abilities – DIANIX JOURNEY

05/06/22

The brain is our most important organ, which allows us to interact with our environment. It regulates the psychological processes such as memory, attention, perception, emotion, language, thought, and learning.

Therefore, training our brain daily is essential, and there are different strategies to boost its performance.

Practicing new activities such as learning a new language, studying, or reading a book allows our brain to remain active and dynamic, which makes this new approach stimulate its function.

Another strategy is to exercise. Just as the body training to tone a muscle, in the same way doing physical activity stimulates our brain. When exercising, hormones such as dopamine, endorphin, oxytocin, and serotonin are released. They are responsible for sensations such as feeling pleasure or happiness. Hence exercise contributes not just to our physical health but also, it’s essential to our mental health.

Doing meditation and mindfulness is another way to keep the brain sharp. Seeking a state of consciousness and focusing our mind on the here and now facilitate reaching a complete state of concentration, stimulating attention, memory, perception, or thought abilities.

Establishing healthy relationships is essential to training the brain. We say that toxic relationships are not beneficial for our mental health. For that reason, it is vital to build networks that generate emotional stability. These relationships are not only about our close contacts with family, friends, or co-workers. It is when we consult information such as social networks. All extrinsic stimuli influence how our brain processes, internalize and subsequently extracts information.

Another way to keep our brain sharp is by doing puzzles, word searches, crosswords, sudoku, and other challenging activities that get the brain active. These hobbies are exceptionally functional for the elderly because they aim to train their brains in abilities such as memory. It is also a way to invest time in entertaining and stimulating activities.

Finally, having a healthy diet keeps our brain active and improves our internal processes such as memory and emotion regulation; thus, foods rich in vitamins or minerals help boost our mental skills.

Therefore, to train our brain, we can rely on different strategies and daily habits which aim at our physical and mental well-being. But is there a specific formula? My answer is negative; the important thing is finding the best strategy that helps each person to find their biopsychosocial well-being and balance.

DARR.

10/01/21

Today is January 10^th and it’s the first full week of 2021. So, time flies! And I want to ask you something: Do you have new year’s resolutions? Do you have some goals and targets for this new year?

I believe when the new year starts, we have enough motivation to begin something new like a project, maybe a diet or some physical training, perhaps to start a new course or studying a new language. Probably this year is different because it started with the challenge to face the situation of the pandemic and I know that it’s tough because we don’t have the same conditions as a normal year. Also, many of us had to deal with changes and losses last year left which entails that our emotions and motivations aren’t the same. However, from my perspective it’s really important to recharge our energy and make use of most of our skills and resources, also trying to acquire new habits and abilities with the purpose of shooting for the stars.

I believe that the barriers that people find in their ways to do something new can be from the environment but many times they are in their minds and the pretexts we use to justify our actions: “I don’t have time” and “I don’t have money” the two typical excuses that we have and I’m pretty sure that they can be true but many times it’s our mindset. Regarding to this I remember two important concepts which have relation with the previously written: Fixed mindset and Growing mindset: A “fixed mindset” assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens which we can’t change in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard (…); A “growth mindset,” on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities. (https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/). Thus, those challenges and difficulties make the people have the thirst and enthusiasm to will something when they have a growing mindset and at the same the capacity to leave the comfort zone.

When people face something new there are insecurities in doing that, we feel fear of those stimuli which sometimes freeze us but at the same this anxiety drives us and moves us. Do you know that the word motivation is derived from the Latin word “movere”? Which means to move (Huber, 2006, p. 481). The word motivation gets its origin from the root word “motive” meaning the reason we do what we do (McLean, 2006). (http://motivationisfundamental.blogspot.com/p/motivation-relationship-to-learning.html).

Then, my advice is to start this new cycle with motivation and the best thoughts. Time is money and we have to take advantage of it, it’s better to regret what is done than what isn’t done. The most valuable approach is the way we take advantage of our time and the experiences that we have. So, which are your resolutions? Do you have a fixed mindset or growing mindset?

Finally, I want to share a link about this interesting topic of Fixed Mindset and Growing Mindset as a complement to my post:

Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives

Have a great day my friends!

DARR.

Tag: abilities

Have you trained your brain today?

New Year’s Resolutions