Summary

The article discusses how the human mind's survival instinct can be counterproductive in modern society and offers five strategies to harness the mind's potential for improved mental health.

Abstract

The article "How Your Mind Sabotages You And 5 Ways To Use It To Your Advantage" explores the evolution of the human brain and its impact on our survival instincts. It explains that while these instincts were crucial for our ancestors' survival, they now often lead to unnecessary stress and disproportionate reactions to everyday problems. The author argues that understanding oneself and the human brain is the first step in managing the mind. The article suggests practical methods such as meditation, exercise, and seeking professional psychological help to enhance emotional intelligence, self-control, and overall mental well-being.

Opinions

The author believes that the survival instinct, while once vital, now often causes more harm than good due to its confusion of real and imagined dangers.
Introspection, such as keeping a diary of emotions and reactions, is highly recommended by the author for better self-understanding.
Understanding the human brain is considered essential for making sense of one's behavior and improving self-awareness.
Meditation is touted as the best method for managing emotions, despite the challenge of maintaining a consistent practice.
Regular exercise is linked to increased self-control and is seen as an easy way to improve both physical and emotional health.
The stigma surrounding psychological help is acknowledged, but the author strongly encourages visiting a psychologist as a tool for maintaining emotional health, regardless of having a psychological disorder.

How Your Mind Sabotages You And 5 Ways To Use It To Your Advantage

A complicated system of nerve cells connects the brain with the rest of the body, so that communication can occur in fractions of a second.

Over the years our brain has evolved and developed to the point where we are now. It is the main reason why we have managed to reach the society we have now. And it is also the main reason why we have been able to survive all the dangers we have faced over the years as a species.

It is the survival instinct that has allowed our ancestors to detect the dangers they encountered, so that they could confront them and continue to survive and evolve.

The Problem With The Survival Instinct:

It used to be very useful to us, we had to hunt to survive, we had to face other tribes and we had to do whatever we could to protect our family from any danger.

Now, however, we no longer have those problems.

Nowadays it is much easier to find food. We don’t have to hunt for it. And we live in safe, heated homes, we could affirm that security has increased overall.

But despite this, we still have this survival instinct. So our brains still function just as they did when we had to hunt for food.

The problem now is that we are often unable to distinguish real danger from imaginary danger. Therefore, we suffer much more in our head, thinking about things that have not happened but may happen, than in reality.

Many times we have totally disproportionate reactions when we are faced with problems of everyday life. And this happens because our brain confuses these dangers, and sees them as situations that can threaten your life.

Therefore, it is essential to learn to control your mind, so that you can react more calmly when faced with such situations.

How To Manage The Mind:

This are the 5 essentials you need to follow if you want to improve your mental health and learn to control your mind:

Tip 1: Get to Know Yourself
Tip 2: Get to Know the Human Brain
Tip 3: Meditate
Tip 4: Exercise
Tip 5: Go to a Psychologist

This may sound like obvious advice, but I know few people who follow them all. So here is a quick explanation that will make you understand how important they really are.

Tip 1: Know yourself

If you want to learn how to control something, the first thing is to learn how it works.

That´s why it´s important that you do some introspection so that you learn to understand yourself better. To do this you can start writing in a small diary, about the emotions you have, or about what happens to you during the day and how you react to it.

For me, writing in a notebook about my life and my feelings has been life changing. So please, give it a try.

Tip 2: Get to Know the Human Brain

Once you know yourself, it is important to understand how the brain works more thoroughly.

This way you can make more sense of your behavior, which will help you a lot with the first point. If you want to introduce yourself to this topic I would recommend you the following book: The Brain: A Very Short Introduction by Michael O’Shea. It´s an easy and short read

Tip 3: Meditate

The best way to manage emotions is to meditate.

The problem with meditation is that it is hard to be consistent enough to see the benefits. But it greatly increases emotional intelligence, and in the long run it greatly reduces stress.

So if you want to be more consistent with it, try doing it just for a couple of minutes everyday until it becomes a habit.

Tip 4: Exercise

Having self-control is one of the main characteristics of any person who is able to control his or her mind. And doing sports on a regular basis is one of the easiest ways to achieve this.

In addition, physical health goes hand in hand with emotional health.

As they say: “Mens sana in corpore sano”.

Tip 5: Go to a psychologist

Yes, a psychologist. I know it is a very taboo subject, but little by little it is becoming more common to go to a psychologist.

You don’t need to have any psychological disorder to go to a psychologist, it is simply a tool to help you maintain or improve your emotional health. I am meeting more and more people who go to a psychologist, and all of them recommend it highly.

Regardless of your mental health status, it can be super beneficial for you.

If you’ve made it this far, please give these tips a try. And let me know if they worked for you, or what you are using in your own life.