Mental Health
These 20 Lifestyle Habits Refined and Sharpened My Mind As I Aged.
I summarize key points contributing to neurological and mental health over the last five decades.
Purpose of the Article
Some discerning readers who read my mental health articles inspired me to post a story summarizing the key points that significantly improved my cognitive skills and mental health.
As this broad topic covers over five decades of experience and studies in cognitive science, I only provide the main items with crucial points in simple language.
The body and mind are connected (psychosomatic). Thus, some of these items relate to physical health, impacting mental health.
Since I wrote many articles about them, I linked relevant posts for those interested in details. I briefly cover the critical points under 20 headings to keep this piece in a reasonable size.
1 — Working in the Flow State
I achieve the flow state by improving my cognitive skills like focus, attention, working memory, task switching, and problem-solving.
I find the flow state ideal for creating desired results with less time and effort, balancing my energies, and reducing stress while working or studying.
As neurotransmitters and hormones work in a more balanced way in the flow state, the body and the brain experience less stress lowering inflammation. In addition to joy and happiness, the flow state is ideal for creativity and productivity since this state significantly improved my desired outcomes.
After wiring my brain for this state, it became effortless to taste joy daily, even in the middle of a perceived crisis. I documented my experience in an article titled Enter a Flow State with Three Simple Steps.
2 — Meditating Three Times a Day
Meditation is an excellent tool in my mental health kit. I used it for short-term and long-term health and well-being benefits. I made meditation a hobby.
I see meditation as necessary as food and water in my life. After practicing meditation for decades, I haven’t seen any side effects. Meditation helped me balance my hormones and neurotransmitters. Besides, regulating my emotions increased my creativity and productivity and improved my relationships.
I use meditation in my work for productivity. It helps me work in the flow state quickly. In addition, I use meditation as a creativity tool, as reflected in this story titled How I Perceive the 50th Century.
3 — Converting Boredom to Excitement
In my younger years, I found boredom challenging, unpleasant, and risky emotion. I lost interest in mundane things when I got bored. My job, chores, and even hobbies looked dull.
I also experienced anhedonia for a short while when I got extremely bored. During that period, boredom caused self-sabotaging behavior. I looked for instant gratification to find an escape from the effects of this unpleasant feeling.
After leveraging the power of boredom, I became more creative, productive, and happier. I don’t see boredom as boring and destructive emotion anymore. After using a simple approach for many years, I no longer allow boredom to upset me.
When boredom enters my consciousness nowadays, it takes me minutes to neutralize it and turn it into the pleasant emotions I choose intentionally.
I documented my method in an article titled How I Transform Boredom into Joy and Excitement in 7 Simple Steps. In addition, I explained Awareness of Punishment Pathways in the Brain for Mental Health.
4 — Replacing Envy with Admiration
In my younger years, I used to envy people who were more successful than me. When I saw their outstanding results, I used to feel a knot in my stomach even though I enjoyed and appreciated their outcomes.
However, when I learned to transfer envy to admiration fast, I felt a tremendous liberation in my psychological well-being. Nevertheless, it took me a while to rewire my brain for admiration.
Envy is a natural emotion that anyone can feel. Yet, we have the choice to acknowledge this emotion, feel its effects for a short while, and quickly tap into our cognitive system to make a quick assessment and intend to create admiration. I documented my experience in an article titled Replace Envy with Admiration for a Joyful Life.
5 — Talking with Myself with Self-Compassion
Self-talk serves me as an emotional monitoring tool. When I feel an intense emotion, whether positive or negative, I have a self-conversation session to understand my feelings and record them in my journal.
This information is valuable to me. It helps me make necessary therapeutic alterations for specific cases. It also contributes to my self-healing serving as a therapy for my cognitive and emotional health.
When I combined self-talk with dexterous writing, I gained an opportunity to activate both sides of the brain to integrate the left and right lobes for better response. In addition to healing, creativity, and productivity benefits, I use self-conversations and dexterous writing to improve my language skills.
I documented my experience in two articles:
6 — Rewarding Small Achievements
When the brain perceives a tedious task, it will naturally resist. Therefore, when I complete a small task, my brain recognizes the accomplishment and releases good feel hormones and neurotransmitters.
I learned to double the number of neurochemicals by giving a small reward for each achievement. For example, when I write an article, I allow myself to watch videos on the YouTube list.
Daily dopamine and serotonin with everyday achievements can build up and rewire the brain for happiness and joy. This is a fundamental approach to building healthy and desired mental habits. The neuroplasticity of the brain creates new neural pathways and strengthens them gradually.
7 — Regulating Emotions
In my younger years, I used to hide my emotions and feared expressing them. Gratefully, some mentors taught me how to express my emotions using valuable tools. Setting healthy boundaries made a ripple effect. Emotional self-defense is crucial for everyone.
During this learning process, one of the crucial lessons in my life was to learn to slow down. I suffered from ambition and constant agitation toward perceived success.
When I slowed downed, I became more creative and productive. Slowing helped me feel and express my emotions better. Slowing down allowed me to enter the flow state faster and stay longer. I documented my experience in an article titled Regulate Emotions to Knock Chronic Stress with Five Powerful Tools.
8 — Gaining Cognitive Flexibility
Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adjust our thinking when facing multiple variables in an event or situation. It refers to observing, understanding, and assessing our thoughts before they turn into unpleasant emotions.
I gained mental flexibility by acknowledging my thoughts and emotions without suppressing them. Staying optimistic and keeping hope with an open mind increased my cognitive flexibility.
Cognitive flexibility also requires emotional regulation. For example, having a flexible mind without regulating our emotions is not feasible.
By achieving cognitive flexibility and emotional maturity, I got a chance to work and live in a flow state, bringing serenity, calmness, bliss, and joy to my life. I documented my experience in an article titled Increase Cognitive Flexibility and Emotional Maturity with Five Habits.
9 — Scheduling Fun Activities and Hobbies
During my cognitive science studies, I noticed that our primitive brain never stops worrying, even if there is nothing to be concerned about at a specific time. If left unattended, it manufactures problems, creates hypothetical scenarios, and increases our anxiety.
However, our neocortex can challenge false beliefs created by the old brain. So the new brain is at our disposal. Apart from logically challenging the old brain, another effective way from my experience is to schedule fun activities.
By scheduling fun activities, I overcame amygdala hijacks. I achieved this by not giving idle time to the old brain to worry so that the old brain thinks there is nothing to be concerned about when having fun deliberately.
The more fun I had, the more creative and productive I felt. Having intentional fun does not mean a hedonistic tendency. It means enjoying every moment of life with gratitude, even if some situations sometimes feel painful.
Scheduling fun activities also helped me defeat mild depression. I made starting the day with a spark a habit. My bespoke hobbies help me have a joyful life improving my mental health.
10 — Improving Sleep Quality
Restorative sleep plays a vital role in every aspect of our health. When I experienced disturbed sleep and insomnia, I felt awful.
I tried sleep aids like supplements and sedative teas. They made it worse. I even tried prescribed sleep medicine which ruined my health in my younger years. Thus, I gave up quickly on the advice of reliable healthcare professionals.
Developing good sleep hygiene helped me. When I improved my sleep, I reaped many benefits, such as better mood, memory, and libido. It helped me to lower physical and mental health risks.
I shared my sleep habits in a book chapter titled Smart Sleep Habits — Chapter 5. I also documented The Critical Role of Cortisol in Sleep Disturbances. In addition, I posted an article titled Fix Hormonal Sleep Issues and Improve Sleep Quality in 3 Easy Steps.
11 — Consuming Nutrient-Dense Food in a Specific Window
Nutritional deficiencies primarily caused by low-fat diets in my younger years adversely affected my physical and mental health.
I made significant improvements when I customized my diet and followed a diet that suited my needs. In addition, replacing carbs with healthy fats and practicing intermittent fasting helped me enter ketosis and gain more BDNF.
I gained more metabolic and mental health benefits by practicing one meal a day plan. Consuming omega-3 fatty acids and other healthy fats nourishes the brain by balancing metabolic hormones and neurotransmitters.
12 — Performing Personalized Workouts
I knew my body needed exercise. Thus, I was always active. However, similar to my diet, my exercise regime was also problematic. For example, long-distance running caused me serious health issues, as discussed in an article titled Striking Health Risks of Extreme Running.
After modifying my workout from long cardio to high-intensity training, I gained noticeable benefits. My hormonal profile improved, and my inflammation reduced.
Trampoline and calisthenics are the best workouts contributing to my physical and mental health. I documented my experiences in the following articles.
Here’s What Happened When I Performed Calisthenics for Decades.
13 — Energizing with Cold Showers and Saunas
Replacing coffee with cold showers was an innovative solution for my health and vitality. Cold exposure has a noticeable hormonal effect on the body, improving mental health.
In addition, cold showers mixed with hot ones also improved my sleep quality, reduced stress, and lowered inflammation supporting the body and the brain.
I also leveraged heat therapy using dry saunas. They brought many benefits, as I explained in this article titled Health and Longevity Benefits of Dry Sauna.
Thermogenesis has been of great interest to me. I documented my experience in an article titled Here’s What Happened When I Experimented with Thermogenesis for Decades.
14 — Planning Pragmatically
I found planning helpful for being creative and productive personally and professionally. Without having a plan, starting any task was daunting. Creating a plan was key to addressing procrastination. Pragmatic planning rewired my brain for better problem-solving.
I am not too stringent about creating my plans. I just do a quick mental picture of the job and jot down the major parts on my task list. Then, I mature the plan by adding or subtracting details while doing the task.
Starting is the most challenging part of any project. The brain constantly tries to find ways to reserve energy, preventing us from starting work. The critical point was rewarding the brain by completing small tasks from the plan.
15 — Recording and Celebrating Gratitude
Gratitude is a beautiful feeling nourishing the brain. Its effects on the brain are prominent. Therefore, mental health professionals suggest gratitude journals as a therapeutic tool.
When I feel gratitude, the body and the brain work in a better balance. As a result, I don’t feel anger, jealousy, guilt, boredom, fear, or anxiety when I am grateful.
I record my gratitude daily. I also show my gratitude to others, improving my relationship with them. I extend my appreciation to expressive writing for having a calming effect on the brain.
16 — Playing Computer and Video Games
I enjoy brain-stimulating games. Therefore, I am subscribed to several services, such as Lumosity and Elevate, allowing me to play online brain games on my computer and mobile phone.
As computers and video games can be addictive, I don’t spend too much. I only allocate around ten to twenty minutes daily to activate my neocortex.
I enjoy games like sports, racing, survival, chess, and puzzles to keep my brain active. However, I don’t like games depicting violence. My goal is to increase my cognitive reserves as a precaution for neurodegenerative diseases.
17 — Staying Away from Perfection
I suffered from a perfection problem in my younger years. It caused me analysis paralysis affecting my creativity and productivity. So I chose imperfection as my perfection.
Imperfection does not mean producing unorganized results. Instead, I defined imperfection as striving for excellence. I achieved this goal by growing gradually and making incremental progress.
I documented my experience in an article titled Why I Find Perfection in Imperfection. I also posted an article titled Do Less Achieve More: My secret to success for decades.
18 — Improving My Relationships and Social Connections
Improving my emotional intelligence by regulating my emotions contributed to establishing better relationships with loved ones and others. However, my relationships with others improved when I gained emotional maturity and mastery, using intellect and intuition.
Compassion and empathy for others are critical capabilities for emotional maturity. In addition, self-love, self-compassion, and self-confidence sharpened my emotional mastery contributing to my mental health.
The brain loves social connections. I learned a lot from centenarians. Therefore, I not only socialize with people I know and trust but also enhance my circles by meeting consequential strangers regularly and intentionally creating serendipity.
19 — Balancing My Hormones and Neurotransmitters
The most significant contribution to my cognitive health was balancing hormones and neurotransmitters. This item covered many activities in my life.
Therefore, based on my research and experience, I coined a term called hormonal intelligence and explained it in an article titled Hormonal Intelligence: Sharpen It to Achieve Optimal Health.
Balancing our hormones and neurotransmitters with healthy lifestyle habits is possible.
20 — Improving My Cellular Health
I left this to the end as the previous points contribute to this fundamental health factor. I improved my cellular health using four pronged-approached listed below.
1 — Cleared Accumulated Garbage from the Cells
2 — Fed Cells with Premium Power
3 — Rested Cells to Rejuvenate
4 — Activated the Self-Healing Mechanism for Cells
As these points are comprehensive, interested readers can find them in an article titled Here’s How I Formed an Endless Energy Source in Four Steps.
Improving cellular health has reduced chronic stress, lowered inflammation, strengthened mitochondria, and initiated autophagy. As a result, my cellular health focus improved my metabolic, cardiovascular, immune, neurological, and mental health.
Conclusions and Takeaways
By gaining healthy lifestyle habits, we can improve our cognitive capabilities and enhance our mental health. In this article, I shared my experience, highlighting the key points.
Of course, as we are all different and unique, points working for me might not work for others. However, some of my approaches can give ideas to customize them for your needs.
The bottom line is we need to take personal responsibility to improve our mental capabilities, which can contribute to our physical and psychological health. In addition, seeking help when needed and leveraging the experiences of others can be invaluable.
I owe my success to neurogenesis, as explained in the attached article.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
If you are a new reader and find this article valuable, you might check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting on my reviews, observations, and decades of sensible experiments.
Sample Health Improvement Articles for New Readers
I write about various hormones and neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, GABA, acetylcholine, norepinephrine, adrenaline, glutamate, and histamine.
One of my goals as a writer is to raise awareness about the causes and risk factors of prevalent diseases that can lead to suffering and death for a large portion of the population.
To raise awareness about health issues, I have written several articles that present my holistic health findings from research, personal observations, and unique experiences. Below are links to these articles for easy access.
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Disclaimer: My posts do not include professional or health advice. I document my reviews, observations, experience, and perspectives only to provide information and create awareness.
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