Spend Five Minutes Each Morning

in Contemplation

Your mental health is crucial to how your brain functioning works

(see Chapter 9). So don’t let your problems overwhelm you. Spend

each morning preparing for the day by finding a few moments of

calm and contemplation.

You may need to wake up a little earlier so you can escape the

morning madness in your house. But it’s worth doing so. I always

find that my day goes a lot better when I’ve had a few moments in

the morning to myself before everyone else wakes up. It may be

that you just have a cup of coffee or tea and mentally prepare for

the day. Or maybe you just like to sit and enjoy the silence.

Spend your quiet moments however you choose, but just don’t

pass on this one – it can set your mind right for the day. (Check

out Mindfulness For Dummies by Shamash Alidina for more tips and

advice.)

List Three Things You’re Thankful

for Before Bed

A happy heart makes a healthy brain. Sometimes feeling frazzled

at the end of the day is easy. Between work responsibilities, family

commitments, and a whole host of other obligations, you may even

find it hard to fall asleep at night because your mind won’t stop

buzzing.

Put all those thoughts aside and focus on three things that hap-

pened that day that you’re thankful for. It may be a simple thing,

like your morning coffee, or a smile from your child, or a surprise

phone call from a loved one. Focus on each of these moments

and say out aloud what they are and why they made you happy.

Hearing yourself say these happy thoughts before bed is sure to

put a smile on your face and give you sweet dreams. After all, you

have tomorrow to figure out solutions to everything else.

Posts les plus consultés de ce blog

 Feeling good from exercise Exercise is also great for your mental health. It doesn’t just leave you feeling good, but it can also improve feelings of depression and anxiety (see Chapter 9 for more on how to improve your mental health). Plasticity or neuroplasticity is the way the brain can change throughout your life by forming new connections between brain cells, which are called neurons. Most of the change occurs during infancy and childhood when the brain is learning and growing the most. But the brain can also change after an injury that’s dam- aged some part of its functioning. More recently, science has also discovered that the brain is ‘plastic’, even in adulthood. Whenever you’re learning something new, your brain changes to adapt to this new information (see Chapter 7 for how this happens with taxi drivers). Exercise also plays a role in brain cell (neuron) growth in the hippocampus of adults. Schizophrenia is associated with smaller brain volume, particu- lar...
Lire la suite
 Where you are matters A diving instructor was puzzled because his divers kept forgetting objects that they’d found underwater, even when he asked the divers about the objects shortly after they were back on dry land. To find out why this was the case, some psycholo- gists conducted an experiment with divers. The psychologists gave one group of underwater divers a list of words to learn underwater and gave another group a list to learn on land. They then tested the divers’ memories of the word list both on land and underwater. The group that learned the list underwater remembered the list much better in the water but struggled to remember it on land. In contrast, the group who learned the list on land had better memories on land but forgot the list when they were underwater. This story is a great example of how remembering where you were when you learned the information can boost your memory.
Lire la suite
 A lesson from the past: Lobotomising the prefrontal cortex Your knowledge of a lobotomy may be based on Jack Nicolson’s excellent portrayal of a rebellious patient at a mental hospital in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. According to the other patients in the hospital, a lobotomy effectively reduced someone to the same mental state as a shop window mannequin – expressionless and unemotional. The lobotomy procedure consists of cutting the brain connections that go in and out of the prefrontal cortex (see ‘Keeping the brain alert and active’ for informa- tion on the prefrontal cortex). Doctors considered a lobotomy the final step for modifying extreme behaviour when other treatments, such as shock therapy or electrical shock treatment, failed to change a patient’s behaviour. Doctors thought that a lobotomy calmed the patient, reduced aggressive behaviour, and improved the patient’s quality of life. However, scientists now know that this procedure is no longer nec...
Lire la suite