Your brain is the most important asset available to you. If this asset is compromised or not taken care of, it can lead to various damages. To ensure you don’t worsen the situation, you have to keep your brain refreshed and energized.
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The most straightforward way to have a healthy mind is to change all your bad habits that damage your brain. Brain health is of utmost importance today, and the easiest way to ensure you have a healthy mind is by cultivating healthy habits.
Though it can be challenging to change habits in one day, continuous efforts towards breaking bad habits and installing good ones will help you in the long run.
Following are 9 Reasons that prevent you from having a healthy mind
Skipping your breakfast
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Skipping breakfast can increase the chances of obesity and weight gain. People who have breakfast every day are more likely to be healthy.
Further having breakfast has demonstrated reduced chances of chronic problems. Studies have also shown that people who dont eat breakfast tend to smoke and drink more than average.
Having a healthy breakfast will enhance your brainpower, increase your attention span, boost your memory and help you concentrate better.
All this will, in turn, help you have a healthy mind. So make sure you get up a little bit early and spare some time to have a healthy, nutritious, and fiber-rich breakfast.
Overreaction and fear
Some people have the habit of overreacting and fearing every tiny little thing. A little fear is essential as it brings pressure which helps in efficient working.
But always living in fear and overreaction damages your brain and impairs your long-term memory.
Always leaving in fear affects your brain’s hippocampus, responsible for regulating anxiety and fear in your brain. The intensely increased chronic fear in your life leads to you being fearful of everything in the world.
Fear and overreaction disturb your daily functioning while affecting your decision-making power, brain processing, ethical dilemmas, and listening capacity. Hence, it would be best to conquer your fear and overreaction to have a healthy mind.
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If not treated at the right time, this fearful behavior can invite various mental health hazards such as PTSD, depression, anxiety, stress, etc.
Quit addictions
Smoking and drinking have become a social norm in today’s modern life. Someone who doesn’t smoke or drink is labeled an outcast in the group.
But drinking and smoking addictions are one the leading causes of death worldwide.
Harmful use and abuse of alcohol kill more than 3 million people every year. Alcohol consumption is the 7th leading cause of premature deaths and disabilities among young people.
Excessive drinking is not good if you wish to have a healthy mind as it shrinks your brain cells. It can lead to various mental health problems such as dementia, Alzheimer’s, and even death.
Also, these addictions interfere with your daily personal and professional life inviting various problems such as aggression, confusion, conflicts, and fights with partners and colleagues.
Now understandably, quitting any addiction can be troublesome and difficult. Start with consuming low quantities and then decrease the amount at some time interval. Continue this till one day you can fully get rid of this addiction.
Poor sleep cycle
Today, people are working so much and are falling into the cycle of not getting proper sleep every day.
Lack of sleep can lead to various problems such as tiredness, laziness, lack of memory judgment, sluggishness, etc. It further affects your memory, and slowly you lose your decision-making ability.
When you sleep, your brain performs various essential functions such as relaxation, energizing body cells, regulating your mood, and restoring your body.
But the most critical function that the brain carries out during sleeping is removing toxic waste from our body.
Removing the toxic elements from our bodies is a hefty and substantial activity done while sleeping. The brain produces this toxic waste and, if not removed regularly, can cause various damages to your brain.
While in contrast having good quality and timely sleep every day can help improve memory, develop healthy brain cells, and boost your mood for the next day.
Also, another issue that comes up with sleeping which obstructs you from having a healthy mind, is covering your face fully when you sleep.
It will lead to decreased oxygen supply and increased carbon dioxide intake. Lack of oxygen can lead to the death of healthy brain cells, fatigue, drowsiness, and other diseases.
Increased white consumption
White consumption refers to a higher intake of sugar and salt in your diet.
Increased sugar consumption can stop the normal absorption of nutrients and proteins in our bodies. It is especially true for toddlers whose parents allow excess chocolate consumption.
Increased sugar consumption can lead to various problems such as poor memory, sugar-rush, hyperactivity, and malnutrition.
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It can also stop normal brain development and increase the chances of learning disorders. So it is advisable to regulate sugar consumption in both children as well as adults.
Salt is another element of white consumption. Salt is a mixture of sodium (40%) and chloride (60%). Together sodium and chloride or salt helps in nerve functions and maintain mineral-water balance in our body.
But excess salt consumption can retain more water in our body, making us bloated. Further, it also raises your blood pressure levels, increasing the chances of stroke or attack.
Hence, it is advisable to limit the consumption of these white consumables.
Also, sugar and salt both have addictive properties. Remember, the keyword here is limit and not stop altogether. Because stopping salt and sugar consumption entirely can also lead to diseases.
Working when sick
There is a reason why all the offices have sick leaves. When you are ill, your entire body is tired and wants to rest.
Your body pulls up and needs the total energy it has to heal your body when you fall sick. When you work or stretch your body, the energy required for healing is diverted to other things.
All this leads to failure in healing your body, making you fall sicker. Working while you are sick can affect your mind-body as well as take more time to cure the illness.
So to have a healthy mind ensure you take ample rest when you are ill to get well and recover faster.
Social withdrawal
Humans are social animals who need constant interaction with people to stay positive and healthy. Social withdrawal or loneliness can profoundly affect your health, self-esteem, and confidence.
Being lonely is a feeling of emptiness and unwantedness in the world. A study suggested that a person with few friends and friendly interactions was more happy and productive in comparison to its lonely counterpart.
It does not mean having a lot of friends. Sometimes, many individuals are lonely because no friend or family member is close enough to share their problems.
So remember to have a healthy mind, the quality of friends is more important than the quantity. And as the author of the book, the monk who sold his Ferrari, said, he who has 3 real friends is indeed very wealthy. The author suggests cultivating deeper and richer relations with your friends and family.
Being with friends and having deep interaction reduces the chances of brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, depression, stress, sadness, and sleep problems.
Lack of life purpose
When you have no purpose in life, you become lazy. Today technology has rendered us inert by serving us everything from food to jobs online. Being lazy affects your mental and physical health by decreasing overall mental performance.
Doing more activities improves your cognitive brain functioning. Engaging yourself with regular physical activities helps the brain release chemicals that enhance learning capacity and memory.
Doing right and nourishing activities is also aligned to our life’s purpose. As implied in the book, the monk who sold his Ferrari, having a purpose in life is a life of purpose. You can never achieve success if you are unclear about your life purpose.
Lack of dreams or goals makes you free of any activity for enhancement. You quit doing any valuable activities that can nourish your being. Your brain stops growing without any purpose or activity, and brain cells shrink.
All this can increase the chances of brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s. A person who follows his dreams and consistently works towards them also ages healthily. Continuously executing purposeful activities will make sure you have a healthy mind.
Multitasking
Multitasking refers to doing more than one thing at a time. Research has proved that multitasking affects your productivity. There are chances that your IQ drops at 10 points when you multitask.
Neuroscientists who study the concept of divide and attention confirm that our brain is wired to do only one thing at one time.
In addition to the stress involved with multitasking, it also increases the cortisol (fear) levels and adrenaline response. Sometimes it also triggers the flight or fight mode overstimulating the brain with mental fog. All this, in turn, leads to scrambled thinking and a lack of focus.
In technical evolution, the internet has led to increased information overload and data consumption. Consuming a lot of data at one time can lead to increased stress, decreased productivity, and makes a drop in your IQ level.
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Make sure you don’t learn everything at once. Instead, break information into pieces and learn all the components to understand better, apply, and remember them. Quitting multitasking and managing information will ensure you have a healthy mind.
Conclusion
Your brain muscle can not work in isolation. To have a healthy mind, you have to continuously work your brain muscle, enhance its productivity and keep it active.
Training your mind by solving some crossword puzzles or reading a good book can help keep your brain in shape. Also, detoxing yourself from digital technologies for some period will ensure the long-term fitness of your brain.
Soul potion
You can keep aside a mere 5 to 10 minutes from your schedule for meditating. Meditation has many benefits both for the brain and body. Meditating can be as simple as closing your eyes and observing your breathing for 5 minutes.
Meditation is an excellent way to ensure you have a healthy mind that is active all the time. Experts believe that meditating every day can help increase your focus and attention.
Further, it goes a long way in reducing your everyday stress, anxiety, and depression. People suffering from insomnia or sleep problems can use meditation as it helps them sleep better.
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