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It’s incredibly important to have a healthy brain.

As you know, your brain controls virtually everything you do. It controls stress, emotion, memory, reflexes, heart rate, breathing, muscle contractions, feelings, and a lot more.

Since the brain is responsible for so much, one must keep it in great health.

It doesn’t matter if you’re young and active, middle-aged and sick for the first real time, or if you’re 80 years old and aging gracefully. Brain health matters!

In this article, we’re going to give you 12 powerful tips for a healthy brain. You can use all of these tips immediately.

All of this advice will enhance your brain health within a few days to a few months! We know it’s a little cliche, but some of these tips will very likely surprise you.

Before we start, just one note of caution. None of the information here is a replacement for well-informed medical advice. Do your research here and elsewhere, then if you are going to do anything dramatic to improve your brain health, speak with your doctor first.

Now, let’s begin.

1) Intermittent Fasting Improves Brain Health

If you haven’t heard of intermittent fasting before, let us educate you.

Intermittent fasting is an eating style where you go through periods of fasting followed by periods of eating. Some people use Intermittent fasting specifically to lose weight, and others eat this way year round.

A very popular method is to eat 8 hours in a day and then fast for 16 hours, but you can do this however you like. Some people will go longer, shorter, or do something like fast two days a week.

Intermittent fasting doesn’t necessarily help you lose weight faster, because weight loss ultimately comes down to calories eaten versus calories burned. But for many people, it is a more tolerable way to lose weight. Some people just find it easier to fast and eat all at once than to eat smaller meals throughout the day, especially once they get adjusted to it.

Intermittent fasting has some well-documented health benefits. Not only does intermittent fasting slow down aging and release high amounts of HGH, but it has been shown to have a powerful anti-oxidant effect on the body. This is in stark contrast to the inflammatory state one is in after they eat meals with many processed carbohydrates.

Intermittent fasting puts the body in a non-inflammatory state. It also puts the body in a state of “autophagy,” which cleans the cells and helps with brain function. Fasting has also been shown to reduce seizures in children, and it has been shown to repair cell damage and even the body’s DNA!

As we mentioned, we cannot substitute well informed medical advice. If you have any questions about fasting, especially if you have pre-existing health conditions, make sure you speak with your doctor. This is especially true with intermittent fasting since it is likely very different from how you normally eat.

For more information on Intermittent fasting, see this video. If you are athletically minded, check out LeanGains. You don’t have to be nearly as muscular as he is to get some excellent advice from his website.

2) Maintain Normal Cholesterol Levels

That’s right, cholesterol is important. Unfortunately, it gets a very, very bad rep.

New evidence is out that reasonable cholesterol levels are healthy for the brain.

Approximately 25% of your body’s cholesterol is in your brain. This is largely because your brain needs cholesterol to maintain myelin sheaths, which are wrapped around many of your brain cells. Myelin sheaths are required for quick neurotransmission, which means that cholesterol is needed to make the sheaths to make the billions of neurons in your brain fire properly.

We know that this may be something entirely different from what you’re used to hearing. So read the evidence.

In one study, elderly people with high LDL cholesterol (which has traditionally been considered “bad”) had the lowest risk of dementia. And in another, healthy middle-aged women with higher cholesterol levels were shown to have better brain function.

This is why memory loss is a common side effect of statins. This is very well documented; no doctor disputes this side effects of statins!

Perhaps the most revealing study on this issue was done by the University of South Florida that revealed an analysis of 68000 60+ year-olds revealed that those with low LDL cholesterol lived as long, if not longer than their peers.

We understand if this is new and hard to believe, but remember, the “official” word used to be that fat was bad, carbs were good, corn was great, and so forth. Do your own research with a Google search if you don’t believe the data we showed you.

So look: the best thing you can do is stay in good shape, eat a healthy diet with plenty of antioxidants, and seriously cut back on processed sugar. And either eat a lot of green vegetables or take your Vitamin K2 to make sure your body’s calcium is properly absorbed and not in the bloodstream (but talk to your doctor first, especially if you take blood thinners!).

These tips will keep your body and your brain healthier than anything!

3) Read More For a Healthy Brain!

Reading is great for your brain.

And yeah, you happen to be on a publishing company’s website. How convenient is that?

It doesn’t really matter what kind of reading you do. Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, reading is awesome for your brain.

Reading stimulates your creativity and imagination, teaches you important new knowledge, and creates many new connections in the neurons within your brain. This process is essential for a healthy brain.

So not only is reading important for general intelligence and open-mindedness, it may be able to help delay or prevent dementia and keep your brain sharp into old age.

Speaking of reading, it’s time for a shameless plug here, so definitely be sure to check out our books. We have many excellent fiction and nonfiction books to enhance your knowledge and stimulate your imagination.

4) Meditate

Meditation is a very powerful way to improve your brain health. As you may know, it has a ton of other benefits as well.

Meditation has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, slow aging, improve immunity, improve life satisfaction, and improve cardiac and general health.

Is it any wonder why meditation is so popular? You can get these types of benefits even with a few minutes of meditation each day.

If you’re interested in learning basic mediation skills and daily stress relief, be sure to check out Self Compassion and Mindfulness for Healing and Acceptance. It’s a quick and informative read that will get you started very quickly on this incredible habit.

And for some help with self-guided meditation, check out this video on 6 Phase Guided Meditation by Vishen Lakhiani.

5) Express Gratitude Daily

This may sound odd to some people, but it works.

Every morning, write three things down that you’re grateful for. You can repeat what you’re grateful for from time to time, but you should generally write about new things.

You can be grateful for anything, such as your eyesight, health, relationships, and positive things that have happened to you the day before.

If you do this every morning, it becomes much more difficult to be unhappy in your life. Do this every day for at least several weeks, and see how it makes you feel.

Grateful people are happier people. Gratitude reduces negativity and makes you value what you already have in life, as opposed to what you think you should have.

Not that there’s anything wrong with hard work, of course. Just make sure you value what you have already. It will reduce your stress, make you feel uplifted, improve your brain health, and put your life into better perspective.

This is an incredibly simple step that can do a lot of positive things for your brain health, no matter what age you are.

6) Listen to, or Better Yet, Play Music

Music is very, very powerful for maintaining a healthy brain. In fact, playing music activates every part of your brain. No other activity does this.

Additionally, those who play musical instruments are much more likely to prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. They have also been shown to recover from strokes much better than those who aren’t musically talented.

Playing music also stimulates your creativity, reduces depression, helps you sleep better, enhances your coordination, increases your memory, keeps you more in touch with your emotions, and a lot more.

If you don’t play music, listening is still good. It’s just that playing is much better because it is hands-on and requires much more of your brain to perform.

You probably have heard about the Mozart effect, which induces a short-term improvement on tasks while listening to classical music. This effect is very real. Therefore it’s very helpful to listen to some classical music while you work or study.

Another popular type of music when doing work or studying is binaural beats. It may sound weird at first, but listen to these when you have a good set of headphones and you’re working on a project!

7) Exercise Is Essential For A Healthy Brain and Body

Exercise isn’t just great for your body, it’s great for your brain as well.

Exercise opens up the blood flow in your body and to your brain. It repairs old brain cells and it helps new ones grow.

Both anaerobic (lifting) and aerobic (running, bicycling) exercise also help reduce stress, depression, and anxiety, and improve insulin sensitivity. Insulin release is pro-inflammatory, which is very bad for the brain and is linked to almost every type of mental illness. Insulin also releases a lot of glucose into the brain all at once, which causes sugar fluctuations that are not good for the brain either.

And of course, exercise makes you feel and look good. These effects alone can significantly reduce your daily stress and make you feel much better about yourself.

So what kind of exercise should you do? Again, anaerobic and aerobic are both great at achieving all of these goals. Anaerobic exercise is important for building muscle mass and strength, which is important at any age. Aerobic is great for heart health, endurance, and proper blood flow.

Ideally, you want to get some of both to maximize the health benefits you get from exercise.

Be sure to talk to your doctor if you have any concerns about an exercise program.

8) A Proper Diet Is Essential for Brain Health

Like pretty much everything we’ve mentioned, a healthy diet is essential for a healthy body and for a healthy brain.

Here are general guidelines for a brain healthy diet:

  • Eat More Antioxidants: Antioxidants reduce inflammation and thus free radicals in your body. This reduces your cancer risk and improves your brain health. Again, inflammation is linked to all sorts of mental health disorders. Antioxidants include almost every type of fruit and vegetable, plus tea and supplements such as Vitamin C and E.
  • Eat Omega 3’s: Omega 3’s, particularly the DHA and EPA found in Fish OIl, are excellent for your brain. Fish oil has been shown to improve memory and reduce depression. It’s also great for your eyes, joints, and a lot more. Try to get at least several grams of EPA and DHA from fish every day. You may want to take even more if you’re concerned about your Omega 3:6 balance.
  • Cut out the vegetable oils: We know, you’ve probably been told that vegetable oils are healthy for you. But they are not. They are highly refined, loaded with pro-inflammatory omega 6 fatty acids, and are thus bad for your brain health. Replace them with oils such as regular butter, ghee, avocado, and coconut oil.
  • Eat eggs. Forget what your mother told you about eggs, cholesterol, and saturated fat. A reasonable cholesterol level is essential to keep your brain healthy. Your brain stores 25% of the cholesterol in your body. Low cholesterol is very bad for your brain health. Read our section on cholesterol for more.
  • Eat less refined carbs and sugar: Refined carbs and sugar produce a large insulin response, which causes inflammation. Carbohydrates do this in general, but refined carbohydrates are the worst offenders. Moderation is fine but cut down on refined carbohydrates as much as possible.
  • Drink tea or coffee. Caffeine is healthy for the brain in moderation. If you drink tea, go for yerba mate tea to reduce the harmful fluoride content. If you drink coffee, use a French Press to make better tasting coffee that reduces your exposure to xenoestrogens such as BPA.
  • Eat enough protein: Not only does protein build your muscles, but it’s also the most filling macronutrient (macronutrients are carbs, fat, and protein) by far. The best sources of protein are animal protein, dairy, fish, and eggs. Other types of protein, such as from grains and nuts are incomplete, meaning they don’t have all of the amino acids required to do their job. You can have some incomplete protein in your diet, but focus on complete protein. Avoid soy protein because it will mess with your hormone levels.
  • Eat less processed foods: The amount of garbage in processed foods is insane. They are loaded with Omega 6 Fatty acids, refined carbs, soy, and other unhealthy nonsense you do not want in your body. They are pro-inflammatory and have very negative effects on your brain health. Cook and prepare your meals as much as possible to avoid these foods.

Following all of these diet tips will lead to a healthy body and a healthy brain.

9) Manage Your Stress

Stress relief is a huge part of having a healthy brain.

There are many ways to relieve stress. Many of these we have repeated before. You can:

  • Write autobiographically. Write about your past, present, or future self. Try Jordan Peterson’s self-authoring program.
  • Breathe deep: When you feel stressed, take a large deep breath through your nose and out through your mouth. Repeat 10-15 times. This slows down your breathing and thus your response to stress.
  • Keep great friendships: You should keep a network of positive people who can help you when you need it. See section 11.
  • Exercise: Exercise is incredible for stress relief. See section 7
  • Listen to relaxing music: The right type of music will calm you down. Try listening to music such as this.
  • Meditate: Meditation is absolutely huge for stress relief. See section 4
  • Express daily gratitude: Mention three things that you’re grateful for each morning. See section 5

Your brain will thank you for managing your stress. Stress releases hormones called catecholamines, which cause inflammation. As we’ve said, chronic inflammation is terrible for brain health and is linked to virtually every mental disorders.

One last note here: you must be able to manage stress, not avoid it. You need to have some stress over important things, such as your health and relationships when things go wrong. You shouldn’t be so stressed that you do not take care of yourself and your relationships.

The key is not to manage your stress levels and not stress over things you cannot control. Proper stress management is a key contributor to a very healthy brain!

10) Get Enough Sleep

Did you know that after less than 7 hours of sleep, blood flow to your brain starts to decrease?

And did you know that in the early 1900s, people averaged between 8 to 9 hours of sleep each night? Yet in 2011, the average amount of sleep each night dropped to six hours!

The effects this has on society’s health cannot be understated!

Sleep is essential to:

  • Reduce stress and anxiety: Your body is in a stressed-out state when you don’t get enough sleep. This is poor
  • Reduce cravings: Cravings get worse when you don’t sleep. Thus, those who sleep less eat more.
  • Maintain memory and attention: As you know, if you don’t sleep, your memory gets worse and it’s harder to focus.
  • Promote general health: Sleep repairs the body and gets it ready for another day. Chronic sleep deprivation causes many mental and physical health problems.
  • Maintain a healthy sex drive: This is true for men and women. Even acute sleep deprivation has been shown to drop men’s testosterone levels significantly. And who doesn’t want a healthy sex drive?
  • Maintain skin health: Have you ever noticed how your skin looks worse when you don’t sleep? Your skin needs rest in order to get proper blood flow.
  • Maintain a healthy weight: When you don’t sleep well, it’s harder to control your bad habits. And thus, you tend to lose control of your cravings, eat more, and gain weight.

So make sure you’re sleeping at least 7-8 hours a night as much as possible. We understand that this is not always possible with a busy schedule. However, almost all of us have bad sleep habits that can be improved with just a little bit of effort and willpower.

Make sure your room is a comfortable temperature, your sheets are comfortable, you don’t let others wake you up, and you don’t put on so many blankets that you wake up sweating in the middle of the night. Also, try not to drink too much water before you go to bed so you don’t wake up in the middle of the night to pee. This is a common mistake.

Any disruption to your sleep can throw off your REM cycles and end up in sub-optimal brain health. While sometimes this is inevitable, you want to avoid these disruptions as much as possible.

11) Maintain Positive Relationships

Maintain a healthy brain by maintaining positive relationships.

People’s energy levels are contagious. Or toxic, depending on who they are.

You should stay around positive people as much as possible. Ditch the negative relationships in your life and focus on developing positive ones. Only spend time with people who have good things going on for them.

If you are a goal-oriented person, then develop a relationship with an accountability partner. These types of relationships are incredibly productive and will keep your brain very healthy. Your partner will give you positive peer pressure to expand your mindset to achieve your goals.

It may be hard to avoid negativity if it’s a close family member, but you can do as much to help them as much as possible. You can start by linking them to this article!

Positive attitudes are contagious. It sounds like something you learned in elementary school, we know. But it’s true; stressful people tend to make you feel stressed if you let them. So spend your time with positive people and ditch negative relationships as much as possible.

12) Take Brain Healthy Supplements

Before you take any supplements, remember that diet and exercise are the most important. After you’ve addressed those two, there are some very effective supplements you can take for a healthy brain. And make sure you speak with your doctor before you take any supplement that you are unsure of.

Here are some of the best brain health supplements:

  • Circumin: Reduces Inflammation and has been shown to promote healthy aging. This is good for the body and good for the brain. Many users also report that it helps with chronic pain.
  • Fish OIl: Excellent for all-around health and absolutely essential for brain health. Your brain is comprised of Omega 3 fatty acids, which the Western diet is heavily deficient is. You need to take Fish OIl if you don’t eat fish at least a few times a week!
  • Krill OIl: Krill Oil is said to be more potent than Fish oil, and it has a very powerful antioxidant known as astaxanthin as well. Krill oil has more DHA than EPA, 
  • Vitamin B Complex: B vitamins are very important for proper nervous system and brain health. A large number of Americans are B vitamin deficient. VItamins B6, B9 (folic acid), and B12 are known as the most important for brain health. They work together to prevent mental decline such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
  • Magnesium: Approximately half of the US population is deficient in magnesium! Magnesium is used for over 300+ chemical reactions in the body and is very important to make you feel more relaxed and calm. Make sure you get magnesium citrate because it is the best absorbing form of magnesium by far.
  • Creatine: Although creatine is known to be used by athletes for athletic performance, it is also used for brain health as well. Creatine is the most studied supplement on earth and is widely considered to be safe and incredibly effective. While it might be too much to use Creatine by itself for brain health, you may want to take it for athletic performance and recovery, then enjoy the nootropic benefits of it as a helpful side effect.
  • Nootropics: Nootropics are heavily sought after by those who seek to “hack” the brain. A good nootropic can increase your focus, attention, and mental energy naturally. There are many nootropics out there to choose from, including a popular one known as Clarity.
  • Vitamin D: Vitamin D is absolutely essential for brain health and general health. It is essential for hormone production, proper mood, and prostate cancer prevention. Low Vitamin D levels result in poor cognitive function and are extremely common in Western society. Optimal Vitamin D levels appear to be in the 50-60 nmol/L range. It’s very cheap and easy to get your Vitamin D levels checked by your doctor to know the dose you should take. If you’re Vitamin D deficient, supplementing with this should bring you up to the proper level within a few months. Make sure you’re taking your Vitamin D with some Vitamin K2, but make sure you speak with your doctor if you’re taking any kind of blood thinner before taking Vitamin K2.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of great advice in this post for a healthy brain. In a nutshell, you should have gathered that keeping your body healthy generally gives you a healthy brain as well.

It doesn’t matter if you’re young and trying to get in great shape, or if you’re older and you just want to stay sharp until the day you die. It’s very important to take this advice seriously to have a healthy brain.

If you found this article useful, be sure to follow us on Twitter. And subscribe to our email list for more health tips, self-improvement advice, and new promotions and discounts on our books. And of course, be sure to check out our books.

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]]> The One Underrated and Powerful Method to Reduce Stress Now https://www.publishingpulse.com/underrated-powerful-method-reduce-stress/ Fri, 16 Feb 2018 19:01:00 +0000 https://www.publishingpulse.com/?p=342 If you could learn a simple, powerful way to reduce stress on a daily basis, would you do it? Of course the vast majority of us would. It’s normal to have a degree of stress Read more…

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If you could learn a simple, powerful way to reduce stress on a daily basis, would you do it?

Of course the vast majority of us would.

It’s normal to have a degree of stress every day. It doesn’t matter if it’s from our jobs, our kids, our friends, our significant other, or from any other source.

Since stress is normal, it’s important to know how to manage it. When stress starts getting uncomfortable and hard to control, it really, really sucks! It starts triggering a host of uncomfortable symptoms in your body, such as shakiness, nervousness, heart palpitations, or even a full-grown panic attack.

As you may already know, high stress levels are bad for your health. Excessive stress is linked to heart disease, diabetes, depression, stroke, inflammatory conditions, and a lot more. This is one of many reasons you want to have some methods for stress relief.

Since it’s so important to know how to reduce stress, we’re going to teach you one of the most powerful methods to do so. In addition to the powerful method we are going to teach you, we’re also going to give you some additional stress reduction tips to fit into your lifestyle. Plus, we will give you further reading if you’re interested in learning a lot more.

Let’s begin!

We Are Often Our Own Worst Enemies With Stress

Unfortunately, we often are our own worst enemies when it comes to stress. Many of us, for instance, have self-defeating thoughts that make our stressful situations much worse.

No matter what we don’t like about ourselves — whether it’s our performance at something, our appearance, our perceived flaws, or anything else; our negative thoughts about ourselves become our worst enemy.

If you find yourself constantly attacking yourself as your worst critic, rest assured, you are not alone! Unfortunately, this is extremely common.

If this is you, there is a book you will love called Self Compassion and Mindfulness for Healing and Acceptance by Jason Jacobsmith.

This book will teach you some basic meditation techniques, and it will teach you how to become more mindful and self-compassionate to reduce stress on a daily basis. It clears up many misconceptions about meditation and teaches you exactly why meditation is excellent at clearing your mind and reducing stress. Even if you have never meditated before, or if you have any hangups about this subject, this book will teach you what you need to know in clear, easily understood terms.

But of course, we have some great tips here for you to read as well. This article will expand on many concepts you can find in Self Compassion and Mindfulness for Healing and Acceptance to help you reduce your stressful thoughts forever.

Specifically, we will now discuss the power of reframing negative thoughts. This is easily one of the most powerful and underrated techniques to reduce stress!

Reduce Stress by Changing Your Mindset and Reframing Your Thoughts

Your mindset is the key to how you see the world. It’s almost like an operating system for a computer, except it’s for your brain. Your brain and nervous system control your body, so your mindset is the essentially the key to where your body goes and what you do with it.

Now, to illustrate the point we’re about to make, let us give you a quick psychology and anatomy lesson.

Anytime you have a stressful thought, your brain triggers a hormonal response through your sympathetic nervous system. This triggers catecholamines (stress hormones) to be released from your adrenal glands, which are on top of and connected to both of your kidneys.

You most likely have heard of cortisol, the primary catecholamine (or stress hormone). And you undoubtedly have heard of adrenaline. When these two hormones are released, they increase your blood pressure, heart rate, breathing, and blood flow to your muscles, they slow your digestion, as well as a host of other responses.

If that’s more anatomy than you want to learn right now, then just know that your brain directly releases stress hormones when you have stressful thoughts.

These stress hormones make you ready for a “fight or flight” response, but when they are released in excessive amounts, they are extremely uncomfortable and bad for your physical and mental health.

You can shut a lot of this process off by avoiding stressful thoughts as much as possible. And believe it or not, yes, you can train yourself to do this.

We will now teach you how to do this.

A Powerful Method to Reduce Stress by Reframing Negative Events

In the book Self Compassion and Mindfulness for Healing and Acceptance, Jason Jacobsmith discusses the importance of reframing thoughts to significantly reduce stress. This is an extremely useful, powerful, and underrated technique that many people have never thought of.

Now, to do this properly, it is a several step process that takes some awareness, repetition, and practice.

But once you do it, if you keep at it by making it a habit, you’ll be amazed how powerful this is at relieving stress.

This is a several step process. Are you ready?

  1. First, you must notice the labels you stick on your experiences.
  2. Then you must challenge the unhelpful judgments and assumptions we make about yourself and your perception of reality. These, combined with the labels you put on your negative experiences, are your trigger thoughts.
  3. Then you must redirect the excessive focus you put on negative events and reword them into positive terms. This is known as reframing.

Are you following us so far?

We’ll give you two examples to make this clearer.

The First Example:

Again, the first step is to be aware of our trigger thoughts that start the process of negative thinking.

For instance, all of us have worked with someone we don’t like. In this case, the trigger thought might be “I really hate working with him/her.” This causes a mindset of anger and annoyance, along with a release of stress hormones.

Here’s what you must do in this situation.

  1. Identify the label you create when you think of this person. In this case, you associate your thoughts with this person to that of hatred –  “I really hate working with him/her”. This is bound to cause stress! Here’s your trigger thought.
  2. Next, challenge the unhelpful assumptions that you make. Do you really hate this person? Can you learn something from working with them? Is there something you can do to make the relationship better?
  3. Now, replace this trigger thought with something much more helpful such as “I may not enjoy working with this person, but I can bear it. I have done this many times before and I can do it again.” This is your reframe.

Do you see the difference already?

You must practice this! Write this down if necessary, and say it to yourself every time you have the initial negative trigger thought.

We’re not saying that you can totally remove your dislike for this person just by reframing your thoughts, and we’re not saying that every negative experience will automatically become a positive. We are saying, however, that you can turn many negative thoughts into neutral or positive thoughts and learning experiences.

And this mindset makes a huge difference in your view of the world as well as how it affects your daily stress.

Now, let’s go through another example.

The Second Example:

Trigger thought: I’m going to get fired from my job if I can’t do this.

Reframe: This is a stressful task, but how likely is that to happen? I have a valuable set of skills and it would be very inconvenient for them to fire me. The boss likes me and will probably forgive me if I make a mistake.

A lot of people think that just because they can’t get something done perfectly, or if they make a mistake, they’re going to get fired. Many play up this fear to an astronomical level, yet the threat never happens. Even if they do get fired, they find a new job within a month. The stress of the threat is more dangerous than the actual event!

Now, if you find yourself in a situation like this, ask yourself this: what are the chances of getting fired? We’re not saying that it’s impossible, but it’s not nearly as high as you think in most cases.

Would it make sense for your boss to fire you? Would it be convenient for them?

And if you got fired tomorrow, what would you do? You probably live in a first-world country that would take care of you, if necessary, while you looked for a new job. You have skills to offer to the world (you have to in order to have a job!), and you would be able to find another job in a reasonable amount of time.

Thinking this out should be very helpful and comforting. If you reframe your thoughts in this direction, it will dramatically reduce the stress you undergo when you face this type of adversity.

How to Practice This Technique

The classic technique is to create a two-column chart in a pocket notebook. Any time you have a negative (triggering) thought, write it down on the left column. Then, write down a reframed, positive thought in the right column for that trigger thought.

This makes it easy to identify a negative trigger thought with some time. Every time you have this thought, you can look at your chart to remind yourself of the proper reframe.

Over time, this becomes a very positive habit. After a short while you won’t need to have your chart with you all the time, but it’s great to keep around as a reference regardless.

Practice this for anywhere between a week to a few months and see if it helps you.

Assorted Tips To Reduce Stress:

Now, just because we like you and we want you to be as stress free as possible, let’s give you a few other stress reduction tips:

  • Exercise bare minimum three days a week. Anything from a daily walk to a dance class to heavy weight lifting; all of these are excellent at reducing stress.
  • Eat a clean diet. Reduce the amount of sugar in your diet. Eat fruits and vegetables. Have low glycemic carbohydrates. Eat adequate protein. Protein keeps you full and spares your muscles from breaking down.
  • Make sure your diet has enough Omega 3 fatty acids. This is crucial and is a totally overlooked problem with the modern diet. The research is very clear about this issue.
  • Make sure you are getting enough Magnesium in your diet. Magnesium deficiency is directly linked to high stress levels. Since magnesium, like all electrolytes, had to come from the body to enter the bloodstream, blood levels of magnesium can be normal but your cell levels can be low.
  • Meditate. We’ve said it enough, we know, but pick up a copy of Self Compassion and Mindfulness for Healing and Acceptance to learn some basic meditation techniques very quickly. Meditation is excellent at making you more mindful and thoughtful, and thus it helps dramatically relieve stres.
  • Control your finances and get out of debt. An excellent book on this is Rich Dad Poor Dad, which is being sold for dirt cheap at the moment.
  • Have an emergency fund in case things go wrong. What’s better, going on an expensive vacation and buying the newest IPhone, or having enough money saved up that you can handle a job loss for several months? This can be huge for reducing your stress levels.
  • Become more productive and learn how to destroy your procrastination habits. Action is the opposite of depression.

All of these are crucial lifestyle tips that will help you dramatically reduce stress.

Please note that no health-related information here is a replacement for informed medical advice. If you have any concerns, be sure to see your doctor before you begin any type of exercise or supplementation.

Conclusion:

If you take nothing else from this article, just remember that reframing your negative thoughts can have a serious effect on providing stress relief.

Again, if you liked this article, there’s much more on meditation and how to reduce stress in Self Compassion and Mindfulness for Healing and Acceptance. There is a lot of excellent information on meditation, mindset, and stress reduction. If you read through the book and apply the techniques within, you can expect to reduce your stress significantly.

We can’t promise you’ll never have stress ever again (organisms literally die when there’s never any stress!) but if you can reframe and eliminate your ruminating thoughts, we can promise some significant stress relief.

That’s all, everyone. Hopefully, this article helped you think in the right direction to reduce your daily stress! If you enjoyed this article, be sure to follow us on Twitter, and sign up for our email list for a lot more incredibly helpful self-improvement tips, as well as discounts and promotions on all of our books!

The post The One Underrated and Powerful Method to Reduce Stress Now appeared first on Publishing Pulse.

]]> Why You Should Read Daily To Accelerate Your Personal Growth https://www.publishingpulse.com/read-daily-accelerate-personal-growth/ Sun, 04 Feb 2018 17:53:29 +0000 https://www.publishingpulse.com/?p=303 We should all strive for self improvement and personal growth every day of our lives. If you’re reading this article, you may be asking yourself why exactly reading is so beneficial to your personal growth, Read more…

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We should all strive for self improvement and personal growth every day of our lives.

If you’re reading this article, you may be asking yourself why exactly reading is so beneficial to your personal growth, or your life in general.

If you’re not asking yourself that, that’s fine. We’re going to tell you anyway — and we’re going to make you understand some facts about reading that will help you look at it in a different light.

And just because we’re that great, we’re going to give you a useful resource on making your non-fiction, goal-oriented reading at least twice as efficient at the end of this article.

Please note that throughout this article, we will be primarily discussing non-fiction reading for self improvement, as opposed to fiction reading for entertainment.

Now, let’s begin.

Why Should Reading Be A Part of Your Routine?

Frankly, if you’re concerned with your personal growth and self improvement, there are many things you can do.

You can:

  • Write in a daily journal.
  • Get in shape.
  • Learn a martial art.
  • Learn meditation.
  • Learn a valuable subject such as world history or geography.
  • Travel to a distant location.
  • And probably thousands of other things.

All of these are worthwhile ways to spend your time and expand your personal development.

But if you’re concerned with your personal development — whether you want to build a business, travel the world, learn a new skill, or just enhance your knowledge for your own boredom or self-interest; reading must be a part of your routine!

Reading is a classic way of learning that will never go out of style. No matter what type of reading it is; books, ebooks, magazines, online articles, or anything else, reading materials are cheaper to mass produce than ever, and thus are the most economical way for someone to get inside the head of an expert on their respective subjective.

It seems these days that almost every renowned expert or even semi-famous celebrity has a book, whether they wrote it themselves or it was ghost-written with their guidance.

There’s a reason for this. Not only does it grant them perceived authority and credibility as an expert, but it’s a classic and easy medium for spreading their ideas. And, of course, they also make money.

If you’re a big fan of someone, you’ll probably read their book. Among many other reasons, this is often because reading their writing gives you a solid perspective of how their mind works.

For instance, if you want to know how a successful investor looks at the world, you’d probably want to read a book such as Rich Dad Poor Dad. By doing this, you’re delving outside of your world to see the world from the viewpoint of the rich, and thus, you’ll be taught crucial techniques on money management that you likely never thought of before you read the book.

Even if you read just an average of 30-60 minutes a day, if you read enough articles and books over a long course of time, you’ll get a ton of viewpoints on the world that will provide you a ton of knowledge you wouldn’t have obtained otherwise. This bodes handsomely for your personal growth and success, especially if you choose to use that knowledge to take yourself further in your life.

And look, despite the fact that people generally prefer to watch Youtube these days, the power of the written word has not changed. Authors know that they’re literally telling you what to think for the duration of your time reading their books. That’s power for the author; and for a reader who wants to hear the author’s message, that’s incredibly powerful as well.

So why else should you become an avid reader? We’ll give you five more reasons.

Five More Reasons Why Reading is Great for Self Improvement and Personal Growth

1. Reading is the cheapest and easiest way to get in-depth knowledge from an expert on their given subject.

While experts might sell seminars or charge you expensive hourly rates for their personal time, what they deliver in book form is exponentially cheaper than anything. Reading allows you to access an expert’s mind for dirt cheap.

2. Reading is an inexpensive, productive past time in general.

It is way cheaper to be an avid reader than an avid hunter, car collector, or anything else. Not that we have anything against vacations, but a “staycation” with a great book can be very relaxing and mind opening. For best results, take a staycation to somewhere local, peaceful, and beautiful, then bust out the reading!

3. Reading is among the highest ROI (Return on Investment) activities for personal growth.

Again, due to the inexpensiveness and insight you acquire from reading, reading is one of the best ROIs activities you can do. Just make sure you follow up reading with action (which we will discuss soon).

4. Most books are loaded with the information you need to get started on or dramatically improve your knowledge in a given subject

You really don’t need to go to an expensive class or seminar. If you want to start a business or a side gig, reading a book and then putting the principles into action is a lot cheaper and often more effective than going to school for it. It depends on the subject, of course, but you can read about the majority of subjects, then put the practices into action and become very well versed over a course of time.

5. Reading makes you a better communicator.

If you have any interest in enhancing your communication skills for any reason, whether it’s through writing or speaking, reading a lot will make your communication skills much better. Reading will teach you how to tell a story, how to persuade, how to educate, and a lot more.

We think these are all great reasons to read for personal growth. Have we convinced you yet?

How Reading is Changing

Now, let’s mention something interesting and important to note. Although reading will never go away, the way we’re reading is changing.

As we all know, e-books are becoming much more popular, even if they are not taking over entirely. At Publishing Pulse, we love Kindles because they are excellent at just giving you the book to read with no distractions. It’s totally different reading on a Kindle versus a cell phone or tablet because the latter options will distract you anytime a message comes up from a friend or just one of your 5000 installed apps. Distractions make you dramatically less productive!

But many people still have a hard time putting down their distractions. And because everything is constantly trying to grab our attention, it’s a lot harder to sit down and read an entire 200+ page book for most people than it used to be.

Fortunately, there’s a market for this. You can get an excellent introduction to a subject with a book that doesn’t take you more than an hour to read. If you truly like the subject, then you can dive in much deeper with another book.

For example, if you’re wanting a quick but still detailed dive in meditation, you would want to pick up a copy of Self Compassion and Mindfulness For Healing and Acceptance to learn some basic meditation theory, techniques, and to reduce your daily stress. The chances are very high that you’ll love the book, get a ton of value out of it, and want to learn even more about meditation. But if you realized you had no interest in it, you only spent $2.99 and an hour of your life, and still probably learned something useful anyway!

If you’re interested in a quick tutorial on eliminating your procrastination habits, you would want to pick up a copy of The Sexiest Book On Smashing Procrastination You’ll Ever Read (we know the title is funny).

Although detail can be very useful, you often don’t need to spend a ton of time researching certain subjects. Often times you just need a few great ideas, and you just need to act on them. Procrastination is one of those subjects, and thus it’s generally wiser to read an informative but shorter book to get to the important information quickly— otherwise, you might just procrastinate some more.

Anyway, perhaps we ranted a bit there. If you want to read longer books, there’s no shame in it whatsoever. We believe that longer books and shorter books both have their places. The point is that the industry is changing, and that means more options for you as a reader.

And of course, we’re a business — so we wanted to slyly plug some of our shorter self-development books that we are very confident will help you!

Let’s Not Pat Ourselves On the Back Too Soon….

Let’s make one final point that we were hitting at. If you want to accelerate your personal growth, you cannot just read.

As we love to say here at Publishing Pulse, if you are reading a nonfiction book for self improvement, you must apply the information that you are reading into your life as much as possible.

While we say it’s better to be a bookworm than someone who never takes any time to read or do any real activity towards self improvement and personal growth, it’s even better to be a doer than only a reader.

Remember, information comes first. Action comes second. If you’re reading for self improvement, you absolutely must act on what you’ve read to put it into use.

If you want to learn about how to get the most out of your reading, make sure you read How to Dramatically Improve Your Efficiency Reading Any Nonfiction Book (In Under 5 Minutes). There are some excellent tips in that article that will help you ensure that you’re getting the most out of your non-fiction reading for personal growth. As we said at the beginning of this article, this article will at least double the amount you’re getting out of your reading if you aren’t reading efficiently.

Conclusion

Read daily to accelerate your personal growth. Then act on that knowledge.

It’s a simple habit and it’s extremely powerful.

Whether you are an avid reader or just one who reads as a hobby, reading will make you a much more well rounded, more intelligent, more successful, more complete person.

If you enjoyed this article, sign up for our email list to get all of our new ones delivered directly to your email address. You will also be alerted to any special promotions, discounts, and new releases on our excellent lineup of books, and if for some reason you don’t find our information helpful, you can unsubscribe at any time. You can also follow us on Twitter for much more commentary and advice on reading and self improvement.

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