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Kwik Brain with Jim Kwik
265: Steps to Creating a Peaceful Mind
265: Steps to Creating a Peaceful Mind

265: Steps to Creating a Peaceful Mind

Kwik Brain with Jim KwikGo to Podcast Page

Jim Kwik
·
12 Clips
·
Jan 31, 2022
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Episode Summary
Episode Transcript
0:00
Welcome to Quick, brain, bite sized brain hacks for busy people who want to learn faster and achieve more. I'm your coach Jim quick
0:08
free your. Let's imagine if we could access 100% of our brain's capacity. I wasn't, I wasn't wired, just clear. I knew what I needed to do, and how to do it. I know Kung Fu show me, welcome back, quick brain.
0:25
So here's the question. How do I calm and quiet?
0:30
It my mind, if we received this question at least once a week in our podcast, Facebook group. I am hearing more and more and more from people. They're not measuring success in terms of profit or Prestige. But rather peace of mind. Can you relate? I know I can, your brain isn't designed to work at Full Steam all the time. So, regularly simmering down with a few science. Hacks is a really brilliant move for your well-being.
1:00
Being
1:00
in Freely for your life and your career. And so you wear lots of hats, your to-do lists, maybe have to do list, but many times your full life can equate to overwhelm to overload. You are busy. You have this voice and this noise that just maybe doesn't shut off inside your brain and people get stuck in their heads all the time. Some of us more than others. Although, it's lovely to really think about work.
1:29
And think about your life and ask different questions. The problem is that the majority of our thoughts are not always the most positive and sometimes we have this thing called the monkey mind. Even during those moments of relative quiet, a relative silence on the outside, like maybe you're getting ready for bed. Your monkey mind swings through an endless loop of fears of frustrations of various projects, various plans. So do you
2:00
Struggle with that, internal Chatterbox that
2:03
won't calm down, that won't relax
2:05
Neuroscience tells us to be more peaceful productive creative. We need to give our brains a break. And so this quiet time often produces the best insights and also I find the most inspiration. So how do you begin to calm your mind? Well, if possible take a moment to stop what you're doing right now if you're driving or if you're working out, just take a moment.
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Moment and let me ask you a question.
2:32
Are you aware right now?
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I'm going to ask again this time.
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Don't answer out loud. Are you aware right now?
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Don't answer just slip into it. If it's safe. Close your eyes. Bring your awareness and your hands to Your Heart. Take a deep breath. Let go.
3:01
And observe your breath, don't manipulate it.
3:05
And ask yourself, what do I
3:07
want?
3:09
What am I grateful for?
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Breathe normally.
3:14
Notice.
3:16
Let it be
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just as it is.
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And open your
3:21
eyes.
3:23
So, how do you feel? Peace
3:26
and quiet. It's really a precious and rare commodity, nowadays finding calmness and world full of conflict and World. Float. Chaos. Sometimes can be a challenge and in a way our brains are like, super computers. They're installed with this operating system and it is this overwhelm and it is this distraction and to create a peaceful mind. We need to reinstall what's more in our nature?
3:53
Arm Harmony balance.
3:56
Why? Because your brain, we talked about it is not designed to be running Full Throttle 24/7. And if you don't want to burn out, you must take time to quiet your mind. And here's a secret, a sense of
4:09
calm, peace of mind
4:12
is not something you have. It's something you do. It's something that you can create just like we've discussed in past episodes, the ones on memory, you don't.
4:22
At have memories. You do them on the show on creativity. We talked about you don't have creativity. It's something you do. You don't have Focus, you do Focus. So there's a process and just like, there's a process for motivation. There's a process for having energy. There's also a process for peace and calmness. It's exactly the same. So a miss, a busy day, full of distractions and demands, how do you do it? Here are
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I've quick ways to quiet, and calm your mind, and I want you to remember the word
4:58
quiet.
5:00
Quiet-22'
5:06
hands for questions questions. We've talked about in previous episodes that questions are the answer, you know this right? Ask yourself better questions and you'll get better answers questions that Focus, your thoughts and filter out the nonsensical noise. That's been cluttering your mind. Ask yourself, better questions, questions,
5:29
like,
5:30
Who are you?
5:32
Just take a moment right now and just you can answer out loud, or maybe just in your inner
5:37
talk. Who are you right now?
5:40
In one word, what do you live for? And even if you don't have an
5:46
answer just imagine you could come up with an answer.
5:50
How about this question?
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What do you need
5:53
the most right now? What are you grateful for? Who are you most grateful for?
6:00
What makes you happy? What is the most
6:04
delightful thing? You've seen all day? What would help you feel more
6:08
relaxed? What helps you to
6:11
release the physical tension from the day?
6:15
So notice this for second
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notice that when you ask questions, it directs your focus. So if you want to be able to just calm your mind and control your focus and
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concentration, ask better questions,
6:30
it helps to clear out the noise and helps you to be able to
6:34
concentrate on what's most important. Now, the you in
6:39
quiet stands for
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unplug,
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we always talk about how important it is to
6:44
Disconnect. So you could reconnect our mind is under a never-ending assault app notifications. Social media alerts client meetings, Bright Lights phone, ringing car horns, whatever. One of the easiest ways to calm the mind is to turn off as many sources of distractions. The hustle 24/7 approach tends to be that constant intense work as positive and that breaks equate to laziness.
7:14
And it's simply not true because science disagrees. There's a lot of benefits to Performance productivity and certainly peace of mind and I'm sure you can relate. There have been times in your life when you may have experience profound states of Stillness. Peace of mind and you're a likely not even on a yoga mat. You were likely not necessarily sitting on a meditation pillow. It could have been while you were stroking. Your pet, or maybe you're drinking your brain. T, watching the sunset. My favorite way to connect.
7:44
Just leave my phone and get out in nature. Get out in the yard. Go for a hike, go for a swim. It's incredibly grounding. I feel much more myself. And at peace. While I'm in nature. There's actually a Stanford University study that found that participants who walk through nature. Showed lower levels of blood flow to the parts of the brain. Associated with rumination. Rumination is what we do when we can't stop thinking negative thoughts about ourselves and we get stuck in this.
8:14
Mental patterns such as how depressed, we are, how sad we are and what's causing it. So, next time you have a lunch, go outside to the park, take a 20-minute break at work, and go for a walk. Now, the eye and quiet stands for integrate integrate and what I'm talking about integrate. I'm talking about sensory integration. It's the process by which we receive information through our senses and we organize this information.
8:44
Use it to participate in everyday activities and life and people don't realize this, but we actually have more than five senses. Most people are familiar with the five senses. Right? We have site, we have hearing, we have our sense of smell or sense of taste or sense of touch. But we also receive input through two additional senses. The first one is our vestibular sense and this is our sense of movement and balance. That gives us information about where our head and our body is in space allows.
9:14
Allows us to stay upright while we sit while we stand, while we walk. We've talked about this in a previous episode with Aaron, Alexander on how your body moves and how to sit properly, and how to stand. We've also covered the vestibular sense. In addition to the second sense. I want to talk about, which is proprioception proprioception. We talked about with our friend cusha who spoke at our quick brain event. I will try to get a video of this.
9:44
Inside our
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show notes. So make sure you go there or go to Quick brain.com forward slash movement for the show notes. Now, proprioception. What is it? It's our body awareness sense. It tells us our body parts relative to each other and also gives us information about how much force to use in certain activities, allowing us to do anything from writing to eating with our. Are you
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Pencils or maybe how to crack an egg open without crushing it all over or hands. So what does this have to do with having calm and peace of mind? Well, scientists. Now know that it's possible to regulate how aroused you are through your five senses through sight. Hearing taste smell touch as well as through our sense of balance and body awareness, right? Our vestibular and our proprioceptive. So techniques such as dimming the lights.
10:44
Or sitting under a weighted blanket or listening to Nature Sounds or gently swaying when you're sitting on, let's say an exercise ball to help you to maintain your balance. That helps you to be able to get into your body and out of your mind. You could also do something like let's say, balance on one leg, a powerful way to calm your mind is to read, direct your attention back into your body.
11:14
D. So certain sensory integration activities are simply designed to help you to be able to sense your own body. If you take a breath and you go into your body and notice, what do I, what do I
11:27
see right now? What do I hear? What can I smell?
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What do I feel right now? What do I taste
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something else? You could do for your sensory system, which many of you do is something like yoga, right? The relaxation. Response is parasympathetic dominance response is engaged. When you do yoga certain things like forward folds and deep diaphragmatic breathing Progressive relaxation, anything that it promotes Better Body awareness. It's one of the greatest benefits.
12:03
They come out of doing things like yoga. Now, speaking of yoga, the e in quiet, stands for exercise. If you follow me on Instagram or on Facebook, where I do regular quick tips, you may have seen recently my post where I asked actor Will Smith what he does every day to keep his brain focused and his brain sharp. And he says, Jim I run and I read, you know, you exercise, your body and your mind. I like to run with a name like
12:33
Obviously, I noticed when I'm going out for a run even as a jog or brisk walk, I enjoy the wonderful way my mind. Let's thoughts just drift by. With every step that helps me to clear my mind. There's actual research in Neuroscience, has identified a strong link between aerobic exercise and cognitive Clarity that exercise also leads to neurogenesis the birth of new brain cells. The fascinating thing here is where these new brain cells pop up in the hippocampus. What's that? That's the region of the
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the brain associated with learning and memory. So this could help explain why. So many Studies have identified a link between aerobic exercise and Improvement in memory. Finally, the T in quiet stands for Transcendental Meditation. Now, it doesn't have to be that form of meditation. Obviously, I'm using it because the stands with a t, many of you are familiar with TM. It's one of the most widely, practice and research meditation techniques Transcendental Meditation.
13:33
It is an non-religious method of relaxation stress reduction and self-development meditation. Many of you practice mindfulness. We've surveyed a lot of our social media. A lot of our community. It's really identified and defined as a practice where an individual uses a technique such as focusing. Their mine on a particular object, or a thought a mantra or activity to achieve, mental, clear and emotionally, calm State. And that's really what this
14:03
Last episode is all about when your brain is scattered. You can slow it down in seconds. If you make those seconds count. So slow the pace of your breathing to ensure your exhalations or longer than your in Elations. This technique activates, your parasympathetic nervous system, and it really basically it tells your brain. Hey, everything's going to be okay, you could rest right now, you could recover right now. You could take a break right now, and
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Into this. If you want, while you're doing your meditation, leverage, your olfactory use aromatherapy, for example, take a whiff of something relaxing like lavender oil and you might be able to see even better results. Now, if you have that kind of really stubborn mind, that monkey mind, you feel uncomfortable. Sitting in silence. There's another tool that could help to be able to slow down your racing thoughts. And that is guided meditations, that works really well for some people because you don't have
15:03
Have to actively try to quiet your mind because there is an app. There is a person, maybe it's headspace. Some of you use that where you could simply put on headphones. You can relax and you can allow your thoughts to be guided by a third party by somebody else. I'm a fan specifically of the Muse headband, very much Muse, mu SE will put a link in the show notes for that. This is a headband.
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With neurofeedback, that makes meditation very easy, another benefit of meditation, by the way, according to the UCLA laboratory of neuroimaging suggest that people who meditate show more gray matter in certain regions of the brain, they show stronger connections between brain regions and show less age-related brain atrophy. In other words, meditation could make your brain bigger faster, and also younger. So, those are your five quick tips.
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Tips quiet. Remember quiet, the Q stands for what? This is your quick brain in action Q stands for. What question the U stands for, unplug the I stands for integration. You want to integrate your senses, the E stands for exercise. And finally, the T stands for Transcendental, Meditation doing some kind of mindfulness and this will help you to quiet
16:30
your minds.
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Now, there's a quote. I read recently that says, this piece does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise trouble or hard work piece means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart. So if you want to be able to calm your mind, use the quiet technique here, and I'll see you in our next episode. Once a double, your brain, speed and memory
17:01
power. If you'd like to learn.
17:03
Rapidly and get ahead
17:04
faster. I'd like to give you my brand new
17:07
quick brain accelerator program. You will discover exactly what I teach my clients to learn read and remember anything in half the time, there is no
17:16
charge as my gift to you for being one of our subscribers. That's K. Wi K brain.com
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