LIKE A BRAIN MASSAGE
The other day I came across an interview that Dylan Sinclair did for F Word Magazine to discuss his new album. When the interviewer asked him what he hoped listeners would take away from his songs, he used this peculiar expression that has not left my mind since: like a brain massage.
I suppose he could have meant that he wanted listeners to feel fully at ease when going through the album. That’s what a massage is, isn’t it? A way to relax, unwind and melt away all the tension in our muscles.
Fair enough. But as I started listening to the songs one by one, I felt drawn to the lyrics. There I was, trying my absolute best (and defeating the purpose) to switch my mind off, when all I could do was fall deeper into the words he was singing and try to fully hear him.
So much for a brain massage, Dylan. I felt like that was a brain workout.
I remember peeling my AirPods off my ears and taking a second to register where I was. I had just sat down on the floor of my bedroom, legs curled underneath me, absentmindedly picking at the same spot of carpet for a good half hour whilst listening to this man on my laptop sing his heart out. No multi-tasking, nothing. Just vibes. And you know what? My brain did feel, albeit contemplative, less tense.
The times when I feel the most grounded, at peace and like myself is when I’m giving my brain a massage. Hear me out—have you ever gotten so engrossed in a good novel that the plot just unravels so seamlessly in your head, bringing this imaginary world to life all from the comfort of your living room? Or that feeling after you leave the cinema and it’s almost as if you’ve just come up for a breath of fresh air after being underwater. You walk out replaying certain moments, wondering about the characters and thinking what you would do differently in their situation. I know the word ‘mindfulness’ gets thrown around a lot and I have certainly been a victim of believing that it’s something one can only achieve by sitting cross-legged on the peak of a random mountain, eyes closed and inhaling slowly. But maybe this is what Dylan meant by a brain massage, and maybe it’s actually mindfulness—minus all the deep breathing.
I’ve never quite gotten the hang of meditation. There’s something about forcing my mind to focus on nothing that just…doesn’t really apply to me. I can, however, force my mind to focus on something. Something so deeply captivating that it digs its fingers into the folds of my brain and slowly untangles each cord, making all the little thoughts and noises that got clogged up here and there flow freely, away and out of my mind.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I really relish these moments of brain massages. In fact, I think it’s important for me to have more moments that feel like a brain massage.
I feel the most like myself when I’m focused on something. Is it because I have a Capricorn stellium? Have I just been sucked into the pipe of endless doomscrolling that literally anything else feels like a refreshing cold shower? Maybe. Perhaps. It could be anything. All I know is that I’ve never been able to replicate the feeling of watching a 2-hour film with 2 hours of TikTok consumption. I’m almost certain that those two hours of fully engaging (massaging my brain) with thoughts, reflections and observations about the thing in front of me, instead of accepting an endless stream of content on autopilot, is integral to my mental health.
A few of the ways I’ve started to include more brain massages into my routine are:
Watching shows one at a time, preferably with some kind of continuous storyline. Current fav is The Office (US). The Jim and Pam slowburn is, IMHO, one of the best in TV history.
Listening to slow, acoustic songs on my walk home from university. I love a pop princess moment as much as the next girl in her 20s, but perhaps the city should not always feel like a runway. Maybe it should just feel like the city that I am walking through.
Limiting social media or any platform that shows me too many pages/ideas/posts at a single time.
Reading, and not just for the sake of fulfilling a goal to read.
That last one reminds me of something—you know those ‘optimal routines’ we see online, the ones that promise to help us level up into a more successful, attractive and confident version of ourselves? The ones that include habits such as reading, journaling, meditating and drinking some kind of ominous green drink every morning on an empty stomach?
Yeah. I’ve tried a few of those.
I think discipline and the whole idea of ‘doing something when you least want to do it’ is great. But sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of why we’re doing something. The whole point of ‘healthy’ activities such as reading, exercising and journaling is to allow us to find respite and clarity in a world where our attention is being pulled in a million different directions. As soon as I started to read for the sake of ticking it off my habit tracker, and not actually absorbing anything in the daily 10 pages goal I set for myself, I could physically feel myself not evolving into the person that these habit gurus said I would. I wasn’t giving myself a brain massage!
So, I’ll leave you with this—engage with things. Whatever you do. Get brunch with a friend and listen, inquire about their life. Go to the movie theatre and allow yourself to form an opinion on each character. Read without looking at the page numbers.
Do more things throughout your day that feel like a brain massage.
