Reset Thresholds, Understanding Your Mood, and Choosing Time
Hi Folks! Connor and Nick here from Healthy Living With Nick and Connor. Thanks again for being on our email list, it means a lot, and we are excited to share our weekly email with you. We hope you enjoy it! Here is what we hope you take away from this one:
1. Develop some thresholds around your long-term goals and plans.
2. Understanding why your mood is a certain way and what factors affect it can improve your overall wellbeing and resilience.
3. Don’t make decisions lightly on what you spend your time doing.
Starter Mindset Tip: Hard Reset Thresholds
Our motivation, productivity, efficiency and adherence to habits all fluctuate. There are times where we eat healthy and times where we find ourselves splurging for a day, a week or a month. The same goes for exercise, and for all our habits. This fluctuation is completely normal. Begin to understand when you drift away from your goals and why. Setting ourselves limits or thresholds that signal when it’s time to pause, recalibrate or take corrective action is essential for maintaining balance, fostering growth and not letting ourselves stray too far into the weeds. Adjusting this threshold over time can allow us to gain tighter control of things that previously would get away from us more substantially. A simple example is recognizing that having one splurge day a week for eating junk food is okay, but if we find ourselves doing it three days a week – ‘three’ may be that threshold that signals it is time for corrective action. Also check in with the reasons behind it, it could be because you are tired or stressed and maybe you need to address those things as well.
Health Recipe: The Ebbs and Flows of Mood
Timing: Whenever you remember
Level of Difficulty: Easy
Serving Size: Small - Medium
Spiciness: Medium
INGREDIENTS
You, your awareness and your memory
REASONING AND BENEFITS
Just like the fluctuation with our habits, our mood also fluctuates. This is based on all kinds of factors; some we are well aware of, and others we are not. Sometimes even when you are doing everything right your mood will not be where you want or expect it. The key is to think about this, and care about it. Improving mood and making ourselves more resilient involves first having self-awareness and then choosing to prioritize those things that help. These things include regular physical exercise, balanced nutrition, sufficient sleep, a balanced work life, balanced social habits and the ability to reframe negative situations; to name a few and some of the most important. The reason why it can be so useful to hone our time, focus and energy on this is because consistent emotional well-being and mood can enhance our decision making, relationships, overall health, creating a positive feedback loop that affects all other areas of our life. It starts with just checking in, keeping track and learning what affects our mood and why.
INSTRUCTIONS
Set yourself on the right path for a resilient mind and mood by first recognizing that it fluctuates by its very nature.
Keep track of the patterns of your mind. Take 5-10 minutes every day or once a week to better understand your triggers or what affects your moods most by journaling or mindfulness practices.
At the end of each week think about reframing or altering those things that negatively impact your overall mood, replacing them with better alternatives or taking them out of your schedule.
Incorporate things to improve your physical health, understanding this is one of the best ways to improve your mood and prevent downswings. The main things here are restorative sleep, regular exercise and good quality, nutrient dense foods.
Incorporate things that better help regulate your mood and emotions. Build awareness of your emotional states by regularly checking in with yourself and thinking understand that things like mediation practices, breathing routines, journaling or chatting with others can help with this significantly.
PRO TIP: Sometimes you will be doing everything right and still suffer the natural shifts in mood, that is normal. Give your mind time, and keep moving to strengthen your mental resilience.
* Gradually start setting goals and integrating habits that boost long term mood stability such as journaling, working on social connections, engaging in hobbies that reinforce purpose, wellbeing and having fun.
** You need the trifecta of; 1. having self-awareness of what factors most affect you, 2. the capacity for realignment or course correction, and 3. the follow-through to modify lifestyle optimization.
*** Just like anything this takes time so set this as a long-term goal that will likely help with most of your other goals.
Dessert Quote:
"What we spend our time on is probably the most important decision we make.” — Ray Kurzweil
