If you know me, you know I love to learn all about how the body and mind work. Something that has been really important to me in my personal growth is brain training.
Don’t worry, there aren’t any electrical wires involved.
I’m sure you’ve experienced negative thought patterns and their harmful effects.
For me, it usually goes something like this:
I’m feeling overwhelmed with all that I have to do in the day. My inner voice keeps the worry in the forefront of my mind and tells me over and over again that there is no way I can get everything done. The anxiety causes me to shut down and my productivity goes completely off the rails. I’m no longer motivated and I just feel like giving up. Now that I’ve stopped working, I feel frustrated with myself and more negative thoughts creep in. The cycle just keeps going!
Have you been there before?
Getting off of that crazy hamster wheel of negative thoughts and behaviors is so important for our emotional, mental, and physical well being.
Here are the three keys to creating healthy connections and patterns in your brain.
1. Recognize Your Primary Emotions
Pause what you are doing and ask yourself what you are feeling. Overwhelmed, afraid, anxious, sad, or maybe excited and happy?
2. Use Affirmations
After recognizing your primary emotion, find affirmations that fit your situation and repeat those positive phrases to yourself. Here are a few examples of affirmations for anxiety: I am safe, I do the best that I can, I am right where I need to be.
Look up affirmations that work for you and keep them in a place that you can easily access when you need them.
3. Include All Five Senses
Hearing: Say your affirmations out loud to yourself. It will probably feel silly at first but this is an important part of making good connections in your brain.
Touch: You can use a body tapping technique (also known as EFT) which focuses on the energy points of your body. Or you can put your hand on your heart while you are repeating your affirmations.
Sight: What can you look at that will reinforce this positivity? This could be your vision board, affirmation cards written out, a photo, or you could look at yourself in the mirror.
Smell: I love to bring essential oils into my affirmations. Essential oils are so powerful for our brains. They are the quickest way to get into our limbic system which supports functions like emotion, behavior, motivation, and long term memory.
Taste: You can put a drop of essential oil under your tongue. This method is actually one of the fastest ways for them to absorb into the bloodstream. After putting a drop under your tongue, wait for 30 seconds before swallowing or rinsing your mouth. Depending on what I am needing at the moment, a couple of my favorite oils are frankincense and peppermint.
Remember that brain training is not a once and done sort of task. It’s going to take practice and time to strengthen those muscles.
I recommend doing this within 30 minutes of waking up in the morning and 30 minutes before you go to bed. This is the time when our subconscious and conscious brain are most aligned.
To see my go-to essential oil blends for working through emotions and training my brain, download our free essential oils cheatsheet!