Like your body, your mind needs a healthy diet. And regular exercise. And like your body, your mind will get out of shape if you don’t treat it well and stimulate it regularly. While your body gets you from A to B, for the most part, your mind is where you do all your living. With that in mind (so to speak), here are some ideas to help make your mind a healthy place to live.
1. Be productive early in the day. You’ll feel more positive and empowered for the rest of it.
2. Ask healthy, solution-focused questions. Better questions produce better behaviours and results. And a happier you.
3. Avoid pointless conversations and toxic relationships. Spend time with people who will drag you up.
4. Learn a new language. And dust off those cerebral cobwebs. Oui?
5. Study. It’s like bench press for your brain.
6. Spend fifteen minutes (or more) each day doing a mental workout (crosswords, puzzles, equations, memory exercises).
7. Avoid self-pity and negative self-talk. Pay attention to, and be grateful for, the good stuff. Do a treasure hunt on your life.
8. Laugh often. Laughter produces chemical changes which improve your mental, emotional and physical state almost instantly.
9. Make your passion your career. Easier said than done but when you get paid to do what you love, your days of ‘working’ are over.
10. Control your controllables. Let go of the rest. Don’t obsess about (or invest energy in) things you can’t change.
11. Play. Slide on the lino in your socks. Just coz. There’s a point when ‘sensible and responsible’ morph into boring and pointless. Not everything needs to be strategic, logical or grown-up.
12. Find your mute button. Learn to turn down the internal noise. It might be meditation, music, exercise, painting, being in nature or something else.
13. Have an orgasm. Involve a friend, if you like. Yep, I wrote it. Sorry mum. I could share plenty about the physiological and psychological benefits of the dance with no pants but suffice it to say that the accompanying biochemical changes can (1) help you sleep like a baby (2) reduce blood pressure (3) reduce anxiety and stress levels (via the surge of oxytocin) (4) reduce pain and (5) make you smile like an idiot.
So there. 🙂
