|
|
Brain Dos and Brain Don'ts
A Summary of Ways to Optimize Brain Function and Break Bad Brain
Habits
Based on Dr. Daniel Amen's research and the research of many other
neuroscientists here is a list of brain Dos and Don'ts to optimize
your own brain function.
Brain Dos:
- Wear a helmet in high risk situations
- Drink lots of water
- Eat healthy
- Take gingko biloba, Vitamin E and ibuprofen everyday
- Think positive healthy thoughts
- Love, feed and exercise your internal anteater to rid yourself
of ANTs (automatic negative thoughts)
- Everyday focus on the things you are grateful for in your
life
- Watch the Disney movie Pollyanna
- Spend time with positive, uplifting people
- Spend time with people you want to be like (you are more likely
to become like them)
- Work on your people skills to become more connected to enhance
limbic bonds
- Talk to others in loving, helpful ways
- Surround yourself with great smells
- Build a library of wonderful experiences
- Be nice to others
- Exercise
- Eat in ways specifically tailored to your brain
- Learn diaphragmatic breathing
- Learn and use self-hypnosis and meditation on a daily
basis
- Remember the 18/40/60 rule
- Effectively confront and deal with conflictual situations
- Develop clear goals for your life (relationships, work, money
and self) and look at them everyday.
- Focus on what you like a lot more than what you don't like
- Collect penguins, or at least send them to me
- Have meaning, purpose, excitement and stimulation in your
life
- Do not be another person's stimulant
- Use brainwave biofeedback or audio-visual stimulation when
needed
- Notice when you're stuck, distract yourself and come back to
the problem later
- Think through answers before automatically saying no
- Write out options and solutions when you feel stuck
- Seek the counsel of others when you feel stuck (often just
talking about feeling stuck will open new options)
- Memorize and recite the Serenity Prayer daily and whenever
bothered by repetitive thoughts (God, grant me the serenity to
accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things
I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.)
- Don't try to convince someone else who is stuck, take a break
and come back to them later
- Use paradoxical requests in dealing with cingulate people
- Make naturally oppositional children mind you the first time
(through a firm, kind, authoritative stance)
- Strive for wonderful experiences
- Enhance your memory skills
- Sing and hum whenever you can
- Make beautiful music a part of your life
- Make beautiful smells a part of your life
- Touch others often (appropriately)
- Make love with your partner
- Move in rhythms
- Use a skilled psychotherapist when needed
- Use an EMDR therapist to deal with trauma
- Take head injuries seriously, even minor ones
- Take medications when needed
- Take herbal remedies when needed to optimize brain
function
- Look for underlying brain problems in substance abusers
- Do full brain evaluations for people who do terrible
things
Brain Don'ts
- Isolate a developing baby
- Use alcohol, tobacco or drugs or much caffeine when
pregnant
- Ignore erratic behavior
- Lie around the house and never exercise
- Ignore concussions
- Smoke
- Drink much caffeine
- Drink much alcohol
- Do drugs (NO heroin, inhalants, mushrooms, PCP, marijuana,
cocaine, methamphetamines (unless in prescribed doses for ADD)
- Eat without forethought on what foods are best for your
brain
- Drive without wearing a seatbelt
- Ride a motorcycle without a helmet
- Ride a bicycle, skateboard, roller blade, snowboard, etc.
without a helmet
- Hit a soccer ball with your head
- Bang your head when you're frustrated (protect the head of
children who are head bangers)
- Bunje jump
- Hang out with people who do drugs, fight, or are involved in
other dangerous activities (unless you are looking for brain
damage)
- Allow your breathing to get out of control
- Think in black-or-white terms
- Think in words like always, never, every time, every one
- Focus on the negative things in your life
- Predict the worst
- Think only with your feelings
- Read other people's minds
- Blame other people for your problems
- Label yourself or others with negative terms
- Beat yourself or others with guilt (very ineffective)
- Personalize situations that have little to do with you
- Feed your ANTs
- Use sex as a weapon with your partner
- Talk to others in a hateful way
- Push people away
- Be around toxic smells
- Be around toxic people
- Focus too much on what other people think of you (odds are they
aren't thinking about you at all)
- Allow your life to just happen without you directing and
planning it
- Take the "stimulant bait" from other people
- Allow thoughts to go over and over in your head
- Automatically say no to others, think first if what they want
fits with your goals
- Automatically say yes to others, think first if what they want
fits with your goals
- Argue with someone who is stuck
- Isolate yourself when you feel worried, depressed or
panicky
- Allow naturally oppositional children to be oppositional
- Listen to toxic music
- Blame substance abusers as morally defective
- Refuse to take medications when needed
- Self-medicate, when there are problems get help from
professionals
- Deny you have problems
- Refuse to listen to the people you love who are trying to tell
you to get help
- Withhold love, touch and companionship to those you love as a
way to express anger
|
