5 Brain-training Exercises that Will Make You Happier and More Successful

Posted on March 24, 2017

Photo: flickr

On average, a person has 70,000 thoughts a day. Every thought is one chance to put yourself down or to bring yourself up. Examples of self-deprecating thoughts include doubting yourself, second-guessing your decisions and calling yourself derogatory names. Thoughts like these have the potential to harm our performance in our daily lives. In fact, our physical and emotional health will most likely be affected too. However, this reality is hardly a permanent one, because we can alter our thought processes to make them more positive, and improve our sense of wellness.

Here are five brain-training tips to help you:

1. Problem-solving is not the same as ruminating

Whenever you find yourself repeatedly thinking about the same thing, pause and recollect your thoughts. Think carefully about whether you are problem-solving or ruminating. The former is helpful, as strategising helps you to work through things and overcome obstacles. However, the latter can be counter-productive, because rehashing things that have already taken place in your mind, or perhaps making doomsday predictions about things that are out of the sphere of your control is hardly helpful. If you find yourself ruminating unnecessarily about something, divert your attention away from it by getting up and doing something else.

2. Treat yourself the same way you treat others

Most of us are overly hard on ourselves; we beat ourselves up over not being ‘good enough’, and we amplify our mistakes in our minds to exaggerated proportions. However, such negative thoughts are only going to make us gloomier and drag us down. Instead, we should learn to treat and speak to ourselves the same way we do a trusted friend. Studies have shown that self-compassion can be linked to increased self-esteem, better psychological health and improved motivation, just to name a few. Undoubtedly, changing the way we think about ourselves can drastically affect our well-being.

3. Give a label to your emotions

Many of us are also unwilling to talk about our emotions, perhaps because we have grown up being rather calm and aloof on the outside. Hence, we have inevitably distanced ourselves from our emotions; we might not even recognise our own feelings anymore if we are told to name them.

Adults hardly name their feelings outright. Instead of saying that they feel sad, they may say that they have a lump in their throats or watery eyes. Instead of admitting their nervousness, they may say that they have butterflies in their stomachs. Such roundabout means of expressing their feelings is unhelpful, because this aversion or even avoidance might eventually lead to a lack of awareness about how we really feel. It is good to take some time every day to evaluate and acknowledge our feelings, and subsequently consider how they could alter the decisions we make. If we do not re-calibrate ourselves and be aware of our feelings, they tend to become rather out of control, and might spill over into other parts of our lives.

4. Balance your emotions with logic

Of the difficult decisions we make in life, it has been found that our decisions are best when we are able to link them to logical processes. When we are feeling very emotional, it is good to deliberately rationalise our thoughts. One strategy is to list out the pros and cons of the potential decision you are about to make, as this exercise can help relieve some of the emotional stress you are feeling, enabling you to make a better, more informed decisions.

5. Be grateful

Being grateful has been associated with an entire list of psychological and physical benefits. Happiness is one such benefit. It is thus imperative for us to talk about what we wish to show gratitude for, or take stock of the things we feel grateful for before we go to bed each night. Some people even keep gratitude journals expressly for this purpose.

Small efforts like these go a long way, as the conversations we have with ourselves are perhaps the most effective means of building our emotional well-being.


Category(s):Happiness

Source material from Psychology Today