The human mind likes to play tricks on you. Every single day. Reality may not be as it seems. Your brain is a complex place where ideas come and go and our perception of reality is greatly impacted by the seemingly insignificant. Understanding when your rational brain is NOT acting at it’s optimum is key.
These life hacks have helped me in crucial encounters and situations.
First it’s important to understand that the human mind is not a binary machine that is either happy or sad, positive or negative.
Our state of mind is dependant on a variety of inputs that can lead us to feeling negative. Understanding how to adjust those inputs will prevent them all together.
Our diet - eating foods high in sugar and low in fibre will impact your ability to get a solid nights sleep. A bad nights sleep leads to a negative state of well being. Feeling cranky and losing optimism about life is common.
Solution: Eat high protein, high vegetable diet with some fruits to feel healthy and happy each day. Low sugar, high fibre is key.
Our sleep - not getting 8 hours of sleep per night will reduce testosterone levels in men. It will create a feeling of intoxication if at or under 5 hrs.
Solution: Turn ALL electronic devices off 1 hr before bed. Otherwise your brain’s release of melatonin, which helps you sleep, will be delayed.
Negative interactions - negative comments from others ‘stick’ in the brain as our self-defence mechanism kicks in, trying to avoid danger.
Solution: Avoid unhealthy people and conversations if you can. If you can’t, keep them to a minimum and get out quickly to keep positive.
Exercise - if you fail to exercise on 3–5 times per week our body is stagnant, tired, slow. Lack of exercise also impacts your sleep.
Solution: Go to the gym and get in high intensity exercise with a combination of cardio and heavy weight lifting and ensure you increase the protein in your diet. Eat within 30 mins after your workout to increase your energy and feel more positive every single day.
Feeling nervous? - Nerves are a natural thing, but they can keep you up at night. They can cause you stress during the day. And they can impact your performance when it counts the most.
Solution: Tell yourself you are feeling excited. Sounds crazy, but it works! I recently wrote an article on this at The-Inspired.com and the English Football team actually adopted this approach to help them reach 4th place in Russia’s World Cup 2018.
BONUS - Guess what... NAPS are good for you! It turns out, according to neuroscientists who study sleep, that taking a short 30 min to 1 hour afternoon nap somewhere around 2pm is what mother nature intended! Our tribal ancestors would take a break to rest at the hottest part of the day and sleep their mid afternoon worries away.
Solution: So, if you're feeling tired and cranky around 2pm each day, if you find yourself feeling down or even negative at this time, it may just be your brains biology calling for a short nap. If you can't take a nap, try eating a light snack like raw fruit or vegetables around 2pm to give yourself a spike of natural sugars and carbs to get you through your day. Coffee works too!
Thanks and I hope that helped someone out there.
For more thought provoking ideas be sure to visit us at The-Inspired.com
Goran Yerkovich
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