Taking action toward improving your body, brain and mind first requires you to have the right beliefs. This is non-negotiable in order to make serious life changes. Here are 5 mindset shifts to improve your health:
Processed Food is Poison
The detrimental effects that processed foods have on your body, brain and mind have been well-established today. Here’s a relevant study conducted on children outlining the potential of a lowered IQ through eating processed foods.
It’s very easy to go with the easy and palatable option when you’re hungry. People are often on the go, and succumb to the path of least resistance when contemplating cooking.
Catching yourself in these moments and training your brain to resist these urges is the easy answer. But you might agree that discipline becomes that much harder when you associate a temptation with pleasure.
Instead, think of what you’re resisting as poisonous, and by extension, disgusting. After all, nature didn’t intend for you to eat chemically altered foods.
This simple mindset shift can lower the chances of you even considering eating something processed, which will ultimately help your health rather than hurt it.
Keep in mind that we’re all human, and treating yourself a few times a week is okay. The goal is to not make it a habit in your life, so if you have that down, you’re on the right path.
Porn Is Evil
Because it’s so easily accessible today, both young and older men are still facing addictions to porn. Statistics show that the top three porn sites generate 135,000 visits every minute.
This activity has been proven to negatively impact men’s testosterone levels, brain health and mental health when turned into a habit. Read more about the impacts of porn on your brain here.
If you started watching porn at a young age, the familiarity of it can lead you to do so in later life too. This is when the formation of watching it as a habit takes place.
And that can continue until you start making negative associations with the act. Your brain and mind are tools, and the associations you make with them dictate what you do.
If you see porn as healthy and normal, you’ll probably continue to watch it. If you instead train your brain to view it as abnormal, evil, or degenerate, you’ll feel less compelled to follow through.
This is one of the most important mindset shifts to adopt as a man today in order to improve the quality of your health and life.
Stress Needs to be Managed
Being in the digital era doesn’t help the already stressful times you experience in life as is. Stress has always existed but now it has reached a point of extremity for some through self-comparison between themselves and others they see online.
Data shows that an inability to cope with and manage stress can lead to problematic health outcomes such as inflammatory bowel disease and heartburn. This happens because your gut microbiome becomes affected by it, which in turn produces harmful bacteria.
On top of the physical problems, mental health can also be negatively affected.
Doing what you can to manage your stress levels will go a long way toward improving your health. See here for some tips on how to do it.
If this aspect of your life is ignored, the consequences could be dire.
Sleep Dictates Everything
From my own experience, I can attest that insufficient sleep has nearly always had a negative impact on my mood, cognitive functioning and energy the following day.
Most can probably agree.
Put simply, sleep is the foundation of everything mentioned above and more. This includes testosterone levels for men – see here for a study conducted on this particular topic.
Andrew Huberman, a renowned professor, talks about the importance of sleep at length on his show, Huberman Lab. I highly recommend giving his podcast a listen as he has actionable advice and references research done on a range of health topics.
For great sound quality and a wide variety of podcasts to choose from, you should check out Spotify. I’ve been using this service for years and it’s always been my preferred place for my favourite podcasts and music.
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Naturally, I’m more of a night owl, so I’ve been able to adjust to my preferred bedtime (between 11:00 and 12:30) and ensure I get at least 7 hours some nights. But sometimes I just can’t get around to sleeping by that timeframe.
If you’re anything like me in that regard, you’ll want to ensure getting to bed on time and sleeping for long enough is made a priority otherwise you’ll suffer.
What should be considered a non-negotiable as one of the mindset shifts to improve your health is that sleep duration and quality dictates everything.
Sunlight Over Artificial Light
When you wake up, exposing yourself to outdoor sunlight positively impacts your energy, focus and cortisol levels for the day ahead. See more about this here.
Even if it’s only for a couple minutes, I try to do this every morning as soon as I wake up. It’s definitely helped all of the areas above and has also benefited my mood,
But if you’re indoors mostly, like the majority of people, you might think that artificial lighting can have the same effect on you. This is not the case.
The lux (intensity of brightness) registered from sunlight is between 50,000-100,000 units, whereas lightbulbs and light boxes range from only 250-10,000.
Since it’s no substitute, aiming for outdoor sunlight rather than its counterpart is another one of the important mindset shifts to improve your health.
Sources
- https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110207225943.htm#:~:text=A%20diet%2C%20high%20in%20fats%2C%20sugars%2C%20and%20processed%20foods,of%20Epidemiology%20and%20Community%20Health.
- https://earthweb.com/how-many-people-watch-porn/
- https://examine.com/research-feed/study/y1wDA0/
- https://www.netdoctor.co.uk/healthy-living/wellbeing/a10639/how-light-affects-your-health/#:~:text=Sunlight%20typically%20registers%20anywhere%20between,the%20less%20lux%2C%20the%20bette