Mental- Health

Have you trained your brain today?

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.

Community, knowledge, Mental- Health, Personal Development, Self-Help, self-improvement, Success, Wellness

What Do You Often Do To Keep On Your Motivation Or Energy?

21/02/21

People daily are back and forth with their routine, and they feel that have a lot on their plate. We’re immersed in different contexts (Home, School, Work, etc) where we need to respond in all of them. Also, we assume a specific role depending on the activities with our family, friends or colleagues.

Thus, the obligation that we have in those spaces many times generate that we spend energy and at the same time motivation to fulfill our purposes. So, this week I read a question that has a relation with all of this, and I found it interesting to answer and share it: What do you often do to keep on your motivation or energy?        

I know there isn’t a special recipe and from my perspective to have motivation is an individual process, which just depends on each one. In my case, one of the resources that work for me is to listen to music, turn on the TV or laptop and let the environment is filled by different genres and rhythms. It’s a cool way to feel a good vibe in the atmosphere. Sometimes singing or dancing with a song gives me energy and motivation too, and it’s like to be with a group of fellas, feeling company or having my own party at home.

Another activity which helps me it’s doing exercise. I like to ride my static bike along a nice song in the background, I let my mind fly while I’m doing my routine. At another time going to the gym and doing group classes like: Step, Aerobics, Zumba or Pilates is another option to keep my motivation.  For people who like meditation, yoga and other disciplines they are a good choice too.

Walking or jogging can be another way, mostly if you have the alternative to change the environment and go to the park or other enjoyable place where it changes the monotony of being in curfew.

If you like to cook, then this activity can help you be full of beans. Learning a new recipe or eating a scrumptious meal it’s a great option to be jazzed.  

Reading a book, drawing, writing or meeting with folks can be other choices. 

According to the question, there are many answers because the way to feel motivated and with energy just depends on each person and their experiences, hobbies and personality. Besides, the activities that I shared above can work for me, but perhaps in your case, you need to do others like drinking a big cup of coffee or an energy beverage just to mention some of them.

The key is that you know the stimuli which help you to keep your energy and motivation, and then make the most out of them. If you feel knackered, lacking of energy and demotivated this can generate other consequences as mental and physical illness, so be careful with your health. Just so you know “Everything is energy, your thought begins it, your emotion amplifies it, and your action increases the momentum.” (Unknown)

DARR

Community, covid 19, Cultures, Hobbies, Mental- Health, Personal Development, Self-Help, self-improvement, Success

Tis The Season

27/11/20

It’s November and we’re close to the end of the year. This year has been something special with a lot of challenges, changes and learnings.

I was thinking that time flies and I remember the celebrations when I was child and I was with my cousins surrounding the Christmas tree and waiting for the gifts at midnight. Also, it was a pleasure to see the fireworks and to play with the sparkles and other pyrotechnic games. Enjoying the Christmas carols and eating buñuelos and natilla, traditional Colombian food during this season. It’s really remarkable how those celebrations strengthen family ties and show the value of having special people close to us. However, the circumstances can change and at the present with pandemic time those gatherings and encounters face to face are difficult. In my case, I have a family far away from me and I have to think that our Christmas will be virtual and it’s strange, isn’t it? This period of time is teaching us to be creative, resilient and with a tough mental capacity to face those situations. There are people who don’t care about this reality but to others it is important to be close to their beloveds due to their traditions or culture. Nonetheless, sometimes it is complicated to have what we want for example: the last iPhone, the beautiful dress from the store or the trip to that stunning beach, there are cases where we need to wait.

Sometimes I believe this is a period of reflection and some people say that is a message from nature or the environment, where we need to change our selfish, violent and give a damn attitude. I know there are people who don’t care about anything and they have the most incredible and odd behaviors. From time to time I watch the news and I believe that I’ve seen everything when suddenly I watch another incredible headline with weird histories and I say to myself “That’s why this is happening to us”. I know! Human behavior is really complex but our environment and reality can help to trigger mental diseases. By the way, I invite you to read my post called Mental Health in Pandemic time that has relation to this topic: https://dianix.news.blog/2020/10/31/mental-health-in-pandemic-time/?

Anyway, Christmas is a time of peace, love and reflection. This year we need to make the most out of it, 2020 has been a year which invites us to reflect a lot. It’s possible that some projects and goals that we had this year will need to wait but I’m sure that we developed other skills and achieved new targets.

I believe that everything has an explanation and if this is not the case then it has a lesson and this year is a period of teachings, adaptation, reinvent and meditation for sure.

Finally, I want to dedicate this post to the special people who I know: my dad, husband, relatives, friends and global citizens. I wish you the best today and always. Take care of yourself in this last season.   

DARR.