What is your brain regimen?

[Erock]

This summer I'm looking to really conquer my brain, change some beliefs, become very emotionally stable, and basically develop really good mental habits. This sounds tough, but the way I see it, the mind is one of the most essential tools we own and I'd like to use it more effectively. Now this is all good in theory, but I'm wondering what practical steps I should take to do this.

So far I have come up with:

meditation
affirmations

Any help on this would be great, because this is really important to me.

Erock

[Shamou]

Originally Posted by Erock

This summer I'm looking to really conquer my brain,

Congratulation on a fantastic project...

First, I would suggest that you listen to these videos on the working of the mind... they each last about 20 mins and they will give you invaluable information on how it works...

Second, I would like to add that self-mastery, or learning to control our mind, is a life long endeavor... it never ceases... but with every step that we make... we become more efficient and more productive...

The very best of luck to you... and keep us posted on your progress...

.

[RT Wolf]

There's different ways to improve your mind (thsi area is my specialty). Some are more high-level and some are lower-level.

A good low-level technique is to read more books. And not just any books, specific books on psychology and such topics. Blink, The Tipping Point, The Wisdom of Crowds, Stumbling On Happiness, Mean Genes, Influence (big recommendation here) and the like. Assimilate more nad more new ideas and build more mental models.

Another avenue of study you might be interested in is learning more about how we function. Most people think we either work off of our minds or our emotions, but that's really not the case. We have highly influenced by biases or states or habits that we're not even aware of, most of the time. We routinely engage in fallacies and mistakes and errors that if you learn about them, you'd go, "WTF? How could I not have noticed that?"

Try to read and learn something new every day. Look up logical fallacies at wikipedia. Here's more info about cognitive biases:

Cognitive bias - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of cognitive biases - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In terms of changing your beliefs, this is very important, because we are creatures of habits (beliefs being thought habits, if you will), so its best to get the right habits in and then put it on cruise. You can do a 30 day trial and visualization and affirmations like you said. Figure out how a person with the new belief would react in a situation and then react like that and you can turn your beliefs around. And like regular habits, you don't just get rid of those habits, you replace them.

Good luck!

[RT Wolf]

As an example, here's a mistake that people commit. It's hard to truly know another person, so we have holes in our understanding of other people. We tend to fill those holes with ourselves and how we are in those circumstances or ways. I'm sure you've been surprised at one point or another about how a person reacted to a situation, whether when you were there or whether you heard about it. That's because you were expecting your reactions. Common fallacy, don't fall prey to it.

[JohnPlace]

I like to read a book once every couple of weeks, generally non-fiction. Reading increases knowledge, which in the right hands increases wisdom.

I also find that when I keep myself in top physical condition (which isn't as often as it should be), my mind is sharper. This makes sense because our brain is part of our larger physical system.

[Erock]

Hey thanks a ton for the links and ideas. I really appreciate the input. If anybody has anymore, I will investigate all of these.

Erock