Kevin Gardner, Negosentro | Being able to hack your brain can mean significant improvements not only in your productivity, but in overall quality of life. It means being able to consciously lower your stress levels, work faster and more efficiently, and deliberately push yourself to break barriers. But how do you go about hacking your mind? Believe it or not, it’s all about changing your habits so that what you do aligns with what you want to achieve. Here are five tips to get you started:
Acknowledge the Fact That Your Mind is Malleable
You aren’t necessarily who you think you are. Instead, you are but a product of outside influences. The old adage – you can’t teach an old dog new tricks – has some truth to it. The older you are as a human being, the more difficult it becomes to make behavioral and cognitive shifts. It’s not even that it’s hard to make those changes, but that you’ve been so used to doing and thinking of things a certain way that the notion of doing it differently is simply unappealing to you. Nonetheless, acknowledge the fact that your mind is malleable and that you can adapt to new situations and challenges as easily as you’ve done it in the past.
Practice the Technique of Priming
Priming sounds ridiculously simple a technique to work since it literally just involves you talking to yourself. While it may sound like a habit that only a madman does, priming your brain actually has enough scientific evidence backing it. Some would compare it to self-affirmation while others will see its resemblance with neuro-linguistic programming. To get started with priming, recite a verse that you’ve chosen to signal a shift in mindset. Keep in mind that this doesn’t brainwash you or make you do something you don’t want to do. As the name implies, priming your brain can put you in that mindset conducive to helping you accomplish a specific task or deal with a certain situation.
Eat Right and Eat Well
What you eat can have a significant impact on how you think and perform. Eating enough is certainly important as an empty belly can distract you from carrying out tasks. Stick with smart foods including blueberries, dark leafy greens, salmon, sardines, and herring, and spinach to get the antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties, which result in improved cognitive health. You can also complement your diet with cognitive-enhancing products, such as Nootropics.
Practice Your ABCs
This isn’t pertaining to the alphabet, but an abbreviation to a technique that helps you combat distractions. And considering it’s a technique that comes from the Harvard Business Review, there’s certainly merit to heed this strategy. “A” stands for having awareness. Be aware of your options, which is to either let yourself be distracted or to continue on with the task at hand. “B” stands for deep breathing, which will help you regain focus of what’s important. Finally, “C” stands for choosing the option you want to continue with.
Capitalize on Technology
Technology is pervasive in everyday life. From the moment you wake up, you are likely to reach for your phone to check email and text messages. When you sit down to eat breakfast, you’re likely checking your social media accounts on your laptop. And of course before sleeping, you check those news feeds one last time to make sure you didn’t miss anything newsworthy. This dependence on technology can drastically affect your productivity. Change this habit by using technology to regain control over your life. There is a lot of wearable technology available specifically designed to hack your brain. You can even make use of productivity apps that limit your access to certain sites and apps, filter your email, and automate what data reaches you.
The Bottomline
Mind hacking your way to heightened focus and productivity will require consistent and deliberate practice. People who pursue mind-hacking habits often expect results to magically pop up overnight. This is almost never the case, and people who want to successfully hack their brains should be prepared to commit to it for the long term.
