Gerry talks about how we can actually train our brain

He shares little things that we can build into our daily routines that will help us to achieve a better function of the brain and also challenge our brain to think and act in new ways.

Linked to this is the topic of multitasking. Gerry believes that to allow our brains to truly perform at something, we need to give it our full attention. He explains why in the ‘read more’ section below.

Today’s Challenge

Gerry’s ‘Balance Brain’ exercise. Try balancing on one foot for 15 seconds. How way was that? Now try doing it with yours eyes closed? Maybe not so easy. But keep practicing this every day and you’ll be surprised how easy it becomes. This is a simple exercise to show you how when we lose one sense (in this case our eyesight), we can be exposed to the real truth.

When we’re building wellness, it’s important that we’re not being fooled by the whole. Now we’re aware of it we can teach our brain not to be intimidated by closing our eyes. We can train our mind not to be intimidated by going inside and finding stability from the inside. It just shows our ability to train our brain and this is the same for your diet, exercise and small mindful moments each day.

Let us know how you get on using #WellGood on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter and be in with a chance of winning tickets to WellFest 2018.

Read more

The Myth of Multitasking
Multitasking is useful and sometimes an essential ability as we navigate busy days – it should be something we can do but only when we need. In order to perform at our best we must be able to sustain a high level of energised focus and emotional presence to one important task without distraction. When we do this, we find that there is far more richness and depth in our conversations and our actions.

Some helpful tips on how to create the ideal inner mindset;

1. Environment: By being a bit more aware and a little more planned, we can transform the spaces we spend lots of our time in to spaces that will affirm, energise, calm and relax. For example, we spend approximately a third of our life in bed or our bedroom. It therefore needs to be a great place of calm that will add to our happiness. Afterall a bedroom is about physically and emotionally recharging.

2. Routines: Routines shift our mental focus and emotional state, they can include changes in our physical and environmental space. For each part of our day we can have very simple but powerful routines that keep us focused, listening to and looking at the things allowing us perform the right task, at the right time in the right way. Our wake up routine is the key to a great day – how many of you check an email or message before making it out of bed?

This shifts your cognitive wakening too fast. Consider getting an alarm clock that doesn’t have all your stressful emails, deadlines and calendars on it – the benefits will be worth it. Work on being present when eating your meals – this will impact your ability to taste, absorb and digest.
Sleep – do you take the time to prepare your body and mind for sleep? A great way to do this is keep a journal, spend a little time writing the highs of the day, take note of your daily gratitude list. You control your mind – learn to prepare it for sleep. Deep sleep is not something we fall into, it’s something we arrive at.

3. Emotional Loading: Our bodies are equipped with a very powerful, autonomic nervous system that does lots of important functions without us having to consciously think about them. One of its primary functions is to keep us safe and alive; a consequence of this is that its constantly assessing the environment around us and more importantly our reactions and thoughts about that environment. A stressful environment can initiate our Flight or Fight response – initially making us alert and excited. This response can see alert and excitement quickly turn into panic and anxiety which negatively affects our decision making process.

By being connected to our environments, both mentally and emotionally present we can learn to be in control of the environments and situations of our daily lives which in turn will allow us to perform to the best of our ability.