There’s lots of research and advice around making sure you care for your body and mind as much as your business. You know it’s important to stay mentally and physically healthy. It is believed that being successful as a person or in whatever you do starts from the mind. Because of this, there is a need to understand the Mind and Body connection and how they work together. Our emotions often affect the way we feel physically—we even have words to describe these feelings, like “heartache” and “gut-wrenching”. But until recently, scientists didn’t understand just how powerful the Mind-Body Connection could be.
Have you ever felt so nervous, your hands started to shake? Or felt so worried you couldn’t fall asleep at night?
Your mind and body are powerful allies. How you think can affect how you feel. And how you feel can affect your thinking. An example of this mind-body connection is how your body responds to stress. Constant worry and stress over jobs, finances, or other problems can cause tense muscles, pain, headaches, and stomach problems. It may also lead to high blood pressure or other serious problems.
On the other hand, constant pain or a health problem like heart disease can affect your emotions. You might become depressed, anxious, and stressed, which could affect how well you treat, manage, or cope with your illness. But your mind can have a positive effect on your health, too. Having a positive outlook on life might help you better handle pain or stress and stay healthier than someone who is less hopeful.
“Awareness of the Mind-Body connection is by no means new”
Working hard is crucial, but making sure that your body and mind are fit and healthy enough to function is as important too. An exhausted, overworked mind and a body pleading for support can never work effectively and efficiently. You need to focus to do well in your business.
Until your focus is right, you won’t think straight, be attentive enough to your goal and think outside the box to come up with innovative fixes to the problems at hand. You need to be intensely focused on your goal and unless you do that, you won’t move any closer to the desired outcome. The killer focus that you require to skyrocket your success comes with taking care of your body and mind and understanding the beautiful connection the two share.
What is Mind Body Connection?
Mind-Body Connection is the belief that the causes, development, and outcomes of a physical illness are determined from the interaction of psychological, social factors and biological factors.
A healthy, happy mind breeds a healthy, active and happy body; and a fit, healthy body makes sure the mind functions properly.
The two are interconnected and if you want to grow forward in any aspect of your life, particularly your business, it is this connection you need to pay attention to first. There is an anonymous quote that reads, ‘The body achieves what the mind believes.’
Your body takes instructions from your mind on how to act and when your body is healthy, your mind thinks clearly. For you to be successful in a project, it is crucial that your mind is fully invested in it and believes in the right things. Only then will your body progress in the right direction and help you actualize what you want.
This Mind-Body connection is what your focus should be on to maximize your success.
How to Optimize The Mind-Body connection
1. Pay Attention to Your Nutrition
The old adage ‘you are what you eat’ still holds true. Supply your body with junk, packaged, and processed foods and you fail to think lucidly, creatively, actively, and efficiently. Replace the same items with healthy, whole, organic, and fresh foods, and bam, your ability to think rationally, clearly, innovatively, and energetically returns. If you want to unleash the full potential of your mind-body connection, eat healthily. Add whole wheat foods, organic milk products, fresh fruits, vegetables especially leafy greens, lean meat cuts, and nuts to your diet to get the right dose of vitamins, minerals, protein, carbohydrates, fiber, and good fat you need to function well. While you do that, do not forget to drink 2 to 3 liters of clean drinking water because when you are well-hydrated, you enhance the Mind-Body connection and focus well.
2. Get Ample Rest
As important as it is to work long hours, it is equally important to get ample rest. Don’t get confused, please. Working long hours to be successful does not mean you shouldn’t rest at all. It just means you need to have good time management skills and do need to work extra at times.
That said, you must also get a minimum of 7 hours of sleep daily. There are times when you have to compromise on that, but that shouldn’t become the norm.
Set a proper sleep routine so you sleep for 7 to 9 hours at night daily which is the average sleep requirement of adults. Do that and you’ll find yourself thinking and working efficiently throughout the day.
3. Practice Creative Visualization
As stated before your body achieves what your mind believes in. this means that to pursue and objectify any goal, you have to believe in it. Only when you believe in it with your heart, soul and mind that you become emotionally and physically invested in and stick to it till you embrace it. One surefire way to strengthen your belief and draw your goal closer to you is to practice creative visualization.
Creative visualization requires you to think about your goal and imagine yourself moving closer to it and then eventually achieving it. By doing this, you engage every faculty of your brain in the process and generate a stream of positive thoughts which travel in the universe and draw similar thoughts and the experiences attached to them closer to you.
Also, when you actively imagine your goal, you activate the RAS in your brain. RAS or Reticular Activating System is a system in your brain that filters out unimportant information so you focus better on the important one. This enhances your concentration on your end goal so you do what is needed to achieve it.
Moreover, when you frequently envision yourself grabbing your goal, you become more emotionally invested in the process and enthusiastic about it. This enthusiasm drives you forward and instills in you the passion and perseverance needed to actualize your dream.
If you want to reap all these benefits of creative visualization, start practicing the technique daily. Sit for 15 to 20 minutes in a quiet room and close your eyes.
Think about your goal and envision that you have finally achieved it. Add details such as colors, sounds, expressions, and emotions to the scenario to become more involved in the process. Work on it for 15 to 20 minutes and you will be more stimulated and motivated to work on it by the end of the session.
4. Meditate
To optimize your business success, it is important you stay aware of the different threats and opportunities that you are surrounded with so you steer clear of the former and make apt use of the latter.
Being aware of yourself, your business and the environment is crucial for your success and a brilliant way to enhance that awareness is to meditate regularly. Meditation is a tool that triggers and instills mindfulness which is primarily about living in the moment, accepting it as it is and making effective use of it to make your present better. It helps you clear your mind, augment your focus and improve your health so you live better.
Meditation has a plethora of benefits which if I start talking about would take me an entire book to complete. Coming back to this article, bring in meditation in your routine to think, focus and live better.
A simple and effective way to do that is to sit with closed eyes in a peaceful environment for 15 minutes and focus only on your breath. Observe how you inhale and exhale, and pay attention to the movements this rhythm produces in your body.
Bring your thoughts back to the rhythm by counting your breath every time you wander off in thought. Do that a few times and you’ll focus better on the practice. Practice this simple meditative technique daily and within days you will find yourself working better on your projects.
5. Exercise
A good, active workout of 20 to 40 minutes increases the production of feel good hormones such as dopamine and serotonin and decreases the levels of the notorious stress hormone ‘cortisol.’ This improves your mood, confidence, focus, and energy levels helping you perform better in all your tasks.
Leverage this by incorporating exercise into your daily routine. You need not necessarily hit the gym for that; just do any rigorous physical activity you really enjoy such as swimming, Pilates, dancing or playing a sport.
Work on these tips and trust yourself to be where you want to be.
You can also check out the updated business tips page for amazing business tips and if you are also thinking of starting a business you can check out the business ideas page for business ideas in agriculture, trading, and so on.
