Double your efforts and do half as well as you might.
86 trillion dollars That is the total amount of neurons in your brain. Indisputable evidence suggests that the sticky mass between your ears is exerting unparalleled influence over your body.
It only seems logical that we devote the majority of our time to its upkeep. We, on the other hand, do not. In reality, the majority of people do not believe that the brain requires any attention. Experts have concluded that our contemporary way of life is destroying our brain pathways, causing us to become slower, dumber, and less creative as a result of this process.
Numerous factors contribute to this situation's existence. In order to correct this, we must first become conscious of the negative behaviors that we have developed. Some people may be taken aback by their behaviors since they never would have imagined the harm they are causing themselves via their indulgence.
Let us have a look at what they are.
When You Don't Do Anything, It Has a Negative Impact
Since remote work has become the norm, many individuals have found themselves unable to leave the comfort of their own beds. Many of my acquaintances spend their whole day in the same location for everything they eat, drink, sleep, and work.
Food shopping, which, due to technological advances, can now be done while they are at work, is the only physical activity they receive.
It has serious ramifications, whether people are aware of it or not. Too much sitting is related to heart disease, obesity, depression, dementia and cancer. Sitting over an extended period of time is also associated to dementia. Beyond that, some brain neurons are negatively affected, which is a bad thing.
All of us need to grasp the importance of one basic fact: moving is beneficial. We feel better after exercising because it produces endorphins that keep our hearts healthy and our brains functioning properly.
Sitting for long periods of time while at work causes us to hold our breath while we write away on our laptops. As a matter of fact, you may have noticed it yourself. As a result, the body's oxygen levels plummet, resulting in muddled thinking, tiredness, and inability to maintain concentration.
What to do to correct the problem.
Not that you should visit the gym or get a personal trainer is my recommendation, though.
All you need is 20–30 minutes of physical activity. To achieve this objective, you may use the famous 10,000-step rule. "I don't have the time," you say to yourself, knowing well well that this is untrue.
Walkers include everyone from famous innovators such as Nikola Tesla and Charles Darwin to the busiest CEOs such as Jobs, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter's Jack Dorsey, and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.
Walking and talking at the same time is a straightforward strategy. Take a stroll once you've finished making as many calls as you can. Before you know it, you'll have effortlessly achieved your objective and won't have wasted any more time doing so. Having a standing or walking desk is another option that can help you move around more and burn more calories.
I'm certain that you're aware of the advantages since you're intelligent. All that remains is for you to put it into action in your life. And with these straightforward methods, there is no longer any justification for not doing so.
Concentration #1 Killer.
Astonishingly, the quantity of information we consume on a daily basis is staggering. According to a study from the University of California, San Diego, the typical American uses about 34 terabytes of data and information per day, representing an increase of almost 350 percent over the previous three decades.
It's no surprise that continuous sensory input is our number one focus deterrent.
Emails, social media, chatting to people, alerts, meetings, and a variety of other activities fall into this category. If we don't learn to properly control our intake, we may quickly get overwhelmed and experience information overload.
On the commute, some individuals take pride in the fact that they can go through a book at three times the normal pace while simultaneously checking emails, reading novels, and keeping up with the latest news. Nonetheless, there is nothing to be proud of.
Even a little piece of information may make it difficult to concentrate. In the case of a task that requires concentration and you are aware that an email is sitting in your inbox that has not been read, this may cause your effective IQ to drop by 10 points.
Reduce the quantity of information you consume on a daily basis by using tools and procedures. Make an effort to consume less short-form material and instead use that time to reading longer-form articles. Instead of bouncing from one tweet to another, they help you maintain your attention and enhance your concentration.
Discard pointless items such as social media, news, gossip, and other items that you have no influence over or that are unrelated to your goals and objectives.
Learn to spend as much time as possible in the silence. Calming down the mind, body, and spirit may be achieved via stillness and quiet. Regular intervals of quiet are the only way to combat our overabundance of digital material intake.
Music that is blaring at full volume
Whether we're working out, walking, or just performing a boring job like answering emails, we all want some good music to get us through the day. And, in order to fully immerse ourselves in our favorite songs, we inevitably increase the volume on our speakers.
However, you may want to give it some serious consideration before proceeding. Noise-canceling headphones, which are becoming more popular, may cause permanent hearing loss. When your ears get used to a particular level of loudness, you must exert more effort in order to hear the usual sounds of people around you. As a result, you are unable to retain information in your memory quickly enough.
During listening, Headphonesty recommends that you remove your headphones and hold them at arm's length. If you can still hear the music, drop it down a notch and repeat the process. This is an excellent check to ensure that your ears are protected. Also, if you have to listen to music, take frequent pauses to allow your brain and ears to get some much-needed rest and relaxation.
Even if you don't use headphones, you should avoid being in settings with loud music, such as nightclubs, recording studios, or concerts. Several metal rock concerts later, a 50-year-old man claimed a persistent headache as a result of headbanging. A CT scan showed a blood clot on the right side of his brain, which was removed.
This is not to imply that the same will occur in your case. However, loud music has a negative impact on our brains in more ways than we can realize. When listening to music, it is recommended to keep the volume down so that you may still enjoy it without harming your brain.
Doing twice as much as you should but only doing half as well as you could.
Is it possible that you are wondering what I am talking about? There are many things going on.
With each interruption, multitasking slowly erodes your ability to concentrate on a single job. As a desirable characteristic in individuals in recent years, multitasking has made its way into many job descriptions, including those for administrative positions.
Despite this, humans were not designed to multitask in the first place, according to scientific evidence. No one can perform two tasks at the same time and give them equal attention. That can only be done by computers.
When you look closely, you can see that the juggler is juggling three balls at once. When he stares at them, it seems as though he is giving them all the same attention. While doing this, he is constantly moving between the balls, giving the impression that he is multitasking.
As a psychology professor at Stanford University, Clifford Nass asserts that continuous multitasking nowadays consumes more time than it saves — and that research suggests that it may be harming our attention and creativity as well.
He was first intrigued by individuals who claimed to be able to do several tasks at the same time. He reasoned that these individuals must be very bright.
After more investigation, he discovered that the truth was quite the contrary. They have been humiliated by their peers on a variety of cognitive tests, and they are a "sucker for irrelevancy," according to the researchers. As an additional point, he said
The ability to filter out irrelevant information is impaired in those who multitask all of the time." Because they lack working memory, they are unable to function. They're always preoccupied with something else outside their work. When they do this, they activate significantly bigger regions of their brain that are completely unrelated to the current activity. Also, they're awful at multitasking - they're really terrible at it.
It turns out that kids are poorer at multitasking when we ask them to do so. And as a result, they're a complete mess psychologically. (laughter)”
Furthermore, research has shown that individuals who multitask have reduced density in the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain area that is important for empathy, cognitive and emotional regulation, as well as attention.
Overall, the more you multitask, the more harm you do to your cognitive abilities and your brain.
Determine your ONE Thing in order to break out from this cycle. Prioritize your life ruthlessly so that you may only devote your attention to the most important aspects of your existence. It is our fear of not being able to complete our to-do list that motivates us to multitask.
Increasing one's workload is not the answer. The answer is to make the list as short as possible and only retain the items that are most important to the organization. The urge to perform 10 different things at once will be relieved as soon as you do this.
The release of pressure allows you to sharpen your concentration and increase your level of creativity, resulting in higher quality production in less time overall.
Sugarfree — "Is it sugar-free, or is the sugar-free portion of the product?"
We live in a world where sugar can be found almost everywhere. Sugar is included in every processed food in some form or another, mostly because it is addictive and helps food manufacturers sell more units of their products.
This is something that we, as customers, should be aware of. It has been shown that excessive sugar intake may cause a rise in blood sugar levels as well as irregular blood flow patterns in the brain. An excessive intake of sweeteners may also result in oxidative stress, which can result in depressed emotions, impaired memory, poor focus, and slower thinking.
Essentially, your brain will underperform, and you will not be able to determine why.
I would recommend keeping a meal diary for a day or two to help you keep track of your sugar consumption. Sugar is so ubiquitous that it may easily find its way into your mouth before you realize it. With a little additional caution, reading labels, and even eliminating processed foods, you may get off to a solid start on your health journey.
Concluding Remarks
These are some of the behaviors that go unnoticed yet have a negative impact on your brain in the long term. I'm quite sure I was doing all of the things listed above at one time. However, after reducing my intake, I've noticed that I'm more productive, less irritable, and overall more happy.
Along with these, don't forget the fundamentals of excellent brain health - a balanced diet, adequate sleep, drinking enough of water, and so on.
It is our duty to take good care of our brains. The fact is that if we conduct our life according to our own whims and preferences, nothing will miraculously fall into place.
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