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You are here: Home / Archives for brain fitness

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Review: Healthy Brain, Happy Life by Wendy Suzuki

March 23, 2016 by Joi Leave a Comment

Healthy, Brain Happy Life by Wendy Suzuki

Healthy Brain, Happy Life

I was recently sent a copy of Healthy Brain, Happy Life (pictured above) to review on Self Help Daily. I enjoyed it so much and found it to be so informative and useful that I also wrote a Healthy Brain, Happy Life review on my brain fitness blog.

Healthy Brain, Happy Life is the first book from Wendy Suzuki, PhD – but I hope it’s just the first of many.  She writes in such a way that allows her infectious personality to come through each word. This is, undoubtedly, my favorite type of author to read. When an author can inject personality into the prose… that’s where book magic happens.

A neuroscientist transforms the way we think about our brain, our health, and our personal happiness in this clear, informative, and inspiring guide—a blend of personal memoir, science narrative, and immediately useful takeaways that bring the human brain into focus as never before, revealing the powerful connection between exercise, learning, memory, and cognitive abilities.

Nearing forty, Dr. Wendy Suzuki was at the pinnacle of her career. An award-winning university professor and world-renowned neuroscientist, she had tenure, her own successful research lab, prestigious awards, and international renown.

That’s when to celebrate her birthday, she booked an adventure trip that forced her to wake up to a startling reality: despite her professional success, she was overweight, lonely, and tired and knew that her life had to change.  Wendy started simply—by going to an exercise class. Eventually, she noticed an improvement in her memory, her energy levels, and her ability to work quickly and move from task to task easily. Not only did Wendy begin to get fit, but she also became sharper, had more energy, and her memory improved.  Being a neuroscientist, she wanted to know why.

What she learned transformed her body and her life. Now, it can transform yours.

Wendy discovered that there is a biological connection between exercise, mindfulness, and action. With exercise, your body feels more alive and your brain actually performs better.  Yes—you can make yourself smarter. In this fascinating book, Suzuki makes neuroscience easy to understand, interweaving her personal story with groundbreaking research, and offering practical, short exercises—4 minute Brain Hacks—to engage your mind and improve your memory, your ability to learn new skills, and function more efficiently.

Taking us on an amazing journey inside the brain as never before, Suzuki helps us unlock the keys to neuroplasticity that can change our brains, or bodies, and, ultimately, our lives.

Healthy Brain, Happy Life is, obviously, geared toward strengthening the brain, but it goes further than than that. The book shows you how you can take control of your own life, your own mind, your own heart, and your own destiny. Your life isn’t something that happens by chance – you are at the wheel.  And guess what, if you don’t like where you’re headed…. you have it in your power to turn!

As someone who is completely fascinated with mental fitness and with improving and strengthening the brain, this book didn’t just speak to me, it yelled.  I love the “Brain Hacks” that come with each chapter. They, basically, tell you, “Okay, this is what you’ve learned… this is why it matters… and this is how it can rock your world.”

I also love how clearly the author illustrates how exercise and meditation can improve your brain.  Exercise, for example, actually increases the number of new brain cells.

How exciting is that?!

Profound Message Within the Pages

As I said, I love everything about this thought-provoking and eye-opening book. As a book lover, I’m a firm believer that you can get at least one “gem” from any book you read. I’ve even found inspiration in Agatha Christie mysteries. You just have to know where to look, I guess.

While I got a lot from reading Healthy Brain, Happy Life, one of the most profound “take aways” was a small paragraph in one of the early chapters:

The more you bring a memory back to mind, the stronger it becomes…. At the neural level, with each repetition you are strengthening the synaptic connections underlying the memory, allowing it to resist interference from other memories or general degradation. – Page 75

Basically, each time we dwell on something or relive something in our past, we are giving it lasting power. As we grow older, doesn’t it stand to reason that the strongest, most easily “called to mind” memories will be the ones that’ll keep us company?

Hmmm, wonder if that’s why some older people look so miserable?

Since I’ve often been accused of being a “Mary Poppins,” I guess it’s no surprise that I tend to dwell on happy thoughts. I have a darn good knack for shaking unhappy thoughts out of my head. My reasoning is that thoughts are like company you keep and I have zero interest in being in miserable company. Lead me to smiling faces, good times, positive vibes, and happiness – whether they’re in the present or in my memories.

Problem is, a lot of people don’t choose their company quite so carefully. In fact, I’ve known plenty of people who “call up” negative memories more often than most people call their mother.  Deep down, beneath the umbrella, my inner Mary Poppins always knew this was an unhealthy way for them to live. However, until reading the words on page 75, I never realized just how harmful it was to dwell on negative memories.

The more you bring a memory back to mind, the stronger it becomes….

I want to strengthen my good memories, how about you?! As for the bad ones, let’s vow to push them so far out of our minds that a GPS couldn’t help them find their way back.

Front to back, Healthy Brain, Happy Life is a wonderful read. The author brings personality and even “fun” to a very important subject.

You can improve your mind while improving your world and I just told you all about a book that can help you take the next step.

From the Back Cover

The key to a happy life . . . is a healthy brain

From the outside, it looked like Dr. Wendy Suzuki had it all. She was a world-renowned neuroscientist. She had been lauded by her peers with many prizes and had produced many highly regarded scientific publications. She had tenure at a top-ranked university, where she also ran her own lab—two of the most difficult and highly coveted positions for any scientist to attain. And yet . . .

Wendy was forty, frumpy, and focused on her work one hundred percent of the time. She was single, overwhelmed by her responsibilities, and often found herself in uncomfortable, strained interactions with everyone around her. To put it simply, Wendy Suzuki needed to change her life.

She set out on a journey that would transform her body, her mind, and her brain. The first step was exercise and creating a regime that would make her body more fit. In the process, Wendy found herself focusing better, working smarter, and getting more accomplished in a shorter amount of time. As her body changed, her determination grew. Wendy set out to build a more vibrant social life, spark her creativity, and engage in meditation and other mindful activities—using her expertise in neuroscience to pinpoint exactly how these actions not only made her brain work better but also made her feel, well, happy. In Healthy Brain, Happy Life, Wendy Suzuki makes the ultimate mind-body-spirit connection and shows that everything she did for her body changed her brain—and her life—for the better.

Healthy Brain, Happy Life is an accessible blend of memoir and science narrative that will transform the way you think about your brain, your health, and your personal happiness. Through both groundbreaking brain research and personal stories, Wendy offers practical and fascinating ways to improve memory, engage the mind more deeply, and learn new skills that will ultimately transform your body and your life.

About the Author

Wendy Suzuki, PhD, runs an interactive research lab at New York University, where her work has been recognized with numerous awards including the prestigious Troland Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences. She is a two-time TEDx speaker and is regularly interviewed in the media. She lectures nationally and internationally on her research and serves as a reviewer for many of the top neuroscience journals. She lives in New York City.

Billie Fitzpatrick has coauthored numerous books, including several New York Times bestsellers. She specializes in mind-body health, neuroscience, nutrition, and diet and fitness.

Read more about  Healthy Brain, Happy Life on Amazon.

Keep those thoughts positive! ~ Joi

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Mental Fitness Tagged With: book review, brain fitness, mental fitness book review, self help book review, self improvement book review

Staying Mentally Strong is A Huge Part of Aging Well

February 17, 2016 by Joi Leave a Comment

Henry Ford Quote About Learning

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.” – Henry Ford

In addition to Self Help Daily, I have a brain health and mental fitness blog, “Out of Bounds.”  Mental fitness and all that goes with it (preventing dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease, brain strength, overcoming stress, dealing with anxiety, etc) is one of my greatest passions. I spend as much time reading about brain health as I spend reading anything.

If I could recommend just three things to you to incorporate into your life to improve the health of you brain, they would be:

  • Eating a “heart healthy” diet – lots of fruit, healthy nuts, vegetables, and fish, while cutting WAY back on fried food, saturated fat, red meat, and sugar.
  • Getting plenty of activity – whether it’s yard work, housework, walking, or yoga… don’t be a couch potato. You do not have to go to a gym or buy special equipment. If you’re moving and grooving, your brain doesn’t know (or care) whether you’re at the gym, on a trail, or in your yard.
  • Keep learning every single day of your life. Use it or you’ll lose it. Literally.

I’m not going to “mother hen” you about the first two (today anyway), but I do want to encourage you with third. When my girls were little, one of the first things I ingrained into their minds was this: “A day spent without learning something is a day wasted.” Since I home-schooled them from Kindergarten through 12th grade, it was easy to make sure they wasted as little time as possible.

Like my girls, all of us have ample opportunities to learn something new every day as long as we’re in school. The challenge comes when “school isn’t in session,” whether that’s weekends, holidays, summers, or the all-encompassing rest of our lives.

A lot of people have the mistaken assumption that their work or vocation provides “enough” learning.  While having a challenging job does help keep our minds active, we need MORE. Why? Well, one reason is the fact that we become programmed to respond to the challenges of our daily job.

For example, I work full-time from home as a blogger/web publisher/writer.  While things such as developing a recipe for my food blog, writing a book review, or researching for an article on early-stage dementia keep my brain cells busy, it’s all in my wheelhouse.

However, if I work on developing a recipe in an area I’m not the least bit familiar with (such as Indian cooking) or research/read up on a subject entirely new to me – it’s a wake up call for my brain cells and they love it.

This “in your wheelhouse” dilemma is one of the reasons why so many educated and intelligent people are developing dementia. Each day, they stay firmly in their wheelhouse. Whether they’re afraid they don’t have the time to venture out or they lack the inclination, I honestly believe it’s at least part of their downfall.

So, the lesson for you is this – get out of your wheelhouse and learn more every single day.

One fun, inexpensive, and mentally stimulating way to do just that is to “go back to school” – or to be more precise, “go back to school books.”  Get your hands on a few schoolbooks, covering different subjects, and read through them as you did in school…

  • take notes as you read
  • look up words you aren’t familiar with
  • answer the questions that inevitably hold you accountable at the end of each chapter

While I wholeheartedly encourage finding textbooks dealing with your “old favorites” (for me, these would be History, Literature, and English), the real magic happens when you dig deep into those subjects you didn’t particularly care for (my mortal enemies were science, geography, and anything with numbers).

Recently, I sorted through some of the textbooks I saved from my daughters’ home-schooling days and found just what I was looking for Geography for Christian Schools (on Amazon for $1.14, hardback). Geography – one of my mortal enemies.  Even when my daughters studied Geography in our home-school, I didn’t immerse myself in the subject – I did as I did in school, payed just enough attention to get by.  Aside from the flags of the countries (which I find uncommonly fascinating), all other aspects of Geography always made my eyes glaze over. When I was in school, I’d daydream about my basset hound, Siamese cat, lunch, softball… anything BUT what was in my textbook or on the chalkboard.

I decided to go back this time and REALLY delve in – memorize the capitals of the countries of the world, the desserts, lakes, rivers, and as many other geographically-inclined facts I used to snub. Oddly enough, I’m actually finding it incredibly interesting this time around.  Imagine if I’d just paid attention back then.

{Continued Below…}

Geography Textbook
A Few Tips for Finding/Using Textbooks:

  • Amazon has A LOT of Textbooks and many are ridiculously cheap. Anyone who home-schools today really has it made. There are textbooks and workbooks for both high school and college. If you really, really, really need to go back and brush up on a subject – start with the lowest grade level needed and move up. When it comes to math, I don’t even want to think how far back I’d have to go.  I seriously think I have a math allergy.
  • When you buy an “older” history or geography textbook, keep in mind that some details and information has, undoubtedly, changed. The fact that you’ll find yourself on Google double-checking information simply means you’re doing more research and using your brain EVEN more.
  • A lot of used bookstores and “Teacher Supply Stores” have textbooks and workbooks. They’re definitely worth checking out.
  • If you’re really brave (and we’re talking braver than I am), grab foreign language textbooks and brush up on a language you once knew or even learn a totally new one.
  • When you come across a subject that’s especially interesting, go deeper. Find more books dealing with the subject and uncover everything you can find online.

You get the picture, wake up those brain cells by snatching them out of their comfort zone.  So few good things happen in the comfort zone and that holds especially true for your brain’s fitness and your mental health.

Never stop learning –  your future self will thank you for it.

~ Joi


Filed Under: Aging Well, Mental Fitness Tagged With: aging well, brain fitness, brain health, mental fitness, prevent Alzheimer's Disease, prevent dementia

Brain Power: How to Improve Your Memory and Strengthen Your Mind

August 16, 2010 by Joi 6 Comments

Brain Power: Make Yourself Smarter!

Since one of my websites deals with Mental Fitness, I spend a great deal of time wrapping my brain around mental fitness, brain health, memory, brain games, Alzheimer’s prevention, and so forth.  Truth be told, even if it weren’t for this particular website, I’d still be found reading every book, magazine, and article I could get my hands on that dealt with the health of the brain.

Trust me, it’s an incredibly fascinating field.  One can’t underestimate it’s value, either.  Think about it, we spend a great deal of time and money in the pursuit of physical fitness – and rightfully so!  But, what good will any of that do us if we allow our brains to turn to mush?

I don’t want to give details – because it would be decidedly uncool to do so – but I recently had a conversation with someone who told me (with as much shock on their face as I had on mine) that their co-workers were unable to do simple arithmetic.  I’m talking about the sort of arithmetic that a fourth grader knocks out within 5 minutes.  The co-workers range in age from about 28 to 50.

Before I could pick up my jaw, I was told that they also struggled with simple spelling and vocabulary words.

I’m afraid that this isn’t a rare thing.  I’m part of a large, wonderful family – but, aside from them, I’m somewhat kind of sheltered from society.  I work from home, so I don’t have a lot of experience with face to face human interaction.  However, from what I’ve seen and heard, it seems that many people aren’t just letting their minds turn to mush, they’re facilitating the process.

What would it take to snap people out of the mental rut they’re allowing themselves to sink into?  I have no idea but, truth be told, it kind of scares me.  Make no mistake about it, you won’t agree with 100 percent of the things you read on Self Help Daily or Out of Bounds.   I wouldn’t want every visitor to agree with every word.  That would mean I wasn’t – in any way – encouraging you to think or encouraging you to challenge other ideas, beliefs, and concepts.

One of the things nearest and dearest to my heart is mental health and brain fitness.  I spend hours each day researching, reading, and writing within this area.  Maybe that’s why I often come across as almost desperate to get through to people.  If we don’t use our brains, challenge our minds, and pursue mental growth… you guessed it, mush.

We become adults who require a 4th grader to show us how to add fractions, tell us how to spell Antarctica, and clarify the capital of Texas when we aren’t sure if it’s Austin or Dallas.  Granted, as adults we sort of step away from these subjects.  Antarctica, Austin, and fractions may not necessarily come up in our everyday conversations and activities…

…. especially if these activities never vary and especially if the majority of these activities take place in front of sitcoms, reality television, or YouTube.  Oh-my-God, no she didn’t go there.

Mental Exercises and Brain Games

This would be me encouraging you… perhaps even pleading with you…. to broaden your mental horizons – each and every day. Put aside a little time each day to challenge yourself, mentally.  Below are a few mental exercises that you can do just about anywhere.  Occasionally leave the radio off in the car and give your mind something it really craves – challenging brain games and mental exercises.  They’re invigorating, they’re rewarding, and they’ll increase your mental power.

Experts tell us that we can increase our brain’s powers and strength by working it out.  Please make this part of your everyday activities and put it at the forefront of your goals.  In no time at all, fourth graders will be coming to you for all the answers.

  • Name all 50 states, alphabetically.
  • Name each state’s capital (and I promise Nashville IS the capital of Tennessee – no matter how badly you want it to be Knoxville!)
  • Name the 8 planets.  Remember, Pluto was stripped of its planet status.  Eh, don’t feel bad, Pluto, I’m not a planet either.
  • Name the 7 continents.
  • In the grocery store, calculate the cost of your purchase as you put things into the cart – see if you can come within $2.00.  It’s harder than you think – especially when you have a large purchase and ESPECIALLY when you’re as mathematically challenged as I am.
  • When you’re reading, write down and look up all unfamiliar words.
  • Whenever you hear a word you aren’t 100 percent how to spell, find out how and write the word down 10 times.  Test yourself the next day.
  • Read at least 1 classic this year.
  • Brain Games! Try the Lumosity Brain Training Program. Only $6.60 a month.
  • Read the newspaper more often.  When you read about a person or place that’s unfamiliar to you, do a little research and soak up the new information.  It’s sort of like turning each newspaper into a stimulating mental workout.
  • Work a crossword puzzle each day.
  • Think of favorite television shows from your youth – challenge yourself to remember each character’s name as well as the actors and actresses who played them.  Depending on the length of time (and the size of the cast!), it could take an hour or more for a name to come to you.  But here’s the thing, even if you have to work for the answer, you’re still getting a great mental workout.  A few days ago, I racked my brain for nearly an hour to remember the name of a guest star on The Golden Girls.  I refused to research his name! It came to me while making supper and I felt like I’d ran a mental marathon.
  • Pick up a few grade school workbooks if you need a great refresher’s course in math.  They’re beside the coloring books and you have my permission to grab one of those as well.  Express yourself.
  • Pick an animal, bird, or fish that you know absolutely nothing about and spend the next week reading about your new friend.  Spiders, sharks, polar bears, penguins, hummingbirds, possums, squirrels, bulldogs, iguanas… the list is endless and the opportunities are priceless.  Each week, take on a new animal.
  • Read National Geographic magazine regularly.  Collect old issues – ebay, yard sales, and Goodwill stores make it an unexpectedly fun scavenger hunt.  The pictures and the information can’t be beaten.
  • Each month, tackle a period of history or an ancient culture.  Few things are more fascinating to read about than Ancient China.  Again, National Geographic magazines are a wealth of  information.
  • Tune in to the History Channel, the National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel, and Animal Planet.  These outstanding channels serve information on platters of entertainment and your brain will love every fascinating minute.
  • Read old books as well as new books.  Old books challenge your mind and stimulate your thinking in a way that new books don’t quite measure up to.  This is part of the reason why I have a Thursday Throwback feature on Self Help Daily.  I can take an author from the distant past and sort of hand the forum over to them for a day.  If you’ve never read older books, I encourage you to browse through the articles in the Thursday Throwback category.  I know you’ll love them – they’re pretty special.
  • This one will surely be unexpected, but sign up for Twitter!  Find a number of people to “follow” from a wide range of interests. Reading other’s opinions and updates will broaden your range.  And, quite frankly, it’s a challenge to express yourself in a limited number of words – at least it’s tough for me.  Shhhhh… You’ll find yourself reading more, interacting more, and thinking more.

Finally, read up on the different foods that are great for promoting brain health.  I have a great number of articles on Out of Bounds (which I recently treated to a new look) detailing which foods are best for your brain’s health.  I read earlier that a favorite snack of mine, sunflower seeds, are an excellent “brain food.”

From Real Age: “In a study, those who reported getting the highest amount of vitamin E — 19 milligrams a day — were about 25 percent less likely to be diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease over a 10-year period. People in the study got much of their vitamin E from processed or sat-fat foods, like butter, margarine, and mayo. Our suggestion? Get your E from healthy sources, such as nuts, seeds, veggies, plant oils, and nut butters. The bonus with nuts and seeds is that you also get a shot of hunger-quelling protein. Not to mention some heart-healthy fats.”

You can gain more brain power.  It’s a fact.  The flip side, however, reads like a horror story:  You can lose brain power.  Like a coin that’s in the air, waiting to land……. it’s your call.

Filed Under: Fitness, Health Tagged With: brain fitness, brain games, mental fitness, mental health

Relax, For the Love of Your Brain Cells, Relax!

June 2, 2009 by Joi 5 Comments

Relax for your physical health AND mental health.

“If you’re wound up too tight all the time, you’re actually killing brain cells.” – Dr. Al Sears

Two medical professionals I follow religiously are Dr. Oz and Dr. Al Sears.  These guys know the medical field inside out and upside down, yet they somehow relay their information to non-medically-inclined people like myself in a way that actually makes sense.

In a recent article by Dr. Al Sears, he discussed the importance of relaxation. But he wasn’t approaching it from the angle that most of us approach relaxation.  He wasn’t extolling the virtues of relaxation as it relates to our heart, our happiness, or even our home.

In this particular article, Dr. Sears explained how relaxation affects our mental fitness.  As both a self help and mental fitness devotee, I found it all to be exceptionally fascinating.  However, for anyone who struggles with relaxation, it should be exceptionally unsettling.

Stress is the Leading Cause of Mental Decline

Stress is the leading cause of mental decline.  I realize I just typed the same sentence twice, but I think it deserved twice the attention.  Here, according to Dr. Sears, is the reason why stress leads to mental decline:  When we feel stressed, our body produces the hormone cortisol.  In small to moderate amounts, it isn’t that big a deal.  Bothersome, yes, but nothing to panic over.  However, in larger amounts, get this:  IT BECOMES TOXIC TO YOUR BRAIN CELLS.  Toxic!

Over time, too much cortisol ruins your brain’s “biochemical integrity” and causes mental haziness, forgetfulness, and confusion.

How Can We Reduce The Toxic Hormone, Cortisol?

You reduce your cortisol by reducing your stress.  Just as different things produce stress for different people, different activities will reduce stress for different people.  For example, two of my daughters get utterly and completely stressed out by storms – or even the hint of a storm.  My oldest daughter and I LOVE a good storm.  I believe my husband gets a certain amount of amusement from them as well.  I’m always having to make him come inside before he’s blown away or struck by lightening!  The three of us could probably be storm chasers, but my younger two daughters are often under the covers with one clap of thunder.

Different people are affected differently by things in life – which is why you should never, ever, ever tell anyone, “That’s no big deal!” or laugh at someone else’s worries.  Just because it’s small to us doesn’t mean it is to them.

By the same token, we all find relaxation in different places.  Below are some of the most popular ways to relax.

  • Play a game! I work from home and spend a great deal of time at the computer.  Every now and again, I can be found playing a game of solitaire.  When whatever I’m doing online becomes especially stressful… or if I’m just stuck…. I’ll run to the solitaire playground and clear my head.  Its relaxing effect is, literally, instantaneous.
  • Pray and meditate. Prayer has been proven to reduce cortisol.  Of course, that’s not the main reason we should do it – but it is yet another fantastic benefit.
  • Take a ride in your car. I realized one day just how relaxing driving around can be.  It was about a year ago – when our entire server was hacked and it looked like we were going to lose every blog and site we’d worked so hard on.  I went for an Arby’s roast beef sandwich and sweet tea (I don’t know why their tea is so good – but I’m hooked!).  During the 5 minute drive, I found myself feeling much better.  I sort of surprised myself when, instead of turning left to head back home, I turned right and took the longest route imaginable.  There I was – drinking sweet tea, eating a roast beef sandwich, and singing out loud with Faith Hill… not a care in the world.
  • Read. Reading is always a great distraction and a perfect, inexpensive way to relax.
  • Breathe. Focus on deep breathing.  Shallow little breaths just compound your stress.
  • Watch a little TV Land! Old sitcoms are like comfort food.  They’ll lift your spirits and give you a laugh at the same time.
  • Play with Your Pets. This is another one of my favorite ways to relax and unwind. You simply can’t feel stressful or tense when you’re petting a precious animal – or playing with them in some manner.
  • Cook, garden, mow the yard, clean the garage… Doing something physical is a perfect way to let off steam and reduce your stress.  Cooking is a personal favorite activity, so I look for reasons to enjoy it whenever I can.
  • Do something about what’s causing the stress. If you can pinpoint exactly what’s causing your stress, do something about it.  That sounds like simple, even, obvious, advice, but sometimes we get so busy bemoaning what troubles us that we neglect to take action.  For example, I listened a few days ago as a woman in the store told her husband how “fed  up” she was with being overweight, how “unhappy” and “miserable” she was.  She said she couldn’t even look forward to summer.  The poor brave man suggested she start walking – only to be cut off with, “That won’t do any good!”  Then he said, “How about a diet?” – that suggestion was met with icy silence.  My cashier handed me my change and I took off before she thought of her reply.  If we’re unhappy with something, we’re the only ones with the power to do something about it.

What if someone else is causing your stress?

Avoid them like a two-headed rabid wolf!  Okay, I know, that isn’t always possible.  Sometimes these “stress carriers” are family or co-workers.  We can’t avoid them all the time, can we?  My advice is this:  If you can’t do anything about the things they do to stress you out – change the way you react.

  • Your wife’s a nag? Make up your mind to give her less to nag about!  Wipe your feet, pick up your socks, let down the lid – whatever it is that she harps on… you control the mute button by giving her fewer things to complain about.
  • Your husband’s a penny pincher? If possible, get your own pennies and dare him to touch them!
  • Your boss is a control freak?  Do everything you are supposed to do, as well as you possibly can.  Stay on her/his good side to the best of your ability.

Basically, treat everyone as well as possible and always give them your best.  If you put forth a little more effort, smile a little more often, and flat out refuse to fly off the handle – the “carrier” will be flabbergasted and will, in turn, cause you less stress.  Try it!

If you take one thing away from here today, please let it be this:

“If you’re wound up too tight all the time, you’re actually killing brain cells.” – Dr. Al Sears

Filed Under: Fitness, General, Health, Must Reads, Self Help Tagged With: brain fitness, mental fitness, relaxation

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  • Overcoming Empty Nest Syndrome
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