In this crazy world we live in, we can get overwhelmed, fearful and stuck in procrastination.

There are lots of really practical and beneficial things you can do to step away and nurture your mind.

In this episode I am going to go deep on 4 uncommon ways you can nurture your mind. A couple are really key and not often talked about. They are easy to implement and have massive benefits on you mind and brain, and therefore your wellbeing in general.

I will begin the episode by reminding you of some of the most common and really simple (not always easy) things you can do that can decrease stress and anxiety and be restorative for you mind.

I explore this and more in this weeks Choosing Happy Podcast.

I do hope you find this episode useful. Please share if you think this can help someone you know.

Links:

Choosing Happy

www.choosinghappypodcast.com

www.choosinghappy.co.uk/community

www.twitter.com/nlpwarrior

https://www.facebook.com/choosinghappypodcast

https://www.instagram.com/hvmasters/

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What you can do now...

Join the wait list for the new community at www.choosinghappy.co.uk/community

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Drop me a line with any feedback you may have at heather@choosinghappy.co.uk

Mental health problems are a huge issue at the moment.

As is brain health.

There are certain ways you can keep your mind and brain.

Exercised and well,

A lot of these ways are really common, such as mindfulness, yoga.

Stretching exercise.

The things we've all had of.

In this episode.

I wanted to explore four ways.

You may not have considered.

None of these are expensive.

They're all free.

And there.

Scientifically backed.

In improving your mind.

And your brain function.

That's all coming up in this week's episode of the choosing happy podcast.

Hello, I'm has a masters.

Welcome to the choosing happy podcast and this episode for obvious ways

to nurture your mind for happiness.

It might.

Not surprise you to know The number one thing.

To keep you healthy in your mind.

And your brain is actually to begin to take care of yourself.

Um, most of the ways to nurture your mind we're discussing today.

Fall into that category.

I'm going to start with number one, I'm going to call it the taking

care of yourself and your mind.

Solution.

When you talk to a close friends and they're really down and depressed.

And the struggling to get through life.

It's easy to come up with a whole list of suggestions of things they

can try to keep themselves motivated.

The last thing you want is for them to give up on life.

To be in.

A life of despair.

And to be down so that they're almost unfunctioning.

Yes.

Under the same circumstances.

We rarely give ourselves the same advice.

One of the.

Main ways to.

I stay in a liveliness to stay with an alert, mind to stay motivated.

Two.

Nurture your mental health.

Is to find something to truly care about something that's important.

And that matters to you.

That matters enough to you.

To get out of bed in the morning.

Um, when that is something to do with self care.

That helps even more.

Now not talking about being selfish.

If you can't show up for yourself, how can you show up for other people?

Self care.

Is vitally important for wellbeing

. The idea is to treat yourself as

If you had a guest staying over for the weekend sink of the list of things

that you would automatically do to ensure their stay is really exceptional

and that you're taking care of them.

Simple things.

Like how you talk to a good friend when they're down.

It's probably very different from how you talk to yourself.

Probably.

Judge yourself.

Maybe even criticize yourself.

Give yourself a hard time.

Rather than giving yourself grace and ease.

And accepting the actually life is hard and we all struggle through each day.

We all have challenges.

And we all have that inner voice who wants to beat us down.

Which dog do we feed.

Can we change our perspective.

Can we really look at things as if we were talking to our best friend.

If you make that mistake, do you really have to be so hard on

yourself or can you acknowledge that?

It's not going to.

Be the end of the world.

It's recoverable.

And you can start again.

And you've learnt something.

When you wake up in the morning.

Can you choose that today is going to be a day that you're going to feel.

Alive.

You're going to carefully yourself.

You're going to exercise.

You're going to have that shower, all those things, those common things that

help us with our mind and mental health.

Such as, to Keep moving.

To listen to good music.

To sing that favorite song at the top of our voice in the shower.

Are you going to speak to yourself?

Uh, someone you care for.

With self-respect.

So when you can be proud of.

Um, pride is interesting.

I struggle with the SIF pride because of all of the myths around pride pride

comes before a fall for instance.

. Yeah.

So there's a certain level of pride, a certain level of self-respect

that we all must have in order.

To get up and to face the world and to truly show up in at least 80 to 90%.

Of AR.

Potential.

If we don't have price.

We won't step up toward our full potential.

it's being a bit of a difficult lesson for me, that one.

It's easy.

To do nothing.

It's easy.

To not show up.

It's easy to show up at 40 50%.

And then to moan about how the world's treating us.

And what a hard and tough place is.

Again, another lesson for me is just to accept.

That's the world is wonderful.

It's magical.

Ans.

It just throws loads of stuff at you that will bring you to your

knees is how you get up again.

That matters.

So take care of yourself.

Give yourself grace.

Two things.

That make yourself proud.

And be proud enough.

To do things that matter.

Have high Standards for yourself.

Standards that you.

Expect from others.

That help you rise.

To help you stay standing tall.

In a world.

Where people.

are often , crouching down and hiding.

The next.

An obvious way to nurture your mind.

Kind of follows on from this.

And it's about intentions.

Having intentions for everything that he do and following

through with those intentions.

Actually saying out loud.

I intend to do this and I intend to get this result.

So that you're making a contract with yourself and with the universe.

Are you going to show up?

You're going to give it your best.

And that you're going to be open to receive all of the help that

the universe can send your way.

Setting an intention is setting a commitment to

yourself and to the universe.

And it's setting.

Something deep inside that tells your unconscious mind.

That you're going to do this.

You can do this.

Sometimes.

For one and two.

there feels like there's Something missing.

Maybe That's the permission to matter.

The permission to set the intention to commit to succeed.

Be purposeful.

Give yourself permission.

And set an intention.

Over and over again.

For each thing that you.

Set out to do during the day.

For instance, if you're sitting down to work.

You can set the intention, . I'm going to do my social media engagement for exactly.

30 minutes.

With the intention to serve and build long lasting relationships

with those I meet online.

When you sit down to write your copy.

If you're a marketer.

Set the intention.

That you're going to write the best copy that you can within the next hour.

If you're traveling to work and you're driving.

Set the intention that you're going to have the best journey.

That it's going to flow with ease.

You're going to get there on time.

You going to be calm and relaxed and enjoy the journey.

We've mentioned exercise.

Uh, number three.

It's the mental benefits of dance

. Dan says existed for thousands of years.

And we know that moving your body.

It's a popular way.

To express yourself and to exercise.

But dancing offers many benefits for mental health and brain function.

It offers benefits for your emotions, your intelligence, your relationships.

Learning and practicing dance can improve your self esteem.

Again, the amount that you respect and value yourself as yourself esteem.

And showing yourself that you can learn and master new moves and skills.

Through dance.

Can improve your self esteem and confidence.

It improves your mood and attitude.

While you move while you're learning while you're performing, while

you're just relaxing into the music.

Your mood can lift and change alongside the groove of the music and

just the endorphins being released.

Helping you.

Feel so much better.

If you go out to dance, it can help you meet new people.

And create social interaction.

We know.

That talking and spending time with others improves your mood.

It also eases loneliness.

And through that it can ease suppression and anxiety.

It raises your heart rate and works your muscles and can help with symptoms

of depression, anxiety by releasing certain chemicals in your brain.

It's also provides a way to escape, repetitive, negative thoughts and worries.

And it protects your memory.

Learning to dance.

Can help you.

Forge new neural pathways, especially as you get older.

Learning different moves and styles of dance sharpens, your ability to

remember these kinds of details, and this can help prevent dementia.

Number four.

It's something I learned through near linguistic programming.

As a practitioner, master practitioner and now trainer.

It's using peripheral vision.

Fovial vision.

It's the vision that we're almost conditioned to using today.

Fovial vision is when we're using screens and we are focused and

we often become tunnel visions into, well, we're looking at.

We can be blind to anything outside of that screen.

Peripheral vision.

Is the use of wider . Vision to the sides of your eyes and around.

If you take it more advanced as we do for training, you can.

Almost see behind you.

You.

Shift your awareness with your peripheral vision.

So it feels like you actually see behind you.

But what peripheral vision actually does.

Is it changes the way your brain works as well.

It opens you up.

It opens up your awareness.

You're focused in a different way.

It's can cause you to detach The emotions.

So it stops the, the mind chatter.

And the negative emotions.

It helps you relax.

And it helps you concentrate.

Within neuro-linguistic programming.

It's called the learning state.

It's from a.

Huna Hawaiian technique called Hakalau

. The learning state is absolutely

environment to concentrate on learning.

It's also one of the solutions that can be practiced to reduce the effects of ADHD.

We teach it to children, as It can really help them improve their grades.

By switching your attention from part internal thoughts, part external

awareness to a hundred percent attention.

And the external environment.

You're able to take in far more of what's going on.

This means that you relax into your environment and you're able

to improve your retention of any learning that you may be doing.

Hence, that's why it's called the learning state.

So when you want to relax, when you want to learn, when you want to turn off

the internal chatter, then try hakalau

. I've included instructions in the show notes.

Scientifically speaking peripheral vision is the element of overall vision.

Which occurs outside the center of the gaze.

When you speak of seeing something out of the corner of your eye, you're

referring to peripheral vision.

Here are some cool facts.

The not commonly known.

About peripheral vision.

Athletes undergo sports vision training that includes improving peripheral vision.

Very few people are born with perfect sight.

And peripheral vision is important.

Athletes are trained to be aware of their periphery and notice actions that are

not occurring directly in front of them.

Peripheral vision is a safety supporter.

It allows us to see objects from the site helping to prevent side impact crashes.

And avoid.

Things coming out of left field, literally.

It allows us to see better at night.

the peripheral vision of a horse is better than a human being.

However, because the horse's eyes point to the sides, there's a blind spot

efficient right ahead of their noses.

Peripheral vision is practically all in black and white and

has very low resolution.

You don't really notice a difference because the motion.

Of the, I will compensate.

And peripheral vision.

I can help with speed reading.

Most people read with the central focus and that prevents them from seeing

up to 50% of the words in the text.

The value of peripheral vision becomes very apparent when driving a car.

The reaction time that protects us from car accidents is also noticeable in

self-defense martial arts instructors will point out how peripheral vision

allows a person to better defend themselves from on expected the tax.

One of the biggest forms of entertainment happens to be video games, which some

people claim to be a waste of time.

Actually some of those video games can be excellent vision exercises.

In order to be an expert in video games, you have to have good peripheral vision.

Central fish.

And it's not always going to be of help because objects from this.

Side of the screen.

Or coming towards you.

Peripheral vision can be used in meditation.

It's pretty normal to close your eyes when meditating, but you can meditate with eyes

wide, open use peripheral vision to do it.

The reason is that peripheral vision can be used to relax.

And coordination with deep breathing, a person performing this type of meditation.

We'll concentrate vision on the sides.

It's known to relax the visual system.

By giving your central vision and much needed break and allowing

your mind to focus on other things.

Peripheral.

Vision is so important for so many reasons.

And an individual should appreciate that usage range from safety to recreation.

Video games and sports.

I've made more interesting and more fun because of peripheral vision.

Developing peripheral vision.

I can also help in the effort to relax the body.

That's the full on obvious ways to nurture your mind.

And your brain for happiness.

If you have any questions about this episode?

Please drop me a line@heatheratchoosinghappy.co.uk.

I'd be grateful if you could like, and subscribe.

To find out more about future episodes.

Thank you for taking the time to listen today.

And I look forward to seeing you next week and the choosing happy podcast.