Tag: brain

Muscle Building For The Mind

Every day, millions of us across the world spend hours of our day working hard on exercising our bodies to create the perfect shape and look. Toning arms, strengthening legs and shaping torsos is all part of the daily routine, for many people. But, what about the most powerful and under-utilised muscle in the human body? How much time do we spend exercising that? Is it about time that exercising our mind became part of the daily routine too?

Experts estimate that we use only ten percent of the brain’s capacity in day-to-day life. Simply by exercising the brain, in the same way as we exercise the rest of the body, it will gain strength and become powerful. Similarly, if we don’t exercise the brain, it becomes lazy, unresponsive and slow just like our physical bodies when we neglect them.

Our daily lives bring us in to contact with many opportunities to either strengthen or weaken the mind. One of the most popular brain busters is the television. So many shows, so much choice but lots of trash TV and very little to challenge and enhance the brain. Is daily TV watching as bad for the brain as junk food is for the body?
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A daily routine for the mind can be the most important, productive and valuable exercise workout you can do. Here are some tips to incorporate strengthening the number one muscle in the body into your daily routine…

Morning exercise

Starting the day with some mind building exercise is the one of the best and most satisfying ways to ensure the day starts well and continues on the same path. Personal development guru Anthony Robbins references the ‘Hour of Power’ in his book Awaken the Giant Within. Robbins says physical exercise, meditation and learning are the most effective way to start each and every day. The full hour isn’t always necessary, thirty minutes is all it takes. If this time can’t be squeezed into the morning routine you currently have, then set the alarm earlier…it really is that simple, and very productive.

Exercise in the car

This isn’t necessarily all about having to find more time in your day, it is about using your time more productively – and your daily journeys in the car could be the answer. There are so many CDs and audio books available now that the radio can be replaced by a daily mind exercise routine. Whether it’s on the motorway, on the school run or simply on errands, for ten minutes or the full three hour traffic jam, it’s a brilliant way to make the most of your daily travel.

Evening exercise

If watching a lot of TV on a daily basis is reducing mind capacity, just thirty minutes per night, every night of mind building activity will make a significant difference. The options for how to fill that time are vast; reading a personal development book, watching a mind exercising DVD or listening to one of the CDs from the car. The daily routine creates the discipline, which in turn creates the long lasting positive effect.

Combining the physical and the mind exercise

How about combining the two forms of exercise in to one? Both are important, and if your schedule doesn’t allow both in separate forms, then doing both at the same time can be the perfect compromise. Replacing the accompanying music during your physical exercise with personal development audio provides the mind with exercise, as well as the body.

Getting Yourself Into The Blogging Habit

Habits are formed by association, when you repeat something often enough the brain recognizes it as a pattern and that pattern becomes associated with something either pleasurable or negative. As we get older this becomes harder for the brain to accept, so we need to help it along!

Keeping your blog as a positive thing on your task list

Try associating writing your blog with a pleasurable part of your day, maybe you have a cup of your favorite coffee and a couple of biscuits while you write. By a pleasant association you are more likely to enjoy the experience every day. If sitting down and writing becomes connected with a negative experience or feeling you are less likely to want to form that habit. If writing it feels like a chore then you aren’t going to want to sit down and write it!

Build it into your routine. Choose a time of day to write your blog that best suits you and your finest creative brain. Some people work well early in the morning, some in the evening. They don’t take long to update, try allowing yourself some time in your life to write uninterrupted; by allowing yourself some time it does become an integral part of your day. I find the first light of day an inspiration and love listening to the silence of the day before the hustle and bustle starts properly.

Making your environment work for your blogging

It’s also a good idea to make sure working conditions are good for you. Let your friends and family know this is the time that you will be writing your posts and you’d appreciate it if they gave you some peace and quiet for a while. It’s impossible to think when the kids want you to sort out an argument, you’re wanted on the phone or one of the other many reasons our lives are never our own. Shut the door; give yourself some space to think.

Forming the habit of writing it is going to take time, it’s not going to happen overnight, just as a good following won’t. Psychologists recommend doing an activity everyday for 30 days for something to become a habit.

…And that is good advice for a blogger. In order for a blog to work it needs to be updated regularly, every day to start with. Your followers are looking for good and original posts from you regularly. Although you shouldn’t post things just for the sake of a post, that kind of content is less likely to wow than one you actually have something to say in.

Maybe you can’t get to your PC to write sometimes. We all end up with other overriding commitments sometimes. If this happens, try taking a notebook or a voice recorder with you so you can brainstorm at convenient times, when inspiration strikes. Lots of us have this facility on our phones these days – I find both methods useful when I’m out and about, to record ideas that pop into my head.

Keeping the blogging habit alive and well

When it comes to blogging commitments, focus on the positive, not the negative. Rather than dwelling on the posts you forgot to publish, concentrate on tomorrow’s post and make sure that gets done. In order for something to become a habit, you need to think of it in a positive light. If you start concentrating on the negative you will condition your brain to associate blogging with stress, performance anxiety and boredom. Remember we do this for the pleasure, not because it causes us pain!

All habits take a while to form, so give yourself time to get used to your new routine. Keep light-hearted about your blog, and use it as a platform to promote you and your business without feeling overwhelmed by the obligations which regular blogging brings.

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