The human brain is powerful. A healthy and happy brain can significantly help boost work performance and increase life satisfaction. However, our brain is also subject to vulnerability caused by daily stress and adversity. If we don't know how to regularly nourish and train it, especially in hard times, it'd easily be further programmed for negativity that undermines our abilities to work productively and to lead a life of meaning and purpose.
Below are three basic ways you can pursue to have an optimal brain so it'll help you, regardless of circumstances, to effectively collaborate with others, create novel solutions to problems, navigate through any challenge at ease and, ultimately, bring yourself success.
1. Ensure a good baseline with the Healthy Mind Platter.
Before training your brain, you should ensure your brain has a good baseline by feeding it with essential mental nutrients. As a society, there's been a lot of focus on physical health instead of caring for both our body and mind, as well as their connection. The Healthy Mind Platter, developed by David Rock and Daniel J. Siegel, provides a brilliant guide on how we can incorporate different mental activities each day for our brain to function at its best.
There are seven elements in the platter: sleep time, physical time, focus time, time-in, downtime, playtime and connecting time. They help the brain to recover, recharge, have new connections, deepen connections and get strengthened and integrated for peak cognitive performance. While there is no specific formula for how much time is needed for each activity, you would ideally want to have all elements built into your day based on your specific needs and lifestyle.
Among the seven nutrients, I observe that many struggle with sleep the most. Setting a specific target time to get to bed; disconnecting from the digital world; taking on soothing activities for the brain, such as reading, meditating or journaling within the one hour before that and tracking your sleep are among the most effective tips for my clients who want to sleep better. For the other nutrients, other than focus time, when you are so engaged in a task that you forget about what's going on around you, even five to 10 minutes could do wonders for your brain.
In addition, be creative about how you implement each activity. For example, as playtime is when you are spontaneous, creative and enjoy novel experiences, you can incorporate it into your daily essential activities. When you go to work, pick up your kids or buy groceries, try different routes or modes of transportation. When you make meals, play around with the recipes. When you have meetings with your colleagues, try a walking meeting.
2. Hardwire positivity into your brain structure.
The human brain is preprogrammed with negativity bias. This means our brains are trained at scanning the environment for negativity. This has been the case since ancestral times, when it was necessary for survival. This also means even when the brain spots positivity, it often fails to install positivity into its structure.
On the other hand, science proves that happiness leads to success. Happy people tend to recognize opportunities serving their dream actualization, while unhappy people are inclined to miss them due to tunnel vision. At the same time, when faced with challenges and hardship, those with happy brains will have the mental energy to focus on and come up with creative solutions, while those with strong negativity wirings struggle with rumination and stress that prevent them from finding the best path forward.
Therefore, retraining our brains to find and install positivity by sinking into the great experiences is crucial for our success. A few simple yet powerful ways to achieve this are fully enjoying little moments throughout your days — whether it be a walk or a cup of coffee, visualizing your dreams and aspirations, pausing to appreciate your own efforts and celebrating after finishing a task before moving on to the next one. Reflect on at least three things you are grateful for or reflect on all of your achievements, small or big, and on what you've learned at the end of each day.
3. Tame negativity with reframing.
Ideally, we should avoid negative people or situations that bring us negative emotions and affect our mental well-being. However, as life happens, there are circumstances beyond our control. Therefore, taming negativity is an important skill to build in order to have a healthy brain.
When you have a relationship conflict, doubt your own self-worth, are faced with fears, etc., the first step is to be aware and acknowledge your feelings and thoughts. Then find a way to calm down so your logical brain, which is in charge of high-level functions, such as understanding, collaborating, seeing options, etc., can have back the energy to do its work. A calming method could be taking some deep breaths, taking a walk in nature, listening to your favorite music or any activity that works for you. Once you feel better, look at the situation from multiple perspectives for an objective view by journaling or speaking with someone who could offer listening ears and fresh observation. A few questions that could guide your thinking include:
• What are the five worst things that could have happened but didn't happen?
• If the worst happens, can I let go of what I cling to?
• What is this situation trying to teach me here?
• What is the blessing in disguise here?
• What is the ideal outcome I aspire to have?
Life can be so busy that things can get in the way of feeding our brain with its needed nutrients and training it for positivity. However, if you learn to prioritize our brain over your to-do list, you can power through any challenges, perform at your peak and enjoy satisfaction with your life.
