The next time you try to work out just why you can't think straight and get everything you need to get done completed, consider blaming your food.
It's a scary concept - that our thoughts and ability to succeed can be so affected by what we eat, but for millions of people around the globe it's a day to day war their body and mind pit against each other.
Even on very simple terms, we need the fuel from food to survive. While fasting can be used by some to clear the mind during certain events, as a general rule, our brain needs feeding. And it needs the right kind of feeding to do well.
We get plenty of health and nutritional advice all the time. In fact in many ways it's thrown at us from every direction. Even the fast food giants now tell you exactly what's in their products.
However it appears that the more we know about nutrition, the more we studious avoid the facts. In less than ten years, nearly three quarters of the western world is on the path to being classified as overweight (or worse, obese or morbidly obese.) The numbers of people looking to pharmaceutical relief for depression and addictions is growing and our energy levels are collectively at an all time low.
It might feel like we know a lot about food, but are we using that knowledge? And how can we be sure that what we are putting into our bodies is health, strength and energy?
For most of us, the sorts of foods we eat now are very different to the foods we grew up on. There weren't constant ads on TV on how to lose ten pounds in ten weeks.
Takeaways were a real treat and no one did home deliveries. Mothers tended to be at home, where they cooked often plain but also pretty nutritious food (meat and two veg anyone?) There was probably home-baking too, but it was made with natural ingredients and didn't have things like corn syrup and fancy chemicals to keep it fresher for longer.
Supermarkets were not open twenty four hours a day. We had to walk down to the corner shop to get bread, and that is all we got, because everything else was so expensive.
There were less impulse buys on junk food. Fathers tended the home veg garden, and there were sometimes fruit trees too.
It wasn't all food utopia. We ate lollies. Rather a lot of them sometimes. Pocket money seemed to go a long way. But it wasn't an every day thing. It was more of a once a week as soon as I got paid treat.
Fruit was more expensive. If it wasn't straight from our own tree, it was metered out. We didn't have huge portions of meat, and the fill up food was generally a cheese sandwich. But we weren't obsessed about food either. Those were less stressful times in more ways than one.
OK - so let's get serious about what we eat and how it affects our success ...
Eating for Success
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Although nobody gets a parenting manual or bible in the delivery room, it is our duty as parents to try to make our kids as well rounded, happy and confident as possible.
It is a lot easier to bring up great kids than it is to try and fix problems caused by bad parenting, when our kids have become adults.
Our children are all individuals - they are not our property but people in their own right.
Too many people have children for the wrong reasons - they want someone to love them or they want to live on through their kids.
Children deserve respect and must be allowed to become their own person. They are not mini versions of their parents - well at least they shouldn't be.
From the day they are born, kids should be allowed to find their own way in this world and at their own pace. Now, I am not suggesting for a second that you abandon them to their own devices.
What I mean is that your role as a parent is similar to that of a coach. You should be there to cheer them on as they move towards different goals, but never try and push them to do something they are not yet ready for.
Confident Kids
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You have probably heard the term Aromatherapy and perhaps wondered what that funny word, ‘aromatherapy’ actually means. It is the use of plant oils in their most essential form to promote both mental and physical well being. The use of the word aroma implies the process of inhaling the scents from these oils into your lungs for therapeutic benefit.
If you have ever used a vapor rub for a cough then you have tried aromatherapy, although not in its purest form. As a matter of fact, you probably have been using aromatherapy on yourself and your family for many years without realizing it through vapor rubs or electric vaporizers.
Vicks or other brands of vapor rub use eucalyptus or menthol to clear out stuffy chests and noses. Imagine if you used the undiluted essential oil of eucalyptus how clear your lungs would feel.
The term aromatherapy is generally new, beginning to be used in the 20th century, but the practice has been around for thousands of years. It is believed that the Chinese were one of the first cultures to use the scents of plants to promote health through the burning of incense. Ancient Egyptians used distilled cedarwood oil mixed with clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, and myrrh to embalm the deceased. The Egyptians also used oils to perfume both men and women.
In the 14th century when the bubonic plague hit, killing thousands of people, aromas were used to ward off the deadly disease. There is even discussion that the popular nursery rhyme, “Ring Around the Roses” refers to aromatherapy. The lines, “a pocket full of posies” allegedly refers to keeping the flower in ones pocket in an attempt to keep the illness away.
Moving forward through later centuries a growth in books about the use of oils in healing grew.
The Greek alchemist, Paracelcus, used the term “essence” and focused study on the use of plants for healing purposes.
While the use of essential oils for perfume continued to grow throughout the ages its’ use for medicinal purposes waned slightly until around 1928.
It was at that time that a French chemist named Rene-Maurice Gattefosse accidentally discovered the use of lavender essential oil to heal wounds.
The story is told that he burned his forearm and reflexively placed it in the closest liquid he saw, which was lavender essential oil. He was surprised to find that the burn healed rapidly and left no scar. It was then that he began using the term aromatherapy and wrote about the powers of essential oils.
Today, many people are trying to get back to nature so Aromatherapy is becoming very popular. Read more here …
The Collins English Dictionary defines affirmation as: “A statement of the truth of something; assertion.” Affirmations are a powerful ingredient in positive thinking. They are not statements that you wish to be true; they are statements that you must believe are true.
Affirmations are positive statements describing a desired condition in your life. That condition may not yet exist, but the affirmation is spoken as though it does. A simple example might be: “I am at peace with my life.” This is repeated several times on a daily basis, out loud or mentally, the aim being to program the subconscious mind into producing the desired outcome. They must be sincerely felt, and spoken in the present tense with conviction and enthusiasm.
We carry out such mental programming every day whether we know it or not; the trick is to make this programming conscious and positive. The alternative is to be unaware that we are issuing negative affirmations to ourselves. If you have ever made a mistake and muttered “I am such an idiot”, you have given yourself a negative affirmation. The problem is that any negative affirmation you give enters your subconscious mind and has a harmful effect – it creates your reality.
Positive thinking as a popular psychology can be traced back to 1937, with Napoleon Hill’s bestselling Think and Grow Rich. This book remains important today, although there have been countless similar guides written in the years since on the subject of positive thinking for personal success.
Many books on positive thinking, like Think and Grow Rich, focus mainly on the financial benefits to be gained from altering your thoughts. The reason for this is obvious: it taps into the desire of so many people to become wealthy. Whilst this may be geared to capturing the public imagination, it may also give doubters and newcomers the wrong impression. People buy these books expecting some incredible revelation, and do not expect to be told that all they have to do is start thinking positively.
The answer is so simple it is easy to dismiss it, but simple does not always mean easy. Reprogramming a mind that has suffered negative thoughts and affirmations for years can be tough. Read more here …
Abundant thinking is a form of positive thinking. It is about creating a mindset of positive values that allow you to perceive your life as one of abundance, not one of deficit. It teaches you to flip your mental attitude ‘coin’ from negative to positive and appreciate how much you have in your life to be grateful for.
However, it does not suggest that our gratitude should cause us to stop striving for more and just accept our lot in life, rather it teaches quite the opposite; that by acknowledging how abundant our lives are already, our minds will embrace the concept that the good things in life are potentially unlimited.
Abundant means to be richly supplied; to be over-supplied. This means that we should have no fear of asking for more because we can be confident in its delivery. Abundance is a store that never runs out of its goods.
Abundant thinking is not just concerned with money, although there is a strong financial aspect that can be applied; it is a life philosophy. Where money is the issue, it is viewed as a tool that allows a better quality of life to be achieved – not just the material aspects, but most crucially the freedom to spend time doing the things that matter with the people that matter.
Similarly, being a rich dad, or a rich mum, may not relate to money at all. It can even negate the wilful drive for extra finances, especially where that works against the more important aspects of life, such as love and family. We all know of rich, unhappy people. We read about them every day in the newspapers and see them on the television; people who have a clear abundance of finances but who are bereft emotionally.
Abundant thinking is all about changing how you view your personal circumstances so that you can change how you view the world at large. It is realizing that you have been the cause of your sadness and struggle in life through your focus on what you don’t have, rather than on what you do have.
You can read more in our free book, Abundant Thinking: Developing the Rich Dad Mindset. Get your copy now free …