7 Ways to Manage your Mind & Time for Better Health
1. Watch less news. It’s all horrific by design, bad news sells more than good news. You get almost nothing good from staying glued to the news media. On the contrary, it increases stress and promotes unwellness. Turn off your news notifications on your phone. Take a news fast at least one day a week – literally no reading, listening or watching the news for one full day.
2. When unexpected shit happens, don’t judge it as good or bad. That’s stressful. Sometimes things just are.
3. Spend 30 minutes of quiet time a day. This is critically important. “But Dr. Geo, I don’t have time for that.” BECAUSE you don’t have time is precisely why quiet time is important. Many people are busy… doing all the wrong things. That just increases stress. 30 minutes a day of quiet time helps you figure out if your actions are aligned with what matters to you. Incongruency between your beliefs and what you do promotes disease.
4. Control your social media use, or it will control you. I’m active on social media. But if I am not careful, I will get high on all the addictive “likes” and not work on the things that matter – which then increases stress and unwellness.
5. Train your body (exercise), EVERY DAY. ” What!? I am really signing off this page now!” I am dead serious. Exercising every day for at least 30 minutes, does several things; promotes mental health (mental problems among men is rampant, suicide rates high), reduces the risk of dying prematurely and, more importantly, daily physical activity make it a habit. Mix it up with stretching, running, yoga, strength training, shadow boxing, tennis, whatever. Just do it every single day, like brushing your teeth.
6. Sleep well. On average we need about seven hours of sleep ( not necessarily eight). While some people truly have clinical insomnia, many don’t. If you stay away from the news, especially at night, exercise, spend some quiet time, then you may sleep better.
7. Forgive yourself for screwing up. Stop beating yourself up. You’ve messed up because you are human. Learn from your errors, do better next time, and move on. But really do better. Too many guys mess up, feel bad and commit the same exact mistakes over and over again.