New Year’s Day soon arrives, and people will look towards making resolutions. Hopefully, they will stick with their plans. The resolutions so often focus on losing weight or getting a fiscal house in order. Those two goals represent excellent and essential life-changing decisions. Why limit yourself to traditional resolutions? Enlightening the mind could also become a priority among those interested in significant life changes.
The human mind comes with unlimited potential. Human beings don’t always take steps to cultivate their minds, which leaves them with limited perspectives on life and how to improve it. Making concrete improvements isn’t even difficult. Here are a few ways to make necessary changes and improve how the mind works.
Switch Up Your Reading Material
Reading does wonders for making the mind strong. A good book sharpens critical thinking and even taps into someone’s creative side. Works of prose fall into two general categories: fiction and nonfiction. Readers possess their preferences. There’s nothing wrong with preferring one over the other, but switching up comes with benefits.
Reading doesn’t always keep the mind sharp when we go into “autopilot.” A non-fiction or fiction reader ends up in a comfort zone when familiar with a style of writing. Maybe switching up — a fiction reader delves into a non-fiction work and vice versa — could yield positives. The mind may slightly adjust to the different style of material and become sharper as a result.
Do Something Physical
Developing the mind doesn’t exclusively rely on performing passive, mental activities. Separating the brain from the body isn’t exactly easy — the two work in tandem. So, when you challenge yourself with new physical activity, you bring your mind into the process. Planning on swimming or martial arts lessons might seem a solely physical endeavor, but the learning process requires focus and commitment from the brain. Perhaps both weight loss and mind-sharpening goals may be met by performing one new activity.
Make Improved Health a Priority
When the mind goes, the body follows. That’s an old saying that means attitude dictates behavior. A similar point suggests an unhealthy body doesn’t support a strong mind. Research indicates physical activities and exercises support a healthier mind. Anything that improves overall health should deliver a ripple effect through the body and mind. Perhaps a better diet, a liver cleanse, and a new physical activity regimen should appear on the list of anyone hoping to develop the mind in the coming year.
Change Up Your Routine
Don’t become a robot in human form. Try to do things a little differently in the upcoming year. Radical change isn’t even necessary. Taking the initiative to perform minor changes in your life and routine could be all that is necessary. Walking to work or taking public transportation as opposed to driving may shake things up a bit. The mind could break out of its complacent lulls when exposed to new routines and daily endeavors.
Try Out Meditation Practices
Anyone thinking about improving the mind may wish to look inwards for answers. Meditation could assist with this cause. Scores of different methods of meditation exist. Sitting meditation and walking meditation represent two interesting and diverse examples. Certain activities such as yoga and internal kung fu promote forms of meditation. Anyone hoping to embrace methods of meditation won’t run short of means to learning how to do so. Since active forms or meditation exist, the age-old excuse “it’s boring” doesn’t have to apply.
Revisit that Old, Tough School Subject
Not everyone breezed through high school with straight A’s. Maybe you wish to forget the era of poor grades and homework. Why let the lessons originally learned in the classroom pass off into the vestiges of personal history? Likely, you don’t wish to revisit a subject you weren’t excelling. Perhaps now is the time to go back and relearn algebra and basic physics. Your mind may appreciate the effort.