Welcome back to the Daily Mastermind. George Wright III here with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. And this is an absolutely critical episode for you. I want you to take a minute and take notes on this episode. I want you to apply what I'm going to go through today. Because I go through dozens of articles, podcasts, resources every morning when I wake up. I do this to kind of fill my mind with content and focus on the right things, you know, in order to overcome all the negative, you know, involuntary stuff I receive every day in social media and marketing and online and in the world, right? So what I want to do today is I want to go through with you an article that I came across from the Amen Clinics. Dr. Amen is someone who is a best-selling author, podcast host. you know he's done hundreds of thousands of these speck imaging brain scans on individuals with depression anxiety and all types of negative emotions and especially right now when so many things are going on I feel like this article that he did is so packed with content that in fact I'm not even going to paraphrase or summarize it I'm going to read it to you because it has so much critical information, I think it's going to help you. So I'm going to jump right in and I hope you'll take some notes and if you need to go back through this, but I'll also leave the link to this article and some other resources and things in there for you. He starts by saying, talk about stress. If you're working from home, surviving distance learning with your children or dealing with anxiety of the pandemic, it can be very overwhelming. At the Amen Clinics, there's a big increase in people asking for people to cope or asking for ways help to cope with all this. And the neuropsychiatrists at Amen Clinics have come up with 10 brain tips to help you, your kids, and your loved ones get, you know, from getting frazzled, frustrated, or fed up. So this article goes through 10 brain tips to keep you from getting frazzled, frustrated, or fed up. I love that. Number one, look for the positive. See, the human brain is hardwired for negativity and during stressful times like now, it's easy to focus on what's wrong with your life. You need to train your brain. I love that. Train your brain to look for the positive to enhance your moods. As an easy way to do this, you start your day by saying, today is going to be a great day. This actually causes the brain to search for reasons why it's going to be great. And then also end your day with what went well today. This is a great lesson to be able to teach people, your kids, and things as well in order to maintain a positive outlook. What you're doing is training your brain to look for the positive. Number two, fuel your brain. Feed your brain high quality foods and start the day with some protein for better focus and energy. Also be aware that your brain is composed or comprised of 80% water and being even mildly dehydrated can negatively impact your moods, making you feel more anxious, tense, depressed or angry I telling you guys the nutrition is so critical He goes on to say in addition to sapping your energy levels and lowering your ability to concentrate being dehydrated by just 2% has been proven to impair your performance in tasks that require attention, memory skills, physical performance, and this is all according to the Journal of American College of Nutrition. This can be especially important for kids with ADD or ADHD who struggle with attention and concentration. That's a big one. Your nutrition, you don't think about how much that's going to affect every other part of your life because it fuels your brain. Now, number three, exercise to boost blood flow to the brain. Even though your brain, which weighs about three pounds, makes up only 2% of your body's weight, it uses 20% of the oxygen and blood flow in your body. So anything that impairs blood flow hurts your brain and impairs functions. The brain-spec imaging that the Amman Clinic does measures blood flow in the brain and low blood flow on these images has been seen specifically in ADD, ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder, traumatic brain injury, substance abuse, suicide, and many other things. And one of the best ways to promote healthy blood flow to the brain is to exercise on a regular basis because exercise does enhance moods, reduces stress and anxiety, and increases focus and energy. I think this is so important, guys, because we just think about exercise as getting in shape. We don't think about its impact on our brain, on our thoughts, on our life, on our performance, and this is so important. Exercise is not just about getting in shape. It's about blood flow to your brain. Number four, they say, create a physical space for work and school. This way, when you and your kids enter that space, even if it's just a desk in the corner of your room, it signals to your brain that you're in work mode. This is one of the reasons why I have kind of moved my office to a different place, because I used to have a desk I'd work from once in a while in my bedroom, and it was just a bad, bad idea, even though I'm constantly on the go. Number five, give your brain a break. The ideal amount of time to work on a single task is 75 to 90 minutes. Notice that's the same type of time blocking that Tony Robbins talks about. But this is according to Bob Posen, author of Extreme Productivity and a lecturer at MIT. So taking many breaks throughout the day boosts your productivity. To reset and re-energize, try a brief meditation session. It improves your focus and attention or deep breathing, which relieves your stress and anxiety. or maybe even just a quick walk. Now, I love this because Brennan Burchard talks about this quite a bit. He talks about, you know, after a task, just kind of stepping back, you know, regrouping, relaxing, and then resetting your attention, your intention for the upcoming task. And this gives you focus and productivity and all kinds of things. Now, note, I'm not talking about a break watching TV or social media or searching the internet, even though that might seem to you to be kind of brainless activity and relaxing activity. Your brain is on overload when you're doing that. So that not what this is talking about Okay give your brain a break That number five Number six share the load Now depending on your anxiety level consider creating a learning pod or a pandemic pod We talking about small groups of kids that might be learning at home, but these would be groups of three to 10 kids who learn together in person or provide pods that hire a tutor to teach them and let the parents kind of split the duties and it kind of gives you a little bit of a break by sharing the load. This means your brain will get a break from classroom time so you can focus on your own stuff. And it also creates a sense of community, even if it's through Zoom, right? Which is community is beneficial for the brain. And the same could be said for masterminds and networking groups and Zoom calls that you might do is having that sense of communication and give yourself a break and share that load with other people, other individuals in your community. Number seven, practice mental hygiene. Now in a pandemic, mental hygiene is just as important as washing your hands. If you find yourself saying things like, things aren't going to go back to normal, or when are we ever going to get back to normal? It's time to eliminate what Dr. Amon calls ants. They're automatic negative thoughts because those ants steal your happiness. Whenever you or your kids have a thought that make you feel sad, mad, nervous, out of control, write it down. Talk back to it. This is so helpful for moods and behavior. What I've learned on this particular point is that recognizing these thoughts and these behaviors and these automatic negative thoughts, ants, are totally what's gonna empower you because when you can identify them instead of them having being a natural thing you go to, you can fix them, you can change them, you can redirect them. And so that's a big one, that number seven. Number eight, encourage active listening at home. To make sure all family members know what their role is in the household, practice active listening. This is when you repeat back what you've understood when another person is talking. This helps to avoid the miscommunication and conflicts that can harm relationships. When we have great relationships, our brains tend to do better. And I would say this works especially good with business relationships as well. Because when you find that you repeat back what people are saying to you, you get a better understanding and communication, but they also feel that you're listening and you get a lot more respect and loyalty and performance that way. That's number eight, which is encourage active listening. Number nine, tell your brain it's time to relax. Now, at the end of every day, put your work materials out of sight if possible. This helps signal to your brain that it's time to power down and relax, to promote relaxation. You know, you can use things such as lemon, lavender, honeysuckle, rose in these essential oils or scents or things like that that'll help you. Maybe light a candle. But I've spoken about this idea of relaxation many times when I talk about the corporate athlete. See, professional athletes will go at an extremely high level for very short bursts and not for long periods of time. They don't play games every day of the week, multiple times a day. Whereas a corporate professional, an entrepreneur, is constantly on the grind. And what you have to realize is that your growth is in the recovery, not the stress. It like working out or lifting weights You break your muscle down when you stress it or when you lift but it in the recovery that it grows And that so important for us So tell your brain it time to relax And then finally, number 10, stick to a sleep schedule. While you're sleeping, your brain is hard at work performing some very critical functions necessary to keep it operating at optimal levels. For example, during sleep, your brain cleans and washes itself by eliminating cellular debris and toxins that build up during the day. Basically, it takes out the neural trash and it consolidates learning and memory and prepares for the next day. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that children 6 to 12 get 9 to 12 hours of sleep. Teenagers 13 to 18 should get 8 to 10 hours and adults should aim for 7 or 8 hours of sleep every night. because adequate sleep improves attention, behavior, learning, memory, emotional regulation, quality of life, moods, and mental health. So create a sleep routine for yourself, whatever that is, and stick to it. Now I get, this is my comment here, I get that there are seasons of life to consider this. There are times when you have to go, go, go, but you need to recognize the times you need to regroup and you need to recover and you need to rebuild. Okay, so sleep is going to be a big part of your arsenal of daily rituals. It's not just something that's a default. It's something that should be in your daily rituals. And then finally, he says, anxiety, depression, ADD, other mental health conditions can't wait. During these uncertain times, your mental well-being is more important than ever. And waiting until life gets back to normal is likely to make your symptoms get worse over time. So I think this is so important for us to remember that, especially at times like this, we are not our minds. Our brain is a tool, and that's like anything else. You must keep it sharp, clean, and focused. You have to look at it as something that you need to take care of, train, organize, and structure. And I highly recommend any of Dr. Amon's books on mental health and brain health. He also has an incredible podcast that he and his wife do that give you just these, seven to eight, 10 minute nuggets of health and nutrition information as well as healthy activities for your brain in general. So I encourage you to check that out. I'll leave those links and things in the show notes. But anyway, that's the message for today. I hope those specifics, those things might be able to help you not only just get in control of your tools and your life and your mindset, but also help you to give some practical strategies of things you can do to take your performance to an entirely new level while we're working on a different environment and different marketplace at this time because you can absolutely create massive success for yourself by the end of the year. Anyway, that's my message for today. If this is your first time listening, I'd really appreciate it if you would refer or share this podcast, send us some notes, get in iTunes and give it a review. I don't know that I ever asked for that, but I think it's something that would really help others to recognize the value of what we have and it'll help you to help other people. So that's the message for today. My name is George Wright III, and this has been The Daily Mastermind. Have a great day.
