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[gusnemeth]

Hey gents,

I’m curious as to what are the 3 SIMPLE not necessarily easy, but non-complex ways I can improve my day to day mindset/mental state?

Thanks
Gus

[UpRiverGreg]

Hey Gus,

Thanks for the post and welcome to the forum!

Three simple things that I can say actually had a noticeable effect on my mindset are as follows:

1) Taking some time daily to reflect and do nothing
Usually I try to slip away for about 20 minutes to do literally nothing. I try to do this as near the middle of the day as possible, which is around 2pm for me. I don’t look at my phone or read or do anything during this time. I just sit on my bed or chair and relax for a bit while I process the first half of my day. While this doesn’t sound like much (it is nothing, afterall) its probably the most powerful thing I do to keep me feeling positive and motivated. Its huge for dealing with anything that might be stressing me that day, and without fail I feel much more motivated and energetic after doing it.

2) Deep breaths
It’s amazing how much slowing your breath can slow everything else down. Sometimes when things are really busy or hectic at work, my mind starts to feel like its spiralling out of control. Not only does this make me feel shitty, it also makes me super unproductive and unfocused. It sounds childish almost, but giving yourself a moment to take 10 deep and slow breaths, and I mean DEEP and SLOW, is like hitting the reset button on my brain. I instantly feel way more relaxed, clearheaded and ready to focus on what needs to be done. As an added bonus I find this also helps a lot for falling asleep on those nights where you have too much on your mind keeping you up.

3) Repeating a Mantra to yourself
When things get tough and my mindset starts slipping I like to remind myself that “No matter what I will be okay”. I make a point to actually “say” those words to myself in my head a few times. When I’m alone Ill even say them to myself out loud. This simple act of reminding myself of that little fact never fails to improve my mindset, even if just a little bit. The best part about it? It’s completely true! I will be okay. Im 25 years into this life, and while its had its ups and downs, I am still okay. I have no reason to believe that that will ever change, regardless of what life throws at me. I will make it through and I will be okay. Of course your mantra doesnt specifically have to be “No matter what I will be okay” but you get the idea

Looking forward to hearing what the rest of you guys have to say

[UpRiverMatt]

Hey Gus,

Good to see you on the forum!

Here are three things that I think work best.

1. Exercise: I think exercising is even more important for my mental health than physical. I even forget this sometimes and after I workout, and especially when I don’t feel like doing it in the first place, I get a bit of a high after and see everything in a better light. For me, it’s either weight lifting, or a jog recently. We adapt to demands placed upon us, if you do hard things you get strong and strength breeds a healthy mind I think.

2. Doing nothing/relaxing: I have to agree with Greg here. I see this like eating. If you are constantly stuffing yourself with food all day and never stop to digest, you’ll be very sick very soon. The mind needs time not to do “nothing” but to process all the something it already has taken in. I HATE the idea of doing nothing, I feel like if I stop doing things I’ll lose my lift like an airplane and start falling, falling into a black hole and fall for eternity, but when I actually do nothing and just sit there with a little Buddha smile, I realize that is an unfounded fear. Blocking off inputs into your brain is a necessity to allow you to digest and assimilate the information you take in all day.

3. Conception: How you use the imagination/perception muscle of your mind dictates your life. How you view events, other people, and especially yourself are what determines how you feel about these things. We can pretty simply control our feelings and thoughts towards a thing, including ourselves, if we practice. Anyone can be negative, it takes practice to be positive.
This includes:
-Gratitude practice: actively appreciating the good about things. You can’t feel bad when you feel grateful. This is a shift in perception. Like Shakespeare says, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Bad and good stuff happens, we often focus on the bad too much.
-Self-image: I read in the book Psychocybernetics something that struck me about how we view ourselves: “The self image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment”. You act according to who you think you are. A loser often acts like a loser because he thinks he is one already, and further reinforces his loser self image. Replace images you have of yourself in your mind with ones you want and you will automatically aim for them.
-Imagination = target outcome: A lot of pro sports athletes conceive of victory before they win and swear by it. Imagine or perceive victory before it happens and your body tries to make it happen. It acts on this image you make. Imagine failure and your body acts on that image all the same. The nervous system sees imagination like a goal, “oh ok you must want this then”. It’s the same with the self image, and the same with gratitude. You get more of what you focus on.

Conception all has to do with the image we form in our minds of things. We have levers we can use to move that shift this image, and our entire being aligns with this image, our nervous system acts upon it like a heat seeking missile. Images create an understanding which creates emotions which dictate our state of mind. We cannot actually tell the difference between a real thing and an imagined thing, which tells me the power of imagination. Conceive of what you want, become pregnant with the good images not the bad ones.

Exercise, do nothing sometimes, and conceive good things.

What are three things you would recommend Gus?

[gusnemeth]

Thank you both so much for the beyond useful suggestions. I’ve never tried a mantra before, I will be sure to try it for the next week or so and see how it serves me. Have you found, “no matter what I will be okay” most useful or do you think it’s best to have something more personal to address my own concerns? I’ve implemented a daily gratitude practice after reading the article on this very website (https://projectupriver.com/gratitude-practice/). I will also give the other methods of conception you mentioned a try. Building a stronger self-image seems like something I certainly would benefit from!

As for myself, oddly enough cold showers are really important for my mindset, once a day I remind myself that I am in control of my own mind and actions, no matter how much I would rather be doing anything else I get in the cold a** water. My daily meditation practice has always been important to me, taking the time to slow down and see the negative chatter in my head for what it is (chatter), that way I don’t identify with it. Finally, the daily gratitude practice I picked up from this very website is 100% the most useful practice I have picked up in recent years, it’s simply one of those things that everyone ought to do.

Thank you guys for your suggestion and this resource! I hope someday soon you guys will do a newsletter! Would love updates on new articles, discussion posts, and whatever else you guys come up with!

Gus

[UpRiverGreg]

“no matter what I’ll be okay” is the most useful to me, as for some reason when things get stressful my mind can tend to drastically exagerate the consequences of things. When things go slightly wrong and I’m feeling overwhelmed my mind can try to convince me that its the end of the world. A thought process somewhere along the lines of “I messed up on this one little thing so now my entire business is going to go under and I’ll be homeless in a week and surely dead in a month”

My mantra helps ground me and instantly snap me out of that unproductive mindset. It reminds me that this little issue I’m facing is just that, a little issue. One that I will overcome in the same way that I have overcome all of the thousand little, and big, issues before in the past and still be perfectly fine on the other side of it.

If you experience a similar sort of anxiety Id recommend giving the “no matter what Ill be okay” mantra a try. If it works for you, great. Otherwise play around with it and personalize it until you find one that works for you

[UpRiverMatt]

Can’t go wrong with cold showers, meditation, and gratitude. I like what you pointed out about the cold showers, it’s more about the practice of demonstrating control than it is the physical benefits.

Apparently one of the most famous mantras is by a chemist from France, and his phrase, “day by day, in every way, I am getting better and better” caught on to millions in France and abroad during the 20s around the time he died. It seems like a pretty good one, but to your point I do think it should be personal. It makes sense to use the mantra as a way to supplant negative thoughts that bother you personally with their opposite.

It seems a theme of the discussion in this thread it taking control of your mental state in some form or another like cold showers, gratitude, how you conceive of things, and meditation rather than letting it take control of you or go on autopilot. I guess whatever works best for a person of these strategies is best determined through experimentation.

If you’d be interested in a newsletter, we might just have to make one. You’ll be the first to know!

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