Reframing your life with rituals is like putting your brain in order.
Do you ever wonder what does your brain need to function as a perfect machine?
The brain needs two basic things: it needs sleep to recharge and it needs good thoughts as food.
In this blog, I will focus on how to feed your brain positive thoughts as food.
In psychology, this practice is called cognitive restructuring. In my audio-training, I call this ritual “How to tame your brain.”
Basically, you learn how to restructure the thoughts you feed your brain in your everyday life.
From my exploration of the brain as a physician and neuroscientist, I learned one thing with confidence: reframing your everyday life thoughts can create a dramatic change in your brain and correspondingly in your sense of perspective and in how you perceive stress in your life.
As a result, you can see clearly what you need and what you don’t, and what you want to prioritize. Over time you will learn to surround yourself by the people and things that can nurture you and make you thrive and grow. Ultimately, you will evolve.
How the brain creates behaviors
The fundamental function of the brains of all animals is to integrate information gathered from the environment and then generate adaptive responses that we call behaviors.
This is because the brain likes patterns. This capacity to identify and create patterns is a function of our nervous system that played a fundamental role in our evolution in association with the expansion of the cerebral cortex, particularly of the prefrontal cortex, the area of our brain where the high cognitive functions happen.
Throughout our evolution and history, specific patterns, real or imagined, have been reinforced by experience, emotions, religions, and society.
Compared to other species, the human brain is particularly advanced in its ability to recognize and create new patterns.
And the good news is that this function gets better with practice: the more we are exposed to a particular activity the more and faster our brains generate solutions to the problem we are trying to solve.
Back to the “How to tame your brain” ritual…
Scientific research calls this technique cognitive reappraisal or restructuring. I like to call it the “how to tame your brain technique.”
Think of this ritual as transforming magical thinking into a magic reality.
This technique is particularly good for all the excessive activities of your brain.
In fact, at times we tend to overthink or think wishfully. This overthinking can take different forms:
- You might be beating yourself up and feel that you are not good enough.
- You might be ruminating about the past.
- You might be unable to resist a thought to do something and be anxious and impatient.
- You might have recurring thoughts of sadness and feel depressed.
- You might find yourself being overly angry or reactive to people or situations.
This overthinking attitude can create extreme stress for our brain that over time can become toxic if we don’t stop it.
When you download my free audio-training you can learn how this ritual works.
Think of it as teaching yourself how to increase your emotional agility.
This practice will teach you
- how to bring more focus and transparency to your emotions
- how to handle your emotions in a constructive way
- how to develop a more effective relationship with your emotions
You will learn to make your emotions the compass that drives your actions.
This will shift gears in your brain and change your brain biochemistry and physiology.
As a result, your focus will change and you will increase the capacity of your brain to manage stressful thoughts and unhealthy negative beliefs.
I am sure you will love it!
One more thing… or maybe four more.
Other ways you can promote health for your brain may include simple daily habits that you can implement right away.
Dreams
For example, you can develop the habit of remembering your dreams when you wake up in the morning. Science shows that this can give you insights on solving your problems by using your intuitive subconscious resources.
Journaling
Another good habit for your brain is journaling. Collect your thoughts at the end of your day. Write down three to five things you are grateful for or the one thing that you need to focus your attention on tomorrow to win.
Reading
Reading daily also protects your brain from premature aging. Challenge yourself to read one book per week and celebrate your victories by sharing the book with your friends.
Storytelling
Storytelling is another powerful tool to help the brain stay healthy, consolidate memory, and create new connections.
I want to leave you with one of my favorite quotes of all times is from Rene Descartes: “I think, therefore, I am.”
Make sure you feed your brain good thoughts and remember that you have the power to harness your stress into growth, health, happiness.
With love,
Dr. MB