Brain in Overdrive? Try this!

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If you’ve ever laid in bed at night exhausted, only to have your brain start replaying your entire day while dredging up every worry and anxiety you’ve ever had – you’re not alone. Nursing students and working nurses carry a mental load that’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t lived it.

Whether you’re juggling clinicals, exams, patient care, constantly changing hospital policies, or just trying to remember if you fed the dog… your brain is in overdrive.

What’s the solution? Brain dumping.

Brain dumping is a simple, free, and surprisingly effective way to clear your mind, reduce stress, and finally get the rest you need. Think of it as a mental declutter session. If you’ve ever felt instantly less stressed after you clean out a closet, then you can see how brain dumping can help reduce stress, offload your thoughts, and actually sleep. In this article, I”ll cover: 

• Why our brains feel so overloaded
• What brain dumping actually is
• How it can help with sleep, anxiety, and productivity
• The science behind it
• How to try it yourself

What is brain dumping? 

Brain dumping is exactly what it sounds like: you dump everything out of your brain and onto paper. But more importantly, here’s what it’s not:

• It’s not a journal entry
• It’s not a fancy planner layout
• It’s not a curated to-do list
• It’s not a time to actively solve all your problems

It’s messy. It’s honest. It’s raw. And it works.

You write down everything—thoughts, worries, random reminders, tasks, emotions, anxieties, even things that feel silly. You’re not trying to fix or organize anything. You’re simply offloading the mental clutter.

Think of it like this: you wouldn’t try to organize your closet without taking everything out first. Brain dumping is how you take everything out of your mental closet and finally breathe.

Why are nursing students’ brains so overloaded?

Let’s be real. Nursing school requires you to hold a massive amount of information in your head—constantly.

• Medications, dosages, side effects
• Lab results, assessments, care plans
• An intense and complex school schedule
• Documentation you haven’t finished yet
• That patient you’re still worried about
• Upcoming exams
• That awkward interaction with a patient’s family member
• Your head-to-toe skills checkoff
• What you’re going to make for dinner
• Household chores you need to do but don’t have time for
• And the list goes on…

When you’re in nursing school, your brain is like a browser with 23 tabs open. Everything is there, but you have a hard time focusing and finding what you need. The truth is, when we don’t give our minds a chance to offload, we end up feeling anxious, scattered, forgetful, irritable, and wide awake when we should be sleeping.

The Science Behind Brain Dumping

Brain dumping isn’t just a feel-good habit—it’s actually backed by science. In a 2018 study, researchers found that subjects who wrote about upcoming tasks before bed fell asleep faster than those who wrote a journal entry. That’s because all that stuff swirling around in your head – the stuff you’re worried about or afraid you’re going to forget – is actually keeping you awake. In addition to helping you sleep, some additional benefits are: 

• Writing helps you process – Research shows that writing down your thoughts helps reduce anxiety and organize your emotions. Once your thoughts are on paper, your brain stops spinning them in circles.
• Writing reduces cognitive load – Your brain only has so much working memory. When it’s cluttered, you can’t think clearly. Brain dumping frees up space for focus, learning, and emotional regulation.

How to Do a Brain Dump

You can do a brain dump anytime—but it’s especially powerful before bed, after a shift, or before studying.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Grab a notebook or open a notes app. Pen and paper work great, but digital is fine too. 

2. Set a timer for 5 minutes. You don’t need long—just enough to unload your mental backpack.

3. Write down everything. To-dos, worries, emotions, reminders, complaints, questions, errands, dorky things you said in clinical — dump it all. There’s no wrong way.

4. Don’t try to fix anything (yet). The goal is to release, not organize. You can sort things out later if you want.

Try It Now: A 2-Minute Guided Brain Dump

If you’re in a quiet space, grab something to write with and try this right now.

1. Set a timer for 2 minutes.
2. Start writing. Anything that comes to mind.
3. Don’t pause. Don’t overthink. Just let it out.

Need a prompt to get going? Try one of these:

• “What’s on my mind right now?”
• “What am I trying to remember?”
• “What’s been bothering me today?”
• “What do I not want to think about, but am anyway?”

When the timer’s up, take a deep breath. That’s your brain—emptied onto the page. You can deal with it when you’re ready… but tonight, you can sleep.

Let It All Out

In closing, I just want to remind you that going through nursing school without consistent self care practices is like driving a car but never changing the oil. Yes, the car will run for a while. But it’s not going to run optimally and eventually the engine will shut down. The same goes for you. Without self care, eventually you will shut down. 

Brain dumping gives you a simple, compassionate way to take care of your mental load. It’s one of the easiest and most powerful tools you can use to protect your sleep, your focus, and your mental health.

So, do yourself a favor. Grab a piece of paper before you get into bed and spend five minutes letting everything in your head flow out onto paper.

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The information, including but not limited to, audio, video, text, and graphics contained on this website are for educational purposes only. No content on this website is intended to guide nursing practice and does not supersede any individual healthcare provider’s scope of practice or any nursing school curriculum. Additionally, no content on this website is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

References:

Scullin, M. K., Krueger, M. L., Ballard, H. K., Pruett, N., & Bliwise, D. L. (2018). The effects of bedtime writing on difficulty falling asleep: A polysomnographic study comparing to-do lists and completed activity lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 147(1), 139–146. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000374

Last Updated on April 10, 2025 by Maureen Osuna, MSN, RN