Improving Yourself and Your Mindset

When Self-Help Becomes a Negative Thing The right self-help book or course can be a tremendously powerful tool. I have personally seen it transform peoples lives: I've seen people go from being nervous, shy and unconfident and become far more naturally attractive, confident and interesting. But I would also argue that things have been taken a little too far. There is so much self-help literature out there now and so much advice on how we can become better versions of who we are. But is it all constructive? Why Self-Help Can be Damaging While I've seen people who have been positively influenced by self-help texts, I've also seen people who have been damaged by them. One of the most common ways this can happen, is when self-help becomes a delay tactic. What I mean by this, is that people can use self-help as a means to delay the work they actually should be doing to improve themselves. In other words: people will buy a self-help book and then will instantly feel as though the...

Top Tricks for Killing Procrastination Procrastination is something that can ruin your day, damage your career and negatively impact on your relationships. Often, we laugh about procrastination as though it were an amusing habit and sometimes it can be. But that doesnít mean it isn't also incredibly destructive. Imagine it's 4pm and you have work you desperately need to finish by 5pm but you can't stop browsing Facebook or making trips to the kitchen for cups of coffee. What happens? One option is that you end up going home very late and lose out on time with your family. Another option is that you end up not finishing the work and starting the next day incredibly behind. Either way, this is a serious problem. So, what can you do about it? Here are a few tricks that can help. Start the Most Enjoyable Task First One effective way to reduce your proneness to procrastination is to take on the easiest/most enjoyable task first. Our natural inclination is very often to handle th...

Top Reasons Why You Should Start Meditating Are you on the fence about meditation? Then let's make things a little simpler for you: this is something that you absolutely should do.  Meditation is an incredibly useful skill and a form of brain training that can help to fortify your mind and make you more effective in a wide range of situations. In this post, we'll take a look at some of the most important reasons you should consider taking up meditation no matter who you are. It Thickens Your Brain Believe it or not, meditation can physically change the shape of your brain, making it thicker, stronger and better connected. Studies show that meditation increases the amount of white matter (cells that support the neurons) as well as cortical thickness in the all-important frontal regions. This correlates with improved attention, better memory and faster processing speeds. In short: meditation makes you smarter! It Helps You Deal With Stress Meditation is a tool that you can use wh...

Top Easy Ways to Feel, Look and be Healthier This Year Improving your health and fitness doesn't have to be hard work. Sure, building an athletic, cover-model body is not easy. But if your objective is simply to feel a little healthier, look a little better and put a bit of a spring in your step, then you have plenty of simple options.  And in fact, knowing these easy hacks to improve your wellbeing is actually crucial when it comes to getting that killer body too. Why? Because a making these changes can give you the energy and the ability you need to make the bigger changes. These are those first small steps that make everything else possible. Here are some good places to begin! Swap All Your Drinks for Water Recent studies suggest that swapping all your drinks for water can make huge differences to your energy levels, your weight loss and even your mental focus. The reason for this is not only that you'll be putting fewer empty calories into your body, but also that you'...

The Power of Flow and How to Access It In neuroscience, the concept of flow is currently all the rage. Flow describes a specific mental state that allows us to focus intensely on a single task or subject matter. In this state, time will actually appear to dilate and slow around us, giving us more time to react and improving our performance significantly. At the same time, we become faster at solving problems and reacting and we can completely block out all distracting thoughts and temptations. So, what is this flow exactly and how does it come about? Flow Explained Flow is a certain mental state in much the same way that the fight or flight puts us into a particular state of mind. In fact, a flow state is very similar to the fight or flight response with the primary difference being that fight or flight makes us more panicked and distracted whereas flow is slightly calmer and more positive. Both states though are triggered by a sense of danger and importance. When the body detects that...

The Best Brain Foods for Eating Your Way Smarter When you think of becoming smarter, you probably think about studying hard, doing lots of math and generally putting in time and effort. But what if I told you that you could get smarter by eating? We all love eating, so in theory this should be no hardship at all. But if you choose your foods wisely, you'll find it can make a significant difference to your brain function and overall mental performance! So, without further ado, here are some of the top brain foods: Oily Fish Oily fish is absolutely crucial for optimum brain health. Why? Because it contains omega 3 fatty acid. This benefits our brain in two ways. Firstly, omega 3 fatty acid can be used to build cell walls. It is incorporated into their formulation, which means that lesser materials get replaced. In turn, this results in brain cells that are more flexible, more fluid and less likely to become damaged. Better yet, this also increases cell membrane permeability. In simpl...