The Power of Mindfulness

If you’ve been watching the news recently you may has started to notice those negative unwanted thoughts creep into your mind. Those “what if” moments and empathy for those in a less fortunate position. It’s human nature to experience discomfort and stress in times of uncertainty but never forget how powerful your mind is.

Your mind is a very powerful tool. All physical reality is made up of vibrations of energy, even your thoughts are vibrations of energy. Most of us go through life taking little notice of our thought processes: how the mind thinks, what it fears, what it says to itself, what it brushes aside. For the most part, we go about your lives with minimal attention paid to how we think. We go through life neglecting one of the most important and powerful forces in our life: our thoughts. Your thoughts have a powerful influence on your life. Mindfulness is being used to help military personnel cope with post-traumatic stress disorder — and its applications are only becoming more frequent.

Our Graphic Design Tutor Kay started practicing mindfulness and found it to be a very powerful tool to help support her own mental well-being.

She has recorded a number of useful guided meditations which you can find and listen to here.

We also have an NMC Mindfulness group, which you can join here.

If you find a difficult to sit and be still listening to a guided meditation, there are other things you can do to exercise your mind. Your brain is constantly adapting to the stimulation your life provides. It does this by creating new neural pathways. You can improve your cognitive abilities and strengthen your own mind. In particular, challenge yourself mentally, keep your body healthy, and lean on a little help from your friends, and your mind will be flexing new mental muscles in no time.

6 Brain Exercises to Strengthen Your Mind

Get your body moving - You could try a new exercise or different way of moving to stimulate the release of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. These brain chemicals play an important part in regulating your mood.

Draw a Map of Your Town From Memory - You might be surprised at how much you remember but this task is also great for keeping your mind fully focused on one task because to the level of concentration it requires.

Learn a new skill or try something new - Not only will you be stretching your mind, but you will also be continually learning something new as you keep expanding your skills.

Try Using Your Non-Dominant Hand - Help Prevent Memory Loss and Increase Mental Fitness, neurobiologist Lawrence Katz recommends using your non-dominant hand to strengthen your mind, using your opposite hand can be so challenging, it can be a great way to increase brain activity.

Play a Brain training game - many brain training games, websites, and apps that are out there. Many of these tools claim that these computerised brain exercises can increase your mental flexibility, keep you mentally sharper as you age and even make you more intelligent.

Socialising - An activity that you probably do every day, but you might not realise just how beneficial it might be for your mental strength. Studies from 2019 suggest that people who are socially active are also at a lower risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

Your mind is like your body, if thrives on what you feed it!