I like to look at everything as a skill. how do I increase the skill of mental clarity and optimal focus/attention. We PRACTICE IT. Just like the gym. Put in the work and grow. Absolute responsibility our mental health state. Environment and the stimulus we are exposed to. Extremely powerful. Here are my favorite mental clarity practices/boundaries:
- No social media the first 2-ish hours of the day and no social media the last 2-ish hours the day – Reality: We are in a tech age. We have to be intentional with how we expose ourselves, when, and how much. We’re animals. We weren’t meant to stare at screens. I’ve noticed sticking to this routine programs my brain to operate calm and focused and also allows it to so down and not encourage racing thoughts based off the simple fact that we’re reducing stimulus and giving our brains less to circulate though. Starting the day with simple and ending the day with simple. Healing to the mind. Reduces anxiety. This is a boundary I set to protect my inner peace. Its worked for a long time now. It reenforces presence and encourages a grounded real life experience.
- Intentional short breaks to breath deeply periodically though the day – Its easy to hard charge though the day and next thing you know: 4 hours goes by. This lots of the time leads to lots of burn out and overwhelming mental state. I’ve noticed taking a break every 1-1-.5 hours to where I can simply step away from the task at hand for just a few minutes and breath slow; promotes lots of calm and focus as I get back to my daily responsibilities. I try to get outside and simply take in all the senses. Looking at the sky and the trees. listening to the birds. feeling the wind on the skin. Making sure I’m bringing lots of attention to breathing in and breathing out very deeply and slowly. These short breaks bring a very large return on investment as you carry that focus and feel good calm state with you during whats to come. I’ve noticed less mistakes are made and a lower heart rate is maintained which keeps me in a lower stress place overall – WIN
- Prioritizing a 10-15 minute meditation session almost every day – This sorta goes right in line with the last point above. The return on investment for programming the mind to operate in that calm focused state allows the heart rate to remain lower and for the deep breathing to be reenforced more through the day. This is great for managing stress and dealing with some of the more difficult moments. I personally like to do a meditation around lunch time. A intentional break in the day to put some focus toward the skill of operating calm and focused. Deep breath work again is our best friend when it comes to managing stress and keeping optimal mental health.
- Optimizing Sleep quality by altering our environment at nighttime in a specific way – Some of these ways that I’ve noticed to promote deep restful sleep are: lowering the temperature in the house, dimming the lights at nighttime, lighting a candle, making sure screens are on night mode and there are no blaring lights shinning into our eyeballs, putting on relaxing music like a rainstorm, putting on a live fireplace on YouTube, reading a book, stretching, or simply doing activities that require stillness. All of these things have been game changer. Its hard to have sharp mental health when we’re getting poor quality sleep. in turn, this means we need to practice activities in the evening closer to bedtime that promote relaxation and literally tell the body to slow down and start shutting off. A good night’s sleep does wonders for the mind.
I wanted to make this simple. 4 awarenesses that we can bring some attention to and yield some pretty darn good results. There are lots of different ways to optimize brain health, but when I observe individuals that are sharp in the mind and operate in a peaceful state, I’ve noticed them to also follow some of these protocols above. It’s powerful to look at everything as a skill. I want more _______ so we need to practice more ________. We can always get better. just takes some intention and putting some things to the test. our own experiment gives us everything need to adjust and make the best choices for us.
THE_HUMAN_EXPERIMENT1993 