Unfuck Your Life: Follow These 3 Brain-Boosting Tips to Create a Life You Love
You’re ready to step into your amazing life and the next best version of yourself, but there’s just one problem: your brain is sabotaging you by feeding you negative thoughts.
Our brains are fascinating. Just take a look at some of these brainy fun facts you might not have known:
The human brain is 60% fat.
Your brain isn't fully formed until you’re 25.
The brain’s storage capacity is considered virtually unlimited.
Think you only use 10% of your brain? It’s a myth. You actually use all of it. Even when sleeping, neurologists confirm that your brain is always active.
Though brain size doesn’t always imply intelligence, men tend to have larger brains than women.
Adequate sleep helps maintain the pathways in your brain. Sleep deprivation can also increase the build-up of a protein in your brain linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
We know our brains are essential — and a therapist can help us use the power of our minds to get to that next best version of ourselves.
But how do you know what kind of therapy is best for you?
There are many types of therapy, and sometimes, it’s hard to know where to start. Psychologists seek to understand and explain thoughts, emotions, feelings, and behavior. They use observation, assessment, and experimentation techniques to develop theories about the beliefs and feelings that influence us. The good news is that the type of therapy doesn’t determine if or how quickly you’ll feel better.
What’s more important? Your relationship with your therapist.
Research repeatedly shows that clients' perceptions of the relationship and connection with their therapist are far more predictive of improvement than the type of intervention or even the therapist's ratings of the relationship.
Why Therapy Works
Our brain is designed to keep us safe. We register emotional pain in the same part of the brain where we detect physical pain. So, it makes sense that when we experience uncomfortable feelings, the fight, flee, or freeze system kicks in.
Your thoughts release chemicals in the brain that create body sensations. We interpret those sensations as feelings, and then we often act upon them.
We have many parts to our brain, and one of the most basic, primitive parts is responsible for keeping us alive. It can answer only two questions;
“Is this going to kill me?”
“Is this safe?”
These thoughts are automatic and unintentional — they live in the moment and drive our instincts. Because we’re bombarded with a lot of information every day, this part of our brain aims to keep things simple. Is it good or bad? Is it safe or unsafe? Feel good or feel bad?
For this reason, we get black and white opinions only. On top of that, our brain has a negativity bias, which causes us to focus on “dangerous” things and minimize positive things. This is why when we get 10 compliments and one constructive suggestion, we focus on the suggestion and minimize the 10 praises.
Learn to React Intentionally with the “Bougie” Brain
Fortunately, we have the ability to enlist the help of our pre-frontal cortex, or our “bougie” brain. This part of our brain can observe our thoughts, take a breath, and decide how to react with intention. This part of our brain houses our authenticity and values and has long-term goals. If it sometimes feels like you have an angel and devil sitting on each of your shoulders and they’re constantly at war, this is why. Your basic and bougie brains simply have different priorities.
In therapy, your psychologist will help you uncover what your basic brain is telling you. We typically believe our thoughts and the feelings they create without putting them to the test. However, our mind often makes up stories when we’re missing information, and these assumptions may be untrue and even unhelpful. In these cases, I help people identify how they would prefer to feel and the thoughts that will get them there.
Here are some examples. If we’re resenting a task or finding ourselves in fear, we only need to change our thinking.
Some thoughts to try on:
“I don’t want to do the dishes.” → “The dishes are boring, but once they’re clean, I can move on to fun things.”
“What if I mess up?” → “I might make a mistake during this conversation, and I can get through it. We’re all human.”
“I’m going to faint when I stand on that stage.” → “These people want to hear what I have to say.”
When we change the thoughts we have, we change the chemicals released in our brains — and it helps us feel better.
These are thoughts you can practice so that you can live the life you want!
Now, here are some practice tips to look after your brain.
Try these 3 brain-boosting tips to help create a life you love:
Manage your thoughts — like the examples above.
Oxygen — exercise increases blood flow to our brain. Move your body every day!
Manage things that restrict blood flow to the brain, like alcohol, weed, and lack of sleep (less than 7-8 hours).
If you practice certain thoughts over time instead of the unhelpful ones — your brain WILL change.
You’ll still have some of these thoughts. They’ll just get quieter with practice.
You might be surprised by how motivated you feel to make life-giving changes in your day-to-day. One big step toward creating the life you want might even include bringing in the help of a therapist to help you put it all into action. If you’d like to explore what this looks like, get in touch.
