You’re reading My Week Long Experiment and the Benefits to my Mind and Body, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

In almost all health and well-being articles I’ve ever read, there’s always one tip that reoccurs every time.  It’s the simplest of things, the easiest advice to follow, and I’m just surprised that more people don’t do it.  It’s not rocket science, it’s not expensive (in fact, it’s pretty much free) and is available to us all. Drink water.

I know, I know!  It can be the most boring thing you can think of when it comes to thirst. First thing in the morning when I’m still on autopilot, I’ve usually made and drunk a large cup of strong coffee before I’m properly awake – I need that rocket fuel to get me going!  But with the warmer weather now upon us, I can have a tendency to feel sluggish, for my feet and ankles to swell when I sit at my office desk for too long, and to suffer with far more headaches than is really acceptable. Talking to my colleagues (who all sit with a sports bottle filled with water on their desks) they all told me I should drink more water.  I could still have the coffee, but I should add drinks of water in-between coffees, or replace one or two of those coffees throughout the day.

Biting the bullet, I decided to conduct a little experiment of my own.  It couldn’t hurt, could it?  A week out of my life?  I pledged to my work colleagues, that for one week, I would drink nothing but water, document my findings as I went, and then give them an honest account of my well-being at the end of the week.  Here’s how I got on…

Day 1

I had to try really hard not to make that coffee.  I really needed coffee.  BUT… I had hot water instead – a little compromise in my mind, as I’m used to having a hot drink.  I won’t lie, it certainly didn’t hit the spot like my usual coffee does.  Throughout the day I consumed the recommended amount.  By the end of day one, I’d drunk over 2 litres!

Day 2

Still craving that early morning coffee!  It was a little more difficult during the day, because I work part time, and this was one of my home days.  I was busy with chores, and so I fell slightly short of the two litres, but I didn’t count it as failure.  If anything the opposite – I’d done 2 whole days without coffee!

Day 3

Woke with a thumping headache!  I put this down to a little caffeine withdrawal. I persevered with the hot water, instead opting to add a little lemon juice. By the end of day 3 I had consumed over 2.5 litres of water! Go me!

Day 4

The temptation of coffee was still there, but I didn’t feel like I ‘needed’ it in the same way as a couple of days before.  Drinking water was almost becoming a habit.  At home I made sure that I set myself little reminders to drink by programming my phone’s alarm to go off every hour, on the hour.  By the end of day 4 I’d consumed another 2.5 litres.  I noticed too that my visits to the bathroom were far more frequent than the days before.  My system really was flushing through!

Day 5

I tend to work all day on a Friday, which means I’m sat on my bottom from 9-5!  I made sure I drank plenty, and got up and moved about at least once every hour.  Leaving the office, I was surprised that my feet were normal size, and that only one of my ankles were ever so slightly puffy.  What a difference!  Toilet visits were more frequent, but I started to feel physically better.  I was getting to sleep earlier, which in turn made me feel brighter in the morning.

Day 6

A Saturday.  Fail!  Not only did I not consume my target 2 litres, but I also went off plan.  I was out for the day, and didn’t prepare adequately.  The craving for something sweet and fizzy got the better of me and I gave in to it and had a lemonade.  Still, once home I stuck to my liquid plan, and got straight back on to water. At least lemonade is a clear liquid, right?

Day 7

Mission complete!  Target consumption met!  I could really see a difference in my overall well-being.  I still peed for England, and not only did I notice a difference in my bladder behaviour, but also my bowels.  Things were ‘easier’.  My headaches became almost non-existent, and I was actually feeling like I had a bit of energy!  My mind-set was more positive, and on the whole, I couldn’t believe how good I was feeling!

I’ve added a day 8 because I just had to share this amazing benefit with you…

Day 8

The day I stepped on the scales.  Perhaps drinking more water had suppressed my appetite a little as I am 3.5lbs lighter! I put it down to water being calorie free!  Whatever the answer, I know that from now on I’ll be carrying on with the water drinking.  It’s not permanently sustainable, as I like a social drink now and again, and I will allow myself the odd coffee – just not to the same extent as before.

Jane works part time, and is also a freelance writer and blogger, who currently writes for Cooleraid. In her spare time she enjoys reading, travel, and chocolate!

You’ve read My Week Long Experiment and the Benefits to my Mind and Body, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

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You’re reading How To Diet: DON’T, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

HOW TO DIET: DON’T

Have you been searching for the perfect diet? Reading all those diet plans people are trying to sell to you, and struggling to pick or choose which one would help you the most? Well let me tell you the secret to successful dieting…DON’T.

How to Not Diet

At least, not in the traditional way. You see, people that make diet plans, food replacement pills, or magic weight loss programs are, surprise, just trying to get money! You are looking to better yourself and achieve a higher level of health, and all these salesmen are just waiting like vultures to pick your pockets dry!

Who do you trust? What do you do? I’ll tell you…don’t pay a single cent for someone to tell you how to eat. Why? Because the key to great health is simple…and I’m going to give you the secrets for FREE right now.

Understand Your Body

Your body works like a car. You fill it with fuel, drive it around, and refill it before it sputters and dies. Graphic, I know, but simple and true.

Now, your body is a little bit more complicated than a car and uses different fuels for different things. If you fill up your body with an overload of just one fuel, it will malfunction.

Therefore, you need a special diet. A diet that has been dead for years and years.

You need…a balanced diet.

That’s it. That is the big, not so- secret people have you pay hundreds for. You don’t need to stop eating sugar, become a vegetarian, or worship kale. All you should ever worry about, unless you really enjoy the science of hormones and vitamins, is not eating too much of one thing.

That is the magic formula for eating correctly. You’re welcome.

Eat Sugar

Balanced eating, however; is often misunderstood. People go straight to the food pyramid and realize there isn’t a dessert section…suddenly everyone is up in arms about how terrible sugar is and you can’t eat it.

This is not true. Too much sugar is bad for you yes, but too much kale is bad for you as well.

Therefore, Eat sugar.

Just eat it sparingly.

Why?

My coach used to tell us during season to eat more carrots, but to eat some form of dessert once a week. When I asked him why, he explained it this way:

Say your body gets used to only eating carrots throughout the season, but then one day season ends and you eat a big mac with a large frosty. What kind of reaction do you think your body is going to have?

My coach would put it this way, “Your body will go through everything you eat, sorting out your food…carrots…more carrots…still carrots…holy sh*# what is this?!” Suddenly your heart gives out because your body hasn’t had that much grease and sugar for so long, it doesn’t remember what to do with it!

This same idea works with dieting. Can you honestly say you are giving up sugar forever? No. Eventually you will crack and eat ten pieces of cake (it happens to us all) and your body is going to freak out.

Instead, have a “cheat day” where you can eat sugar and grease in small portions (one or two pieces of cake) rather than binge eating after a sugar diet.

I Know You Know, Do You?

Now there is one more tool you need for successful not-dieting: Exercise. Crazy, right? First balanced eating and now exercise? Well it’s true. People spend so much time worrying about eating too much when all they need to do is burn more calories, not starve themselves.

You already know this so I won’t spend a lot of time on it. But here are some helpful insights to get you started.

Best Way to Not-Diet Exercise

Now imagine this: You decide right now that you are going to run a mile and do 10 push-ups every day. No matter how long it takes you or how painful it is. If you stuck with this for two weeks guess what would happen…it would be easy!

You would be stronger and healthier, which would allow you to bump it up to a mile and a half plus 20 push-ups. Suddenly, a month later you are twice as strong, healthy, and/or skinny.

It is that simple.

You don’t have to be superman, run ironmans, or deadlift a thousand pounds. Just run a mile and keep adding distance. This is another dirty little secret that dieting sites don’t want you to know.

Be Smart

So now what? Are you going to keep shopping for diet plans, magic pills, and kale? Or are you going to use these powerful tools and make yourself healthier, stronger, and happier for FREE? It’s up to you, but I would recommend trying the FREE way first. Stick it to the salesmen vultures, be confident, and get healthy. You can do it.

Devin Gray is a motivated athlete on a journey to help others in their quest to fitness, health, and happiness through free advice on the topics of mental toughness, fitness, and nutrition. Check out his website: http://ift.tt/2tn6gsY

You’ve read How To Diet: DON’T, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

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You’re reading 5 Things Productive People Do Every Night, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Though we often assume that a good night’s sleep starts when we turn off the lights, setting yourself up for a restful seven to eight hours goes far beyond closing your eyes and taking a few deep breaths. The routine we follow before we turn down the covers can have a greater impact on our hours of rest than anything that happens overnight, equipping us for a more restful, productive night’s sleep. Start with these five steps to capitalize on that crucial time and improve your odds of waking up feeling truly rested each morning.

Get organized.

You know you have a full schedule tomorrow, and you’re already thinking about it. Rather than letting the next day’s obligations hang over your head as you binge-watch one of your go-to shows, Michael Breus, a clinical psychologist and specialist in sleep medicine, says to set aside a few minutes between dinner and bedtime to get organized ahead of your busy day. If bringing running clothes to work with you cuts down on your morning stress and rush, make time to do so. If having a pre-packed lunch keeps you eating healthy, nutritious food (rather than making a regretful stop at the office cafeteria), then pack a bag the night before. Instead of tossing and turning while imagining the amount of tasks awaiting you when the alarm goes off, you’ll be able to fall asleep knowing you’re organized and ready for the day to come.

Unplug.

With the amount of devices at our disposal, it’s not surprising that this is such a difficult task for most of us. However, we now know for a fact that harsh blue light emitted from phone, television, and tablet screens has been proven to alter the body’s natural production of melatonin before bed, confusing our internal clock and making winding down more difficult. The National Sleep Foundation recommends removing electronic devices, especially smartphones, from your bedroom or nightstand to eliminate their impact on your sleep. If you must use a device before bed, switch it to a dimmer, night-specific screen setting, or make it something that you can set up further away from your eyes, like a television instead of a smartphone. If you really want to see a difference, follow the National Sleep Foundation’s suggestion to turn devices off 30 minutes before bedtime to let your mind wind down at its own pace.

Take care of your body.

Though we’d all love to get a massage each evening before bed, for most of us, that’s just not a reality. Instead, one of the easiest ways to take care of your body without adding an extra obligation to your schedule is to invest in a quality mattress. Doing your homework and picking out the right mattress once will ensure that poor support doesn’t impact your quality of rest and your physical well-being over time, making you less productive. Not sure where to start or wondering why your current mattress has never felt right? The average person will spend about 23,000 hours on their mattress over the course of its eight-year lifespan, so do your research to ensure you make a smart, informed investment in a mattress and your overall health.

Read.

For most of us, reading an actual book has sharply fallen to the wayside in favor of quick articles, social media scrolling, and television. However, researchers have repeatedly championed the cognitive benefits that reading can lead to, including improving our empathy and making kids smarter later in life. Better yet, unlike your phone or tablet, a paperback book doesn’t emit a single nanometer of blue light. Try incorporating a few pages of a book into your evening routine, perhaps alongside a steaming mug of (decaf) tea, and relish the chance to engage your imagination and engross yourself in the world between the pages. In time, reading can become a key part of your wind-down routine, signaling to your body that sleep, and relaxation, is near.

Meditate.

This revered wellness practice touts dozens of physical and mental benefits, but trying to empty your mind for twenty minutes right off the bat is enough to make most novice meditators give up. Easing into the practice, either with a few minutes of mindfulness meditation or the structure of a guided practice from an app or video, will help you slowly integrate it into your nightly routine in an accessible way. As an added plus, meditation also acts as a powerful complement to existing physical activities or fitness routines. According to Parinaz Samimi, a health and wellness consultant at MattressFirm.com, “[Meditation] helped me find myself . . . It reminds me not to be so quick to judge new experiences, new people, or even myself.”

Now that you’re armed with these tips, be diligent in keeping your pre-bedtime ritual a part of your everyday thinking. Continue to stay informed, and you’ll soon develop a wind-down routine that’s both practical and productive for your everyday life, and sets you up for the best night’s sleep possible.

You’ve read 5 Things Productive People Do Every Night, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

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You’re reading Symbolizing Your Way to Success, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

How tiny objects can have a massive influence on the world

”The feeling of having no power over people and events is generally unbearable to us—when we feel helpless we feel miserable,” writes the author Robert Greene. “No one wants less power; everyone wants more.”

Research shows that feeling powerless or experiencing a lack of control decreases happiness and well-being. By influencing the world around us, we gain a sense of control. We all want to make our own meaningful mark on the world.

On this quest towards influence, something that we often underestimate is our use of symbols.

A symbol is anything that conveys meaning. It’s something that brings to mind associations beyond the definition of the symbol itself. It can trigger mental representations that are far broader than the symbol’s inherent meaning. In that way, symbols are powerful.

Letters and words are symbols of course. But so are the clothes you wear, the car you drive, and the job you have. The twinkle in your eye, the smirk on your face, the timbre of your laugh. What a person says, how they say it, and to whom are all symbols. The same goes for companies—everything it does forms a symphony of symbolism.

We cannot always decide how other people will interpret our symbols. But what we can control is what symbols we use, and how we use them. We can be deliberate about their usage, instead of spraying them around us like a sprinkler.

One of history’s great men can show us how to harness the power of symbols.

The fur cap man

In 1776, the American congress sent Benjamin Franklin to France as special commissioner. His mission was to seal an alliance with the European power, and to secure weapons and financing for the ongoing Revolutionary War.

Franklin knew that this was a delicate, precarious situation. His newly-founded nation was depending on him. Without the support of the French, the United States was destined to be nothing more than a temporary uprising.

Luckily, Franklin was a master of symbols (as well as a master of many other things). He knew that gaining the ear and the trust of the stingy French elite required the right image. His reputation as a simple printer, politician and scientist wasn’t going to cut it. He needed to become the “American version of the French spirit and way of life,” and to appeal “to their notorious narcissism,” as Robert Greene writes.

What symbols did Franklin use to express the right message to the French? The best example was the soften marten fur cap. He had picked up the headpiece several years before during a trip to Canada, and he knew it was the perfect ruse for his new foreign mission. Franklin wore the cap everywhere he went in Paris.

“The cap … served as his badge of homespun purity and New World virtue, just as his ever-present spectacles (also featured in portraits) became an emblem of wisdom,” writes his biographer Walter Isaacson. “It helped him play the part that Paris imagined for him: that of the noble frontier philosopher and simple backwoods sage.”

He struck the perfect balance between deep thinker and exotic influencer — exactly what was needed at the time. Franklin made such an impression that the local ladies even started wearing wigs that looked like his cap. They called the new fashion trend coiffure á la Franklin.

Franklin clearly knew what he was doing. He was deliberate about the symbols he used. “He carefully crafted his own persona, portrayed it in public, and polished it for posterity,” writes Isaacson. “Wherever he went he assumed the look, the outward morals, and the behavior of the culture at hand, so that he could better make his way,” says Greene.

In the end, his mission was a success. Franklin became beloved by the French, secured their financial support, and sealed a vital military alliance. The United States’ success in the Revolutionary War, and the country’s existence, owes much to Franklin’s masterful use of symbols.

Symbolizing yourself

Franklin’s fur cap shows that some objects can have disproportionately large effects on the world around us. On our journey towards influence, leveraging symbols is one of the most powerful tools we can use.

Reflect upon your own symbols, or your company’s use of symbolism:

What are your most important symbols?

What symbols express the wrong message?

What are you not expressing right now? What symbols could you use to get those messages across?

Try as we might, we can’t control how others perceive our symbols. But what we can do is to be more deliberate about the ones we use and how.

A simple starting point is to consider your use of the quintessential symbol: words. “The word is only a representation of the meaning; even at its best, writing almost always falls short of full meaning,” says writer Stephen King. “Given that, why in God’s name would you want to make things worse by choosing a word which is only cousin to the one you really wanted to use?”

Where do your symbols fall short? What are the symbols you really should be using?

Alex Carabi is a brand and leadership consultant and coach, helping people and organizations to rethink reality and bring meaning to what they do.

You’ve read Symbolizing Your Way to Success, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

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You’re reading 5 Ways To Show Courage Every Day, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Courage: noun

1.the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc. without fear; bravery.

2.Obsolete. the heart as the source of emotion.

Displaying courage is often one of life’s most difficult challenges. As a child, you first come into contact with it when you’ve done something wrong and have to own up to it. As a teen, admitting that you’re infatuated with someone takes just about everything you’ve got. And as an adult, courage is required daily: to ask for a raise, to quit your job, to make yourself vulnerable with someone.

But what is it that enables courage? That overwhelming moment when the adrenaline kicks in and you take that step into the unknown?

That’s where the second definition comes in: the heart as the source of emotion.

The Latin word for heart, cor, forms the basis of courage.  Taking your cue from your heart, from that compelling emotion that comes from deep within.

Too often however, our minds over-ride our hearts’ true desires. And I am not talking about material desires – although those have a place too! True desires, that will enable happiness, joy and fulfilment.

Palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware wrote a heartfelt article about the deathbed regrets of her patients.  Out of the top 5 regrets, 2 wished for more courage.

Here are 5 ways to follow your heart and show courage daily, to enable joy and happiness in your own life.

1. Learn to say NO

Stop putting someone else’s needs ahead of your own. We often feel obliged to a friend or family member to do something that causes stress or anxiety: say no to that! You might hurt their feelings, but they will get over it and you will feel better for it.

2. Ask for what you want

Don’t hold things in anymore. Ask for a raise, or a date, or whatever it is that you have been holding in the back of your mind, too afraid to utter. Even if the answer is no, you will know that you’ve at least tried and should feel good about that.

3. Say you that love someone, forgive someone, or are angry at someone

Be brave with your emotions and speak your mind. Bottling up only leads to an outburst, usually when it’s unfounded.

4. Let go

As contradictory as it seems, it is often easier to hold on to something that causes us pain, than what it is to let go. Your cause becomes your crutch: that thing that happened to you ends up defining you. To let go of a painful event in your past takes tremendous courage because it has become a part of your identity, but it is also holding you back on so many levels. By letting go of that emotion you take back control of your life. And this is not only true of big, life-changing events: we also hold on to the little negativities in our everyday lives.

5. Defy the Status Quo

Just because things have always been done a certain way, it doesn’t mean that is the only of the best way. Try something new, put yourself out there.

Courage should be a daily practice, where you listen to your heart and act accordingly. So let got of the reigns and be brave today!

I have trained in various personal development modalities with some of the world’s best teachers and have been to workshops and read more books than most people I knew. In a driven quest to ‘fix’ myself I have tried more therapies than anyone I know, and trained in some of them.

I’m impatient and intolerant in the absence of integrity, trust and accountability; I stand for high quality and hold myself to a high standard.

I believe pretty much anything is possible and am still learning (often, the hard way) not to confuse that with ‘I can do everything right now’.

I bring my 20 years of experience in the corporate world with my in-depth knowledge of human behaviour and a passion not only for excellence but for transformation and collaboration. Information and motivation have a place, I know …. but transformation, now that gets my juices flowing!

You’ve read 5 Ways To Show Courage Every Day, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

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