We feed our stomachs around three times a day, but do we feed our mind? Our mind is very much like muscles in our body, i.e. if you use your muscles a lot they become toned, strong and flexible. If however, you don’t use your muscles, for whatever reason, they can become weak and inflexible. Your mind works in a similar way. If you tax your mind, it becomes stronger.
There are various things you can do to stimulate your mind, and scientists seem to conclude that stimulating the mind throughout our life helps you to remain active and alert in later life.
Reading, playing chess, doing puzzles, are all things that tax the mind.
Watching “general” television programs do not. I’m not saying avoid the TV at all costs, but limit it to just a few favourite programs rather than watching every bit of rubbish that seems to be transmitted on TV these days. After all these companies that transmit the television programmes are trying to maximise the largest audience figures they can, and most are not interested in whether the content of their programs are intellectually stimulating, but rather whether they can captivate and hold your attention with fun, intrigue, violence, horror etc.
I am not saying don’t enjoy yourself either and avoid these sorts of programs, but what I am advocating is a healthy balance. Watch the occasional one that you maybe do like and then switch off the TV and do something more worthwhile and mentally stimulating instead.
You can take the time to spend on your inner magic. Finding out what it is, or if you already know, then spending that extra time letting that magic out.
You will be pleasantly surprised at how much time you have on your hands when the television is switched off. At first it may seem strange, but as you get used to having more ‘quality’ time to do things, you will soon being to wonder, how much actual time you did waste away in front of the television, allowing it to merely ‘entertain’ you, while you sat there just watching.
Life isn’t only about entertainment. Entertainment, although an important part of our wellbeing, isn’t the be all and end all of everything.
Reading
Reading every day is an excellent way of stimulating the mind. It doesn’t matter too much what you read but my philosophy is
“Garbage in, garbage out”.
So trying to read books or literature that can help you in your job, your hobbies, your wellbeing, your attitude, are all good examples of stuff you can feed into your mind but at the same time give you a better attitude on life as well as stimulating the mind. These are maybe better to read than magazines or newspapers which tend to either focus on negative topics or garbage gossip news etc.