What is Your Mental Diet? How About Adding Some Good Stuff?
Last week, I wrote about how we notice what we look for and can miss the rest. It can be easy to miss the good stuff that’s in our day and in our lives, because our natural survival instinct has us looking for the problems and dangers. This week I want to go a step further and get us thinking about what we can choose to add to our day. We can look for the good that’s already there and we can improve our mental nutrition by intentionally adding more good stuff!
If we purposely read articles and books that focus on helpful, encouraging, and positive content, we give our brains good information to think about. Consider the TV programs, videos, movies, podcasts, music, websites, etc. that you choose. This also applies to the the topics we discuss with friends and family.
Instead of commiserating about some upsetting event in the media, ask them to tell you about some of the good things happening in their lives lately. What are they looking forward to? It’s also great fun to reminisce about a past good time you shared together.
I always feel energized and happier after hanging with some of my fun friends! And the boost continues as I think about our conversations and savor their friendships.
The type of information we feed our brains is analogous to the food we feed our bodies. If our diet is healthy and nutritious, we feel better. If our mental diet is healthy, we feel better. Without intention and guidance from us, our brains would “chew on” the negative “junk food” they’re naturally wired to consume.
How can you add some good food to your mental diet?
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Tina Hallis, Ph.D. is Chief Positivity Officer of The Positive Edge, a company dedicated to helping people and organizations increase their positivity to improve the quality of people’s work lives and the quality of company cultures. She is certified in Positive Psychology, an authorized partner for Everything DiSC®, and a Professional Member of the National Speaker’s Association
