Mental diet: what is it and how can it help you?

How many times have you dieted throughout your life? In order to take care of your body, you deliberately choose what to eat, restrict certain harmful foods and increase the amount of healthier ones. However, Do you take care of your mind in the same way?Do you worry about what you feed it? If not, we invite you to learn about and try the mental diet.

You must know that Your mental processes are largely responsible for how you feel, of the successes you achieve and the opportunities you let slip away. So, if you feel sad, frustrated or desperate, if you don’t like your current reality, reviewing your mental content is an important first step.

What is the mental diet?

What we think we have learned, so we can modify it.

The term diet can be defined as the control or regulation of the foods that a person eats, in order to achieve a specific goal. Thus, there are diets to lose weight, to gain muscle mass, to improve health… In all of them conscious and deliberate decisions are made about what is introduced into the body.

Similarly, The mental diet consists of establishing the type of cognitive content that we want to maintain, promote them, and discard those that are not aligned with our objective. In simpler words, it consists of taking charge of what we think.

You probably think that this is something you have no control over: the thoughts just come, motivated by the circumstances you live in at any given moment and there is nothing you can do, right? Actually, our thought patterns are nothing more than habits, we have become accustomed (or have been programmed) to think in a certain way. However, we can make changes in this regard.

How can it help you?

Maybe you are wondering why you would need to go on a mental diet, why invest effort in changing that series of thought patterns that have been accompanying you for years?

The reality is that you can experience deep and very positive transformations if you start putting it into practice. Among the main ones are the following:

1. Improve your relationship with yourself

The relationship you have with yourself is the most important of many in your life. Keep in mind that you are by your side 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If this relationship is not positive, you are living with a voice that constantly reminds you that you are not valid., which you don’t deserve; He reminds you how many mistakes you make and how many times you have failed, he convinces you that you will not achieve anything and, ultimately, he makes you feel miserable.

The mental diet creates the habit of speaking to yourself with love, respect and compassion. It shapes the image we have of ourselves by increasing self-esteem, improving self-concept and becoming our best allies.

2. Promotes positive emotional states

Anxiety, fear, sadness, frustration, hopelessness… all our emotional states are the direct result of our thoughts. If we do a mental cleaning, yes We begin to select what type of beliefs we admit and promote and which we do not.the way we feel will change drastically.

3. It helps you deal with adversity

Every time we face an obstacle or adversity, we start the internal dialogue. This helps us interpret and process what is happening and decides what type of action we will take.

Through the mental diet you can make this dialogue motivating and empoweringwhich helps you put things into perspective, maintain an optimistic attitude and consider yourself capable of moving forward.

With this type of mental content resilience is fostered and emotional regulation is achieved in the most complicated moments.

4. It brings you closer to achieving your goals

Training the mind towards our goals makes it easier to achieve them.

To achieve a goal, we have to become our own personal trainers. We have to motivate ourselves and believe in ourselves, guide ourselves during the process, redirect ourselves when a change of direction becomes necessary…

These guidelines are essential. However, we don’t usually offer them to ourselves. Our mind wanders, lacks clarity, and often reminds us how complicated our goal is or how far we are from achieving it.

With the mental diet, We educate that style of thinking so that it accompanies us in the best way.making us feel capable and providing us with the encouragement we need to continue.

How to apply the mental diet?

Applying the mental diet is simple (not easy); Just apply a series of steps that we show you below:

Identify your predominant thoughts, the ones that are most frequently on your mind. Generally, these take the form of sentences regarding yourself, others and the world and are presented in absolute terms. “I am shy and cowardly”, “life is suffering”, “people are cruel”. He also reviews what types of thoughts appear when you face specific situations, what you say to yourself in various everyday situations. Keep writing it down and you will find clear patterns.Set the appropriate thoughts, those with which you are going to nourish your mind from now on. These should be the positive counterpart to your predominant negative thoughts. They must be pleasant, kind and respectful, motivating and optimistic. For example: “I am a valuable and capable person”, “life has many good things”, “I am surrounded by people who love me”.Implement the mental diet. It is time now to make the decision to begin to enhance and favor those positive, nutritious and functional thoughts. You can adopt the habit of repeating them every morning before leaving the house or every night before going to sleep; But, the fundamental thing is that you remember to apply them on a daily basis. In that situation in which unpleasant thoughts would assault you, decide not to give them space and replace them with these new beliefs. Be firm and persistent.Try for a while. If you stay consistent for seven days, allowing only (or mostly) positive and constructive thoughts, you will notice a big difference. Your mood will improve, your relationships will be more satisfying, and you will feel more motivated and able to achieve your goals.

Be constant and you will see great changes

In short, the mental diet is an exercise in self-care, a measure we take to ensure our mental space is clean and free of toxicities.

In this regard, also take care of what you hear and what you see, the people you surround yourself with; Choose that all the elements of your life are in tune with this new mental diet that you are starting. You will see how everything transforms.

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