Mental habits can’t be summarized or extracted from one or two things. However, we are discovering more about the way of living to support our mental, physical, and emotional well-being, and we didn’t know that much before.
In this article, I’ll cover tips for optimizing mental health and cultivating positive mental habits.
Before:
- Cultivating good mental habits is practical and beneficial for individuals, as well as our modern society. It will help change the “collective” mindset, influence others and create healing power via mirror neurons. (People will observe us)
- People create communities, and communities create civilizations. Establishing good mental habits allows change to start within ourselves and others.
- Strategies such as Intermittent Fasting, Self-Hypnosis and Meditation, Wim Hof Breathing Exercises, Reading Philosophy, Daily Gratitude, keeping a diary, and healthy eating benefit us physiologically and psychologically.
- Perfectionism can be detrimental to our overall health and well-being, and One of the best underrated mental habits is starting with small steps and consistency. People who have perfectionism has “high standards” than and others, tend to have “being unpleasant” small things that are achieved. And they also “minimize the positive achievement” to the others.
Habits One: Optimizing Sleep And Melatonin Hormone
Sleep is vital to our health and well-being. Without enough sleep, people lose productivity, and energy, get moody, depressed, and gain weight. Melatonin is critical for that. When it comes to positive mental habits, we can’t ignore sleep.
Why Does Optimizing Melatonin Protect Mental Health?
Melatonin is a hormone; hormones are chemical messengers.
Melatonin’s bloodstream impact is stronger than vitamins and minerals because it directly affects our well-being and regulates brain chemicals and secretion.
This is because Melatonin helps optimize sleep and improve the quality of sleep. As we know from science, The brain organizes, recharges, and flushes out hazardous waste byproducts during sleep.
Related: Why Is Melatonin Important For Well-Being, Anxiety, And Depression?
- Sleep acts like “deep meditation,” and your brain waves change during sleep. Brain waves become even slower, called delta-brain waves. This stage of sleep appears to boost ATP, the body’s energy molecule, and mitochondria.
- Efficient mitochondria are responsible for the brain’s work, especially the area called:” the Hippocampus. People who have mental illness tend to have problems with their Hippocampus area.
- Optimizing Melatonin and Mitochondria also help balance potentially toxic byproducts of cellular metabolism and stress hormone production.
- Melatonin is the “main part” of the deep sleep state and cell recovery. This happens through deep sleep; your body releases “growth hormones” for weight loss as well as anti-aging benefits.
Plus, Melatonin helps fight Alzheimer’s by lowering damage from amyloid beta and tau proteins. High amounts of these two proteins are related to Alzheimer’s disease.
For that, i’m encouraging you that you should take care your sleep habits.
Habits Two: Adaptation Ketones
Ketones are the brain’s major alternate fuel and can become the dominant fuel under low glucose situations such as fasting, a ketogenic diet, or after high-intensity exercise.
Fasting quickly promotes ketosis and puts the body into a more efficient metabolic state. The more keto-adapted you become, the more ketones you’ll be able to use successfully. Eventually, the brain and muscles are highly dependent on glucose.
But you migh ask, Why are ketones important? And Why should we make keto-adaptation “habits”?
What Kind Of Mental Benefits Can You Get From Ketones?
- Ketone bodies support cognitive functions and spare muscle protein from breakdown while decreasing oxidative stress. They have also been shown to protect brain cells from damage by toxins and to help prevent seizures. Overall, the fueling shift from carbs to ketones yields outstanding advantages.
- Under a ketogenic state, the body becomes resilient to diabetes, obesity, brain diseases, and aging. Burning fatty acids and ketones cause less damage to the mitochondria as well, which prevents damage to the cells, including brain cells.
- Ketones might reduce excessive cerebral excitation caused by excess glutamate and insufficient GABA, which lower anxiety and promote mental clarity by reducing glutamate.
Ketone bodies also increase BDNF (BDNF promotes neuron and synaptic development in the brain center hippocampus), which plays a critical role in mood regulation and learning abilities.
Most people, including me, experience mental clarity, focus, and well-being while in the deep ketosis state. You don’t need to “believe” that; you just try it yourself. It might not work for you, but I felt great after ketosis and fasting.
Another reason for that might be because of inflammation and anxiety connections. Present of Ketones can reduce inflammation, such as IL-6 and CRP biomarkers, might be the reason I felt better and my mood.
Habits Three: Meditation Such As InnerSmile
In China, Taoist philosophers placed a tremendous amount of value on longevity, emotional balance, and cultivating Qi energy. If you have a “science based” mindset like me, you might see these are bullshit. However, for experience, it’s free. And if you feel that it makes you calm, just do it.
Taoist focused on internal alchemy (visualizations, diet, meditation, self-control, and even sexual exercises) and external alchemy (breathing techniques, Qi Self-Massage, Yin Yoga, and developing an “elixir of immortality” using purified metals and complicated chemicals).
For that, the best way to achieve that method inner-smile meditation and regular meditation practices.
Concentrating and smiling have been shown to reduce autonomic nervous system activity, stimulate internal organs, and improve blood and Qi circulation.
Understanding Mind-Body Connection
- The brain and body are linked by neural networks that are made up of neurotransmitters, hormones, and chemicals. An inner smile helps use imagination to connect to the internal organ and relax them.
- The gut-brain axis directly impacts our serotonin, GABA, and even dopamine levels. Optimizing the gut and lowering stress via inner smile meditation and teaching our brain to connect our body will be good skills as well as mental habits for our life.
If you can know how to make your body relax through inner smile meditation, as well as internal organs, you will reach strong skills for your emotional, physical as well as soul.
For the best result, you need to take at least eight weeks to work on your inner smile daily for 10-15 minutes. Once you learn, you will be thankful, and even you can use that skills when you get anxious and stressed.
Related: Understanding Longevity Philosohopy: Why Do People Want To Live A Long Life?
Taoist have always had the appearance and the ability to function of someone at least twenty years younger than their exact age, and this has been true from ancient times back to the modern day. According to Taoist Master Mantak Chia, humans have a life span capacity of 120.
Habits Four: Wim Hof Breathing
Wim Hof Breathing is a simple but effective way to take control of your health, optimize mental health, lower anxiety, and increase focus. This breathing technique can actually work immediately, and you can watch the guided wim hof breathing on youtube.
There are some research showed that through Wim Hof Breathing, you could release opioids and cannabinoids (produce euphoria, enhancement of sensory perception in the brain) that leads to help get calm.
Combine with Cold Shower
Because of the anxiety-inflammation connection, modulating inflammation is crucial when it comes to optimizing mental health.
- The new study’s findings demonstrated that: The combination of practicing Wim Hof breathing exercises and cold exposure is the most effective in decreasing the body’s inflammatory Cytokines such as (IL-6)
- Another reason regular cold exposure is good is that Cold stimulates AMPK, which activates Mitochondria Biogenesis.
There are many other health benefits to cold temperatures, such as less inflammation, a stronger immune system, and a better ability to handle pain. All of these help the body learn to do more with less.
Habits Five: Gratitude, Journal Or Cognitive Behavior Therapy
When it comes to “learning to do more with less,” Gratitude is the main role.
Writing down or drawing your feelings can help you process them more effectively, which in turn can improve your overall well-being. You don’t need a sophisticated bullet journal for this; all you need is some paper and a pen.
According to research, people writing about stressful circumstances reflect more on their emotions and have shown improvements in physical and mental health.
Another study found that writing about traumatic, stressful, or dramatic events can optimize both physical and mental health.
How To Implement For That?
- Start with the Daily 5 things you are grateful for till you get your habits. Gratitude is a skill; you must do it at least eight weeks before bed.
- Learn cognitive distortion because this is an exaggerated or irrational thought pattern involved in the onset that affects your well-being, philosophy, and mental health.
Habits Six: Reading Philosophy, Including West And East
This is underrated skill people mostly ignore, even thinking it’s boring.
Regardless, higher thinking can directly affect our brain, as well as reading about Philosophy improves critical thinking skills. It will help you recognize your restrictions while making decisions or choosing goals. You will ask more quality questions and answers.
West and East philosophy is a little different from each other, but two of them have advantage and disadvantages each other.
Reading Rumi, Lao-Tzu, Sun-Tzu, and Buddha, these Eastern philosophers all left a deep impression on the area’s intellectual and cultural environment.
Bonus: Avoid Pornography Addictions, Dopamine Receptors, And Neuroscience
The main reason pornography is addictive is that it hijacks the reproduction system. It floods the brain with dopamine, producing a feeling of ecstasy. The issue is that excessive dopamine causes desensitization and an insatiable desire for novelty.
Mindful sex with matched partners releases empowering and energizing neurochemicals. But watching pornographic material causes the release of neurochemicals that inhibit the flow state and lead to addiction. Regarding sexual satisfaction, porn is like sexy high-fructose corn syrup.
This compulsion can be unhealthy. The affected individuals should be monitored by a physician and prohibited from viewing pornographic material.
Related: Porn Addiction Dangers: What You Need to Know
Overview
The foundations of creating good mental habits and healthy living include Good Nutrition and Diet, Daily Meditation, Wim Hof Breathing, and Proper sleep is the key to success.
You will gets ton of benefits when you implement a health lifestyle, that keeps you fit, energetic, and less prone to disease and promotes positive mental habits.
Whatever you are trying to achieve something, it would be helpful for Understanding Philosophy and Science.
Without the proper knowledge, information or perspective, you might find yourself stuck in your own paradigm, which leads to looking at one-sided, prejudiced ways of looking at situations and circumstances.
Breaking Resistance: Without enough knowledge or reading, you can have resistance something to acts such as regular meditation, exercise, and other types of things. You must read and beat your resistance and develop positive mental habits.
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