Schedule Your Worries for a Clutter-Free Mind

The odds are you deal with mental clutter every day. Even the most mentally calm and focused individual engages in clutter-gathering activities. Do you ever ...

 

... ruminate needlessly over some experience in your past or some unknown situation in your future?

... obsess over an interaction you had with someone, good or bad?

... worry and "what if?" yourself crazy about something out of your control?

... hold tightly to negative experiences, emotions, and feelings?

... constantly surround yourself with external distractions and a continual barrage of sensory input?

 

These create mental clutter. It wastes your brain-based energy and your valuable time. These and other mentally cluttering activities lead to disorganization and distractions, confusion and a lack of mental control, poor productivity, and can even cause physical fatigue. The more mental clutter you experience, the more negative emotions and feelings you have to deal with.

 

Stop Worrying All of the Time and Schedule It Instead

 

You wouldn't be human if you didn't worry about different aspects of your life. You want to be your best and create the best life experience. That means you're going to fret, worry and wonder over any number of topics from time to time.

 

Your worry comes about because of fears, expectations, concern over potential outcomes, and other reasons. Instead of engaging these worries when they pop up, schedule a time each day to deal with what's happening in your mind. When something worrisome enters your mind, you tell yourself you'll deal with it at a previously scheduled time.

 

Then consciously get your mind involved with something else. Do anything that requires your conscious devotion. This will push your worry to the back burner of your mental stove, which can be dealt with later. 

 

Stop spinning the wheels of your mental machinery. Your worries don't have to take over your mind and start cluttering your mental storage space. Deal with them by appointment, sometime in your schedule, where you can give them your undivided attention.

 

Schedule this worry-work at the same time each day and each week if possible. When you perform the same activity at the same time, eventually, your mind will notice. It begins to expect you to handle your worries at a designated time. You'll discover you start to worry less because your mind is used to ignoring these thoughts when they are off schedule. This can limit the worrisome thoughts you have to deal with throughout your day.

 

How to Calm Your Racing Mind, Stop Stressing and Enjoy Life

That inner chatter never seems to stop. Speaking of your inner voice, why is it so negative most of the time? And when is stress going to take some time off? There isn't an area of your life where stress isn't a common companion. When will you ever be able to actually enjoy your life?

 

If you've had these thoughts, you definitely aren't alone. Modern-day life is crazy busy. There are digital distractions everywhere, and we voluntarily ask for more every time we pick up our phones. Between our jobs, family commitments, friends, and other constant influences in our lives, it seems we never have any time to call our own.

 

Good for you if you want to slow your life down from its usual warp speed. Unlike many people, you realize that modern life's constant go, go, go isn't necessarily beneficial. Here are a few ways to reduce the time urgency in your life so you enjoy more control, less stress, and more free time to do important things.

 

Plan for Pauses

 

When things are getting hectic, stop. Please don't make a quick decision before pausing to think about it. It would help if you also planned several pauses throughout your day.

 

These don't have to be long periods. The busiest schedules allow several 5 or 10-minute breaks so you can slow down, de-stress, and calm your mind.

 

Shhh!

 

We're referring to the need for a stress-free, quiet space so you can slow down your racing mind and enjoy some downtime.

 

Noise, chatter, music, and audible input from multiple sources can overpower your mind. It jacks up your stress system and can even harm your body. Locate a quiet and calm space with few distractions to spend time during the day. 

 

Visualize a Different Reality

 

If you can't physically remove yourself from a busy, fast-paced environment, take a mental trip instead. Close your eyes and clear your mind. Visualize a place you find peaceful and calming. Go there in your mind. Immerse yourself in this imaginary experience to quiet the modern world's distractions, noise, and constant demands.

 

Slowing down is not just about physical speed. It also involves your senses. Give your senses a rest occasionally and slow the flow of modern-day life. This gives you more time to de-stress and enjoy life rather than feeling like it's something you have to endure.

 

3 Reasons and 3 Ways to be Present

The greatest minds on the subject will tell you we don't fully understand what existence is. For regular people, there's the idea of a past, a present, and a future. We understand we're living right now, and that's pretty much what we can wrap our minds around. We see our life playing out before us. We have senses we use to experience the world.

 

We're in the present now and have memories of a past existence. We have hopes and plans for our future. For most of us, that's what we know about life.

 

Deep thinkers tell us that all we have is the present moment. When you think about it, that makes sense. Your past is gone. There's no control over it. You really don't have any control over your future either. All you have is right now. As it turns out, embracing your present reality has a lot of benefits. Here are three reasons why you should spend more time in the present moment and three simple ways you can do just that.

 

3 Benefits of Embracing the Moment

 

1. Better Relationships and Improved Social Skills

 

Focusing on right now opens your eyes. You see the people in your life with more clarity. This includes those that you barely interact with, as well as the people you see frequently. That leads to better social skills and healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

 

2. Less Stress and Anxiety

 

This is the go-to benefit lifelong mindfulness practitioners talk about. There is much less stress when you worry less about tomorrow, next week, and next month and appreciate the present. 

 

3. Greater Self-Love and Self-Esteem

 

Being mindful of your present state of being leads to self-awareness. You find you have so much more to appreciate about who you are right now and fewer expectations of your future self.

 

3 Simple Ways To Live in the Present Moment

 

1. Breathe Deeply

 

Take a few deep breaths and focus on them. Breathe in and out and appreciate your present moment. Do this for a couple of minutes whenever you need to calm your racing mind. This is a stress-relieving aspect of mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and other practices for living in the now.

 

2. Practice Daily Gratitude

 

Look around you. What do you have to be grateful for? Your truest blessings are here right now. Practice gratitude each day for the good things in your life. This teaches you to appreciate the present moment instead of spending all your time wishing for something better in the future.

 

3. Forgive Yourself and Others

 

Forgiving is about letting go of the past. You remove future expectations as well. This is key to experiencing all you can in the present moment.

 

Those are just a few reasons why being present is so important. You also have three proven ways to focus more on right now and less on the past and future. Give yourself the gift of being present today so that your tomorrow can be more fulfilling.

 

5 Tips for Keeping Self-Sabotage at Bay

We want to be productive. In fact, you might even wake up in the morning with all kinds of enthusiasm for the projects you’re going to get done during the day. 

 

Now fast forward a few hours, and suddenly you’re dragging yourself home at nightfall wondering where the day went, feeling like you never accomplished anything at all.

 

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Most people feel this way at least sometimes. The trick is to realize that this isn’t something entirely outside of your control. Sure, things are going to happen, which derail you, but more often than not, you’re reaping the fruits of self-sabotage. You’ve derailed yourself, through your own negative self-talk.

 

How to get past this? Simple! Start with these easy tips:

 

Listen to Music

 

It’s hard to get yourself going if your mood is what’s dragging. Thankfully this is a quick fix. Put on some music you love, something fast-paced and catchy for a quick pick-me-up and watch your productivity soar.

 

Get up and Move

 

Like listening to music, putting your body in motion will build your energy levels (so long as you’re not trying to run a marathon). Dance around the room, take a brisk walk or try a few jumping jacks to get the blood flowing. Then tackle your task again, wide-awake and energized.

 

Look Inward 

 

Conversely, sometimes what you need is some quiet time. If you find your mind racing and yourself unable to concentrate on what you’re going, try meditation to slow things down. Find a quiet place, close your eyes, and focus on your breathing. Take deep breaths, nice and slow, and focus yourself on the present until you feel calm again.

 

Reassess What’s Important

 

It might be you’re not getting things done because you no longer find the value in your goal. If this seems to be the case, take some time to ask yourself some very crucial questions about why you’re on this journey. It might be you either need to shift your goal to something else entirely or, at the very least, adjust the outcome to serve your present needs.

 

Contribute

 

When all else fails, if you do not feel your work has value, offer to help someone else. Mentoring is one of those win-win situations where you bring your life skills and experience to help someone else who truly needs it. At the same time, you rediscover your passion through the act of teaching others what you know.

 

Do all this, and it’s good-bye self-sabotage, hello accomplishment. Soon you’ll be more productive than ever! 

 

7 Things You Can Do Right Now To Get Organized in Your Life

You've been wanting to get organized for a long time. It seems a little daunting though, doesn't it? It doesn't have to be. In fact, you can get started right this minute. Try any one of these quick tips to help yourself get started on the road to organization right now. The best part? None of these are hard to do. 

 

Decide for Control

 

No matter what, the first step to organization is to decide you are in control. We tend to get disorganized when we feel we are at the mercy of our stuff, our situation, and our lives. This is why it's so important to consciously take control of our lives. 

 

Create a To Do List

 

No matter what, you're not going to get anywhere without some level of organization to start with. This means sitting down and making a list of the areas of your life in which you're trying to get organized. This first list will be very valuable in helping you to stay on task. It will also help you to make sure you're not missing something important.

 

Write Things Down

 

As you go about getting organized, thoughts will occur to you about what you're doing. Keep something handy so you can write down these thoughts as they occur. This way you won't forget some brilliant system to organize your closet and will remember to pick up more garbage bags when you go to the store.

 

Sort Your Stuff

 

Clutter needs to fall into categories. When doing the physical act of organizing it's best to sort things into three piles: stuff to keep, stuff to toss, and stuff to give away. Here's where you want to get brutal. Your best rule of thumb? Get rid of things which do not give you joy or which you have not used in a very long time. Pro tip? Don’t tear apart an entire room at once. Start small with a drawer or closet only.

 

Find Places for Things

 

Once you know what you want to keep, you need to determine a place for it. Clutter happens when we don't have proper storage for what we do have. If you do not have a space for an item, it is time to look for alternate storage solutions, or even reconsider whether you truly want to keep it.  

 

Use a Calendar

 

Nothing gets you organized like a calendar. Schedule absolutely everything. Also, use the function on your phone to give yourself reminders of upcoming appointments and deadlines. This will help you to organize your time your time.

 

Overprepare

 

Sometimes it's good to stock up on a few extra items, especially things you run out of frequently. This keeps you from needing to make frequent emergency runs to the store. 

Why Do We Struggle With Self-Care?

We all know that self-care is important to your well-being and success in life. This fact alone doesn't make it any easier to carve out more time in your life for it. Please keep reading to discover some of the reasons you may struggle with self-care so that you can be more aware as you try to work it into your routine. 

 

You Feel Shame

 

Many people don’t find the time for self-care for the simple reason that deep down; they don't believe that they deserve it. This comes from a poor self-image when an individual doesn't believe they are worth the time for proper self-care. Improving your self-image and reminding yourself that you are deserving of self-care can make it easier to schedule time in your busy life for it. 

 

You Don’t Want to Make the Effort

 

It is also an effort to set aside time out of your schedule to take care of yourself, and some people are too lazy to make this effort. Often this laziness goes back to a poor self-image or poor time management, or both, so these two aspects may need to be addressed if you find yourself not wanting to make an effort to include self-care in your life. Sometimes these people find it is easier to engage in self-care when they put it directly into their schedule. 

 

You Don’t Know What Self-Care is

 

In this day and age, it is common to hear people say "treat yourself," and it's important to distinguish that treating yourself is not self-care. Treating yourself should come as a reward after a specific activity, not a regular staple in your life. For example, "treating yourself" is an ice cream cone on a Friday night, while "self-care" is being sure you eat enough healthy fruits and vegetables. 

 

You Are Tired

 

The number one reason that people struggle with self-care is that they are tired. This is a self-perpetuating problem because, without proper self-care, you will feel increasingly tired. If this is something you struggle with, it's important to get over that first hump of self-care and get yourself some rest so that you don't feel too tired for future self-care sessions. 

 

All in all, there are several reasons you could be struggling with self-care. This article might not even list your specific reason here. Regardless, it would be best if you found out why you are struggling with self-care so that you can solve the problem. Without self-care, you will be tired and stressed for the rest of your life. 

 

5 Advanced Biohacking Techniques

Now that you have mastered the basic steps in biohacking it’s time to amp it up. There are truly endless possibilities when it comes to biohacking. This is because biohacking involves making daily changes that improve your wellbeing by doing whatever needs to be done to get to reach your ideal health and performance goals. The following five biohacking techniques to advance your journey will help get you on track.

 

Get a Blood Test 

 

Getting blood tests is essential to biohacking. It is the best way to know what is truly going on in your body before your body even has a chance to inform you that there is something wrong. Blood tests help identify the areas you need to improve from getting enough vitamins to managing your cholesterol to improving overall organ function. Each year you should test your blood sugar levels, cholesterol, vitamin levels and get a complete blood count. Notice any areas that are not in the optimal range then improve them by changing your diet and by adding supplements when needed. 

 

Advance Your Nutrition 

 

Advance your nutrition by starting the elimination process. Do not make the mistake of eliminating everything from your diet all at once though. Start with one area and work your way through each day or each week. This way you are sure to accomplish your goals. Plus, it makes it easier in the long run to make slower changes. A good place to start is by eliminating sugary drinks. Once you are feeling really encouraged drop sugar all together. Eventually, you will want to eliminate sugar, processed foods, and unhealthy fats. You can do this by replacing them with healthy fats, two servings of fruit, grass-fed, antibiotic free proteins and vast quantities of vegetables. 

 

Get Outside

 

Getting outside and embracing Mother Nature is a great way to improve your mood, health, and overall well-being. This is because it forces you to get moving and soak up vitamin D from the sun. Vitamin D is essential for optimal bone growth. Vitamin D deficiency is linked to breast cancer, obesity, depression, andcardiovascular disease. Studies have shown that vitamin D deficiencies are becoming very common due to people being indoors more. The best way to get Vitamin D is from the sun. Start by getting at least fifteen minutes of sun a day. Use this time to go for a walk and avoid sitting down. According to a study by Harvard Medical School, being too sedentary is linked to early death. May as well get moving while you’re soaking up those rays.

 

Meditate 

 

Free your mind of stress by starting your day off with meditation. Find a quiet place to sit and close your eyes. The way you choose to meditate is up to you. You can let your thoughts run free or focus on your breathing. The goal of meditation is to find your inner calm and silence your mind from everyday stress and concerns so that you can go about your day in a positive frame of mind. Start with five minutes a day and see how it improves your daily life. Find a balance that you feel is optimal. Meditation hacks your brain and can lead to increased productivity, reduced stress, and even help curb unwanted cravings. 

 

Boost Your Exercise Routine

 

Now that you have tracked your daily exercise it's time to boost it up a bit.  Find areas that you feel that you are slacking in and implement new exercises to improve those areas. The best way to biohack your exercise routine is to do high-intensity interval training or HIIT. HIIT improves muscle tone and helps improve brain function at the same time. 

 

HIIT is simply alternating bursts of vigorous exercise with a short active rest period. For example, a high-intensity interval training routine could be one minute of sprinting with thirty seconds of walking or one minute of jumping jacks with a thirty-second walk to rest. 

Keep these techniques in mind throughout your journey. These advanced biohacking techniques will lead you to overall greater health with a better attitude and more productivity in your life. 

 

5 Benefits of Biohacking

Biohacking is an individualized system of techniques that gives you the feeling of full control over your own biology. It’s noticing areas you feel you need to improve and implementing hacks to improve it. The benefits of biohacking, due to its personalization, are truly endless but, here are the top five benefits that you are sure to experience. 

 

A Better Understanding of One’s Self 

 

By far the best benefit of biohacking is learning who you truly are. With meditation and experimenting different things each day, you learn exactly what your body and soul need to be happy and healthy. During the journey of biohacking, you may identify new characteristics about yourself or identify new areas of interest you may have never discovered before.

 

You will learn that you are powerful and strong and that you can do almost anything by doing the work. You will understand what works and doesn’t work which will prevent you from experiencing most frustrations. Once you understand your true self, getting to your goals will be streamlined and easy. 

 

Improved Mood

 

Biohacking improves your mood in several different ways. Through hacking your mind, diet, and soul you’ll discover the causes and fix them. Chemical imbalances, as well as poor diet and exercise, are the main culprits of poor mental health. Improving your mood can truly open the gate to a better life.  

 

More Focus and Boosted Productivity 

 

Implementing hacks into your diet and exercise will increase your energy levels which in turn increases your productivity. It will lift the mental fog and keep you focused. Drinking bulletproof coffee each morning, drinking plenty of water each day, and getting a full night rest each night are just a few ideas that help in these areas.

 

Reduced Stress and Anxiety 

 

Dopamine and serotonin are hormones that are responsible for the “feel good” feeling. These hormones, in turn, reduce stress levels. Biohacking techniques such as meditation and eliminating sugars and processed foods from your diet will help increase these hormones. A very common goal of most biohackers is finding things that increase these hormone levels whether it be medication, diet, exercise or meditation and then doing them every day.

 

Optimal Health 

 

Optimal health is when your physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual health is balanced. Getting to a balance is all up to you and dependent upon where you feel you need improvement. Biohacking is all about getting to that balance and finding those areas to improve. Just remember that optimal health is a never-ending journey. It always needs to be worked on to get to where you want to be.  

 

Overall, there is really no reason you shouldn’t use biohacking. Everything you do with biohacking is meant to improve your quality of life in every single way. To hack your system into better cognitive functionality, greater strength, and wellbeing, and to improve your mind and soul can all be accomplished with biohacking. If you do it properly there really are no side effects. The journey to overall wellbeing is all your own. 

 

Biohacking: The Simple Way to Reach Your Goals

There is a new buzzword floating around social media that by now you may have heard of; biohacking. But what the heck is it? Biohacking is a systematic approach to reaching optimum health. It is implementing small changes or hacks to improve areas of your life. According to Dave Asprey, the founder of bulletproof coffee, it is making changes in your life to becoming superhuman. 

 

Most biohackers strive to be the best version of themselves. Any areas of your life can be hacked whether it be physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual. The journey of biohacking is up to you and where you see the need to change. 

 

The following is a must when starting your biohacking journey: 

 

Assess 

 

What areas of your life would you like to improve? Maybe you simply need to fix your sleeping schedule. Perhaps you have a lot of stress that you would like to reduce or eliminate. Whatever it may be there are hacks that you can do to help improve those areas. Some common areas that biohackers target include improving happiness, productivity, diet, athletic endurance and mental performance. 

 

Implement 

 

Now that you have assessed yourself and know what areas of your life you would like to improve on, it is time to implement hacks to reach those goals. It can be as simple as tracking your daily exercise or taking an anti-anxiety pill. Whatever the hack may be it’s important to start doing them right away and track your progress as you go along. 

 

Document and Evaluate

 

Although implementation is the key to biohacking the other area of importance include tracking your results and evaluating them. This way you can be sure that the hack you implemented is accomplishing the goal you had in mind. Maybe the hack will improve other areas of your life that you were not aware of. Take a just a few moments out of your day each night to record any little thing you have noticed throughout your journey. At the end of each month create some kind of challenge such as a test to see if the hack you implemented has truly made an impact. For example, maybe you wanted to increase your stamina. Before you implement the hack test your stamina and then in a month do the same test to see if you’ve improved. 

 

Adjust

 

Once you evaluate your results it is time to determine if the hack you implemented provides the results you were hoping for. If not, adjust the hack or implement a brand new one. If you received benefits from the hack determine if it is worth continuing or not. Obviously, if the hack didn’t produce the results you were hoping for it may not be worth continuing. 

 

Repeat 

 

If there are more areas in your life that you want to improve to reach the goals that you have set for yourself add more. If what you are doing is working keep doing it. Once you have mastered the hacks that you implemented you may even want to take it one step further. The choices are truly endless.  

 

Biohacking is a never-ending journey. It is not a fast-track system to optimal health or the perfect life. It is a cumulation of lifestyle changes that take work and dedication. Implement, evaluate, adjust and then repeat until you reach all your goals. You can truly accomplish whatever it is that you want to with biohacking.

 

How To Start Meditating

Getting started with meditation is a lot easier than you may think. There isn’t any special equipment you need to buy or classes you should be taking. While buying a book, a guided meditation audio recording or an app for your smartphone are certainly options, you don’t even have to do that to get started. I’ll share everything you need to know to get started meditating right here in this post. 

 

Start by getting comfortable in a spot that’s as free of distractions as possible. You want to sit down either on a chair with your feet firmly planted on the ground, or sitting cross-legged on the floor. If you sit on the floor, you’ll be more comfortable if you sit on a cushion. It’s important that you can sit in whatever position you choose comfortably and that you’re keeping your back straight. Slumping may make you sleepy while you meditate, and bad posture may cause you discomfort after a while. 

 

Before we start with the actual meditation, let’s get back to distractions. In the beginning, you want to cut as many of them out as possible. Choose a quiet spot where no one will interrupt you. Turn off the ringer on your phone, close the blinds if you think it will help to create a calm and soothing space. You won’t always have to go through all this trouble to meditate because, after a little practice, you’ll be able to do the little meditation exercise I’m about to share with you anytime, anywhere. But like any new skill, meditating can be a little hard in the beginning. It sounds simple enough, but it’s easy to get distracted. That’s why it’s important to set yourself up for success by cutting out any distractions you can. 

 

Here’s how to meditate. Sit down, close your eyes, and focus on your breath. Notice how the air flows in and out of your nose and mouth. Try to think of nothing else. This is the hard part and something that takes practice. Start meditating for a few minutes here and there and increase the time as you move along. Don’t judge yourself when your thoughts stray. Keep bringing yourself back to the sensation of the breath anytime you notice that you’re thinking of something else. 

 

That’s all there’s to it. Getting started with meditation is simple, but like any new skill, it takes practice. Be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself. Stick with it and keep practicing these new meditation skills. You’ll be glad you did.