8 Principles to Achieve Optimum
Mental Health
You might have heard before about “neuroplasticity”. Neuroplasticity
is nothing but the capacity the brain has to be able to adapt based on what we
do so. You and I can change some of the structures that bring has and also
change some of the processes and I’m excited about this concept because the
reality is that this concept is the basis for achieving optimal mental health.
These eight principles or habits that I’m going to encourage you to do will be
challenging will be out of the ordinary but I believe will provoke you and it
will allow you to visit the people and share these concepts but it will also do
something very important which will allow you to read people like me less and
that is something good believe it or not. These eight principles I don't only
believe in them and practice but they're evidence-based and so I would like you
to if you can pay attention to this. That maybe take one or two or three and
practice them.
Nutrition:
Principle number one it's a very simple one. It's a principle
of nutrition. Nutrition is an important thing and allows you something that
some of you might know a member teamed up with people from national geographic
and the mission was to find out a group of people or peoples around the world
who can demonstrate that they can live healthier physically and mentally. These
are people for who the norm was to achieve 100 years or older so as soon as
they found them. They named these zones around the world blue zones and they
found nine characteristics. I won't share them with you but I would like to
share one which is related to this concept one characteristic was that
centenarian cultures and centenarian groups of people have the basis of their
diet as beans crazy isn't it. Mexicans have a lot of beans and what they have
found is that people who live more than 100 physically and who are physically
and mentally able above the average also only consume flesh or meat products
only five times a month and it shouldn't be a surprise because even just
recently maybe a couple of weeks ago the national council of Australia who
talks about dieting has remodified the pyramid. At the bottom, the greatest
amount of it is plant-based so the message is goal plant-based and that's what
they found these societies have embraced.
Exercise:
Principle number two shouldn't be surprising, it’s exercise.
Now what we have found is that exercise is a matter of life we cannot achieve
an optimal capacity if we don't become active there is a lot of research that could
with you but allow me and perhaps believe get out of here research it that
exercise alone can have a great contribution on the diminishing of symptoms of
depression and anxiety it's very simple you exercise and you generate
endorphins good happy chemicals you exercise regularly and you will also
generate the production of a neurotransmitter in your brain called serotonin
neuropathy and dopamine all of these are related to depression Parkinson’s
disease and also Alzheimer’s disease so to actively participate in exercise
will distribute to achieving optimal mental health that will set you and the
community above the average.
Water:
Principle number three is water. Water is so important
seventy per cent of our bodies are made out of water eighty per cent of our
brains are made of components that are water. That’s a high percentage so it
shouldn't be surprised again that to achieve optimal mental health we need
water perhaps more than what we utilize now let me share with you something
there are certain chemicals that we can only achieve by eating foods certain
types of food we already talked about the food we didn't go in specifics but
there are certain foods that we can consume one of the certain types of food
produces something or gives you something called tryptophan. Tryptophan is a
substance that if it reaches the brain to good proportions will allow you to
secrete more endo serotonin so tryptophan is the raw material that the brain
needs to produce serotonin and you might be thinking well what does that have
to do with water you're talking about food now and I’m confused what allow me
to share with you why water is so important the reason why it's so important is
because water is one of the elements that allow these things that you consume
and these nutrients to travel to the brain the key is simple the formula is
simple more the more water the more tryptophan goes to the brain the more raw
material we have to generate serotonin and the happier you become some of the
things that water can give you is a great clarity in your mind but some of the
things that it could give you if you lack intake of water is a reduced ability
to be happier people who do not consume enough water become more frustrated
they have less clarity of mind and then it will affect as a default your mental
health performance.
Sunshine:
The next principle is sunshine. I will keep this one simple
we need the sun and that is it. There are three reasons that I can share with
you why we need the sun or at least a couple one is if we allow ourselves to
intake sunshine on a regular bay regularly you can achieve a greater level of
sleep your sleep will be increased it will be sounder and you will feel
refreshed next time that by default will increase your capacity to learn to
memorize and to concentrate. It's very simple sunshine as well believe it or
not can also have an impact on the level of pain that you might have physically
if anybody here or if anybody in the community has some pain sunshine can
decrease the level of pain that someone has it’s amazing what sunshine can do
if take it in the right amounts.
Temperance:
The next principle is very important, temperance. I don't
know if you ever heard these words not many people have but allow me to share
what this means temperance implies that we are to create and practice in our
lifestyle schedule a balance. A balance that will set you up above the average
what that implies is we need to make sure that we allow ourselves to introduce
certain habits and behaviors that will provoke and will allow you to have a
better mental health performance you might be thinking well can you explain a
little bit more let me share with you something our societies are run in such a
way that we tend to take something that is bad and make it good and sometimes
unfortunately we take something that is good and make it bad one example is
it's something that happened in the 1950s in the 1950s sometimes someone realized
i think i think smoking is related to lung cancer so what people did in the
1950s is they introduced what we call the filter in the cigarette because the
tower of the cigarette was related to lung cancer today we continue to know
that smoking is one of the greatest causes of disease and death in our
societies so it didn't fix it another thing that we know that is harmful and we
tend to embrace it is the use of alcoholic beverages Australia reported in 2011
to 2012 that 19.7.7 that's a reasonable percentage 19.7 of relationship
breakups of interpersonal relationship breakups occur as a result of an alcohol
related problem and that doesn't account for a psychiatric condition that's a
high percentage what alcohol can do to us is it can impair the frontal lobe
cortex that allows us to make good and sound decisions research has shown us
that consuming such substance increases our likelihood of cheating between 30
to 50 percent funny that because a lot of the times when we do business there
is always something like this involved so we kind of need to prepare a set of
ourselves to go to break a good deal but I’m not saying that everybody who does
that is cheating but the research and the numbers that's what they indicate
another health harmful substance that decreases our mental capacity and our
ability to deal with things such as depression and anxieties is coffee
caffeinated drinks caffeinated drinks that stress our nervous system and they
stress it so much that can increase the level of depression or depressive symptoms
and also the level of anxiety so what basically temperance this is we need to
learn how to abstain from certain things that might be harmful and perhaps
utilize certain things that are good for us within measure it's creating a
balance and i think the picture describes that it's creating a balance in our
life it's not only about what you drink or it's it's also about what we do in
general if we work too much or too little can perturb our performance or if we
play too much in too little can also have an impact on our performance another
one is a i would like to share with you a story which is a perhaps an
incredible story in the 1990s no that was wrong 1919 that's a year in eureka California
a hospital was facing a great epidemic of flu and it was getting out of control
so much that the chief physician said i think we need to call the army i don't
know we don't have a space so the army came and in turn they brought tents
coats and some blankets and so the overflowing hospital all those patients that
were getting the infection were placed in these tents and the only thing that
they had a part of the blankets were hot water bottles to keep the feet warm
what they found is that the people who were in the tents were not dying as
compared to the people that were in the hospital once someone realized what was
happening they turned down the heaters in the hospital they opened the windows
up and they put heavy underwear on the patients and the death rate diminished
the key today is spend time outdoors when you think about it many of these
things are interrelated with each other if you exercise unless you go to the
gym and that is okay too but if you exercise outside you get that air that you
need to have scientifically it just makes sense you get oxygen and oxygen
cleanses your blood the blood is the same blood that will come to your brain
and we want to create the best environment that we can have in our brain in our
systems to be able to create those happy feeling neuro neurotransmitters the
challenge is spend time outside and open our homes open the windows let the
sunshine and let the air do what it's intended to do what it was created to do.
Rest:
The next one is rest. I would like to emphasize something
here we live in a society that is very outcome-driven unfortunately we live in
a society that indicates that for us to be able to succeed we have to achieve
the greater goal of whatever position you might be having it's a society that says
I have to put the top level man or woman down so that I can be that person
eventually and that creates a lot of stress we live in a society when we expect
many people many children to succeed to the top they can and we should expect
such thing but sometimes we push so much that we lack the in the amount of rest
that we should have one of the things that we know is that the idea that a
staying later at night it's better because I achieved better is a fallacy it's
nothing else but a self-deception some of you and had lived that too
Sleep:
Before I got to know about these principles and practices and
some of you will know that or would have thought of I stayed late at night
because I seem to achieve a lot more in the middle of the night it's like
amazing but research shows otherwise a group of people have been taken and they
have been exposed to an overnight an all-nighter party kind of thing no alcohol
no substances the key was the only key isolated factor was keep them awake for
as long as you can and then the next day do a critical test a critical thinking
test were compared to a group a controlled group of people who had slept eight
hours in the night the results will be quite interesting for you to know and I’ll
share them with you now you will be expecting this the eighth night control
group the eight hours of sleep control group perform better in the test of
critical thinking but the next thing you might not be thinking of the
all-nighter group perform worse but they have a perception that they did better
and then another test self-reported test reflective showed that they not only
had a perception that they performed better but they were more confident in
their work was the other people that slept nicely the night before they
performed better they were less confident but the results spoke for themselves
rest can give you mental clarity can help you to remember and memorize things
clearly can enhance your ability to be creative to think objectively and
analytically rest is.
Trust:
An important thing that we must not forget if we want to
achieve optimal mental health and go above the average last one is t there is
an author in the 1900s who said that the greatest need of this world is that of
people who stand for the truth as the needle of a compass to the pole it is the
need of the world to have people who extend strong to principle even though the
heavens fall it's quite an interesting concept might be a bit poetic as well
but today it's very hard to develop trust in many things when you think about
it. I talk about rest and we have that tendency to be wanting to achieve the latter
of success and for that sometimes we have to put someone else down. So it's
hard to trust many people but what we found what they have found what these
investigators at the beginning of my article found in terms of the people who
live long three things in their lives. One they have people, they love clothes
and they invest in that number two they also have an amount of time that they
spend with people who are like-minded people like you who mean here to talk
about like-minded things and perhaps different ideas to enhance our community.
They also showed that they met with regularity with those people that they
resonate. So number one they got the parents grandparents and children close
by. Number two they met together as a matter of fact. The research goes deeper
and they found that people who have some kind of faith and gather together at
least four times a month reach or have a likelihood of reaching a higher
expense expectancy of life of 14 years in simple words people who gather and
have some similarities in faith four times a month they can expect to live 14
times, 14 years longer that's just research.
CONCLUSION:
I appreciate the article about the meaning of life and just having a meaningful life and knowing what your life is knowing why you wake up every morning can give you seven years extra. I would like you to think about this because today even though it's hard to believe in people and society we need to achieve a sense of trust this new strategy goes beyond and declares or rather emphasizes the idea that we can achieve a level of trust in a superior power you can call it ALLAH or you can call whatever you desire. Something that gives you a sense of purpose that we have found is that it decreases anxiety increases motivation and gives you a happier life let us just summarize what these are nutrition, exercise, water, sunshine, temperance, rest and trust in divine power. Today my challenge for you is to pick three of these you can do even today and tomorrow one go to your group your friendly group in town and say group what can I do to exercise safely do I have any conditions that will impede my exercises and if you don't and if he can give you some a hand to be able to develop a good exercise program with the limits and the capacity that you currently have exercise number two don't wait too long let's network after here but don't wait too long to go to bed try to do eight to nine hours of sleep she liked that she wants to go and number three make commitments get those people you love those people that you embrace to get a sense of purpose and make a commitment today new start is something that I challenge you to practice and if you want to practice and achieve a higher an optimal mental health a higher capacity this can be yours today. You don't have to go to the artist don't have to go to a psychologist unless you have a condition that needs that professional input but otherwise you can achieve a higher capacity that will set you above the average.
Thank you
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