The voice of the mind

Stuck in an era of remarkable change and uncertainty, depression can spell doom for your body. Vandana Kohli suggests some coping mechanisms for better physical and mental health

Vandana Kohli

We are a noisy species. Our modes of transport, our machinery, mining and manufacturing, thunder across the planet. Anthropause, a new term for the lockdown, paused the relentless criss-cross of cars, flights, ships and tourists. Wildlife, hitherto driven into trauma, emerged from hiding — otters in Chile, shy marine fish off Ecuador, timid jackals, shy foxes and bird species, to name a few. Loggerhead turtles laid eggs more frequently and the big cats relaxed and mated more, across continents, as the noise abated.

Our outer world fell silent, briefly, but not so much the inner. Connected online, we continually remain plugged into a grid that is… well, noisy. A barrage of information, voices, opinions and messages, across social media platforms designed to pull us in, enmeshes us within a web that holds half the world in it, at all times. The sheer volume and speed of information force-prods us to engage and react. Soft, shy voices recede increasingly into the backdrop, as such engagement demands of us to be louder and more aggressive, to be heard at all, above the existing noise.

Noise isn’t harmless. It creates stress. The circuitry of the brain remains charged and in turn bolsters the levels of stress hormones in the brain and body. The body, on a signal of high alert, remains tense and taut. The nervous system is put under strain; digestion becomes sluggish. “This is not the time to digest your food,” the brain in stress tells the body, “this is the time to stay alert to fight!”

Stressed, in mind and body, we may feel overwhelmed. And anxious. And tired. And angry. Anger can become chronic under a constant feeling of stress. The grooves of anger deepen in the brain, and often our first reaction, to anything and everything is one of anger. We blame and rant and complain, at war in our minds with family, colleagues, strangers, the world and with ourselves.

Yet, what fumes and cribs, is not us. Neither is it the mind. It is simply the voice of the mind. A voice that should be heeded, but nonetheless, a voice that goes on and on, like a loop, repeating itself. It may accuse, or rage and bluster against the same people or circumstance, each time. It may doubt and be anxious about everything we do, even if we are carrying out the most mundane of chores. I can’t do this! I will fail. I’m falling behind or this will not work are some of such anxious loops that may spark unfailingly, irrespective of how uncomplicated the task at hand is.

We mistakenly identify our entire selves with this little voice. We believe this is us, so immersed are we in it. This voice is yet a tiny bit, one strain in the mind’s vastness. In traditional philosophical thought, the mind is often likened to the sky — vast, and silent and expansive. Its main function is cognition — to observe and to take note of. If the mind is the sky, this voice is one cloud in it.

To have such a perspective helps us put space between the voice and the mind. Even as it continues to pick and lament, no longer are we completely gripped by this voice and its noise; rather, we may observe it and listen to it from a larger space. This expansive space is the mind, the heart, the body and all the rest of us.

Whenever we focus on physical activity or bodily movement, however briefly, the noise within recedes into the backdrop. Each time we turn attention to the gentle, inherent warmth of our hearts, we touch a point of instinctive equilibrium.

Even as we own it, the voice of the mind is a speck, in the universe of our existence. We needn’t allow it to rule. We may hear it, embrace it, even be amused by it. We may regard it, quite like the Universe may look upon us and our very noisy, tiny blob of a ranting planet.

(The writer is a filmmaker and author of Hinge (Re)discovering Emotional and Mental Wellness.)