point of my walk, I was ready to acknowledge them, allow them to pass, so I could make space for new ideas.
And after that, I started to focus on the things around me. Paid attention to the details I would otherwise miss with a phone in hand or a podcast in my ear. I felt mentally present. Sharp. Aware. Alive.
That's when I realized, you can simply declog your brain, rebuild what your mental strength used to be.
All it takes is a walk without your phone.
Try it tomorrow morning. Notice what happens when you stop feeding your brain digital noise and start feeding it the world around you.
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Hi, I’m Swathi — a mom, writer, and fellow traveller in the world of slow, intentional living.
Welcome to The Bloom, a gentle corner of the internet where I write about movement, mindset, and motherhood — and what it means to come home to yourself in this noisy world.
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