Self Esteem And Health Of The Mind

• Fear can cause you to avoid beneficial new experiences.
• Low self esteem can cause your brain to atrophy.
• Make your brain healthy by exposing yourself to new things.

When self esteem is low, people are often easily manipulated by fear. Such fears can include:

• A fear of reality.
• A fear about something done in the past.
• A fear of other peoples expectations/views.
• A fear of not being socially accepted.
• A fear of looking foolish.
• A fear of failure.
• A fear of responsibility.

All of these fears lead to low levels of self efficacy and self respect, whereby you begin to doubt your own ability to do something and may also feel that you are unworthy or undeserving of achieving it.

As was discussed in a previous article, low levels of self efficacy and self respect ultimately lead to low levels of self esteem.

Therefore in a state of low self esteem fear can result in people who live lives filled with more pain than joy. In addition to this, fear will reinforce low self esteem, making it worse and more debilitating over time.

The effect of fear is often amplified further as typically people tend to deny, disown or repress their fears, thereby allowing fear to work in the background constantly chipping away at their life.

So in a state of fear reality becomes the enemy of self esteem. If you fear the reality about yourself, and the world around you, ultimately you sabotage your basic belief in yourself and your sense of worth as a person.

If you face the challenges of life in this fear driven state you will be disadvantaged from the very beginning, as the mind does not struggle for that which it regards as impossible or undesirable.

The Opposite To Living In Fear         

If low self esteem dreads the new and unfamiliar, then high self esteem seeks new challenges and adventures.

This desire for new and challenging experiences stems from a basic belief in oneself, and a recognition that you are worthy and deserving of it.

These two opposite principles of motivation that come from low and high self esteem, serve as a good indicator to the health of your mind.

This is because a healthy mind is one that is constantly exposed to new information and experiences.

A healthy mind will allow you to think faster, understand things more easily, prevent certain brain diseases, and most importantly, make you feel good about your life and the person you are.

An unhealthy mind however can lead to an inability to concentrate, a reduction in overall intelligence, brain diseases in latter life and depression.

An easy way to remember this is to think of the brain as a muscle. It becomes stronger through use, and weaker through disuse.

However it is important to remember that in order for the brain to remain strong and healthy, it must be constantly challenged with new information and activities.

This is because when you first learn how to do something, it requires a lot of brain activity for you to learn how to do it.

But once you get really good at something, the brain power required to do that activity decreases. So in order to keep your brain active, you need to do a variety of new and challenging things. 

Expanding Your Mind

Now that you know a little bit about how to keep the brain healthy, can you see how high self esteem results in a healthy mind?

If you are motivated by confidence in your abilities, and therefore desire new challenges and experiences, then your mind will constantly be exposed to new things that will keep it active and healthy.

You can see this in elderly people. Those who keep themselves active in old age and perform a variety of tasks tend to be healthier, live longer and have a more positive outlook on life than elderly people who watch TV all day and have little to do.

As you might have already guessed, by exposing yourself to new experiences and keeping your brain healthy, this acts as self reinforcing cycle positively impacting your self esteem. Whereby the healthier your brain is, the better you will feel about yourself.

Shrinking Your Mind

However, when a person is motivated by fear they tend to avoid new experiences and challenges, preferring to stay with the old and familiar. Typically these people don’t like to “rock the boat” and prefer to “play it safe” in life.

This state of fear ultimately leads to a brain that is in decline. In other words, an unhealthy brain which is becoming weaker and weaker with each passing day.

As with high self esteem, this will act as a self reinforcing cycle making you feel worse about yourself and your life.

Here are some quick questions you can ask to determine whether your brain is in an actively growing state, or is in a state of decline.

Remember to be honest and avoid the temptation to deny, disown or repress any fears these questions may cause in you.

• When was the last time you learnt a new skill?
• Do prefer doing things you already know about/comfortable with?
• When was the last time you went somewhere you have never been before?
• Are you constantly challenged with new activities every day, or every week?
• Does your job provide you with a variety of things to do?
• Do you meet new people on a regular basis, or do only mix with certain people?
• Do you have any hobbies?
• Does your life follow the same daily routine?
• Do you mainly watch TV, play computer games or read?

If after answering the questions above you feel that your brain is in a declining state, don’t worry! This can easily be reversed simply by using your brain!

So lets get down to specifics and see what you can do to improve the health of your brain. However before we do that, let’s take a closer look at the brain so you can understand what happens when the brain is in an actively growing state.

Growing The Brain With Self Esteem

Inside your brain are specialised brain cells called neurons. These cells are responsible for transmitting information via electrical and chemical impulses. They allow you to think, and they allow you to learn.

Each neuron is shaped like a tree. It has a long stem, a rounded head on top and “branch” like projections called dendrites that originate from the head. You have billions of these brain cells.

The neuronal dendrites are what we are interested in, because they can serve as one indication to how healthy a neuron is and therefore how healthy your brain is.

This is because when a neuron becomes stimulated (i.e. exposed to new information, activities, experiences etc…) it forms new and more complex dendrites. You can see an example of this in the picture below.

As you can see, the stimulated neuron has lots of dendrites branching out from it. However the unstimulated neuron has very few. 

When I was studying neurology at university, I read about an experiment that was done on rats which showed the effect of external stimulation on brain activity and health.

In this experiment one rat was placed in a cage with nothing inside of it. The other rat was placed in a cage which had various toys and an exercise wheel.

When the experimenters looked at the rat’s brains after the experiment, they found that the rat which had the toys and exercise wheel had a brain that looked like the stimulated neuron in the picture above. 

And the rat that was put in the empty cage, had a brain that looked like the unstimulated neuron.

Now apply this principle to yourself. Whilst you may not be locked up in an empty cage, think about how much new stimulation your brain is getting on a daily or weekly basis?

Remember, it has to be new stimulation for the brain to be actively growing. What do you think your neurons look like?

Start Growing Your Brain Right Now!

Learning new information really does make your brain grow. By learning new things your neuronal dendrites will increase in number, and make more complex connections throughout your brain.

If this information about the brain has been new to you, or unfamiliar, then just by reading this article you have already made your brain grow!

Here are some other things you can do to exercise and make your brain grow right now:

Use The Computer Mouse With The Other Hand.

Have you ever noticed how you can navigate around the Internet using the mouse so easily? Probably not. 

This is because you are used to using the mouse with your dominant hand, and so do it without really thinking about it. This requires little brain power to do.

But if you switch hands, your brain has to activate new muscles to move the mouse and so requires more brain power. Try it now and see how easy it is to navigate around this page using your other hand.

Read This Article Out Loud

Reading something out loud requires lots of brain power, and is very good exercise for the brain. It doesn’t matter how loud you read it, so its ok if you just mutter under your breath.

Do Some Maths

Doing simple maths problems is also excellent exercise for the brain. Answer these questions as quickly as you can in your head.

14+9=?
33+12=?
7+52=?
99+13=?
77+18=?

118-45=
21-7=
69-24=
99-17=
19-14=

√24534.345 /  345.67 = ?

 

 (just kidding!)

 

Leave A Comment

Leave a brief summary about this article in the comments below. This will test your memory, ability to understand and interpret information and your communication skills.

Split Your Brain

Using you left hand pat yourself on the head, whilst at the same time rubbing your stomach in a circle with your right hand.

Whilst doing this move your knees up and down one at a time, as if you were a solider marching and move your tongue from side to side in your mouth.

Now repeat this, but this time use your right hand to pat your head, and leaf had to rub your stomach.

This activity will test your ability to do several different things at once. How well can your brain multitask?

Remember The Pictures

Don’t cheat on this one! Try to remember and visualize all the pictures you have seen in this article so far. This will test your observation skills, memory and ability to visualize images.

How Was Your Brain Workout?

I hope you did all the exercises! These simple exercises will activate different areas of your brain, which is important because the brain is divided into several regions.

Each of these regions are responsible for doing a certain type of activity. So by doing these exercises you get a total brain workout!

How do you know if your brain needs more work in a particular area? Simple. You will find a certain activity hard to do, and will probably not want to do it.

When you find something hard to do, this indicates a lack of development in the area of the brain required to do that activity.

So to grow your brain, become good doing the things you find hard to do. When you become good at them, move onto something else.

Stop Living In Fear!

If you want to improve your self esteem you need to stop living in fear, and letting it control and restrict the things you do in life. Otherwise your brain will end up looking like the rats brain who stayed in the empty cage!

So to improve your self esteem, and the health of your brain, start doing new and challenging things. This doesn’t have to be anything dramatic like travelling across the world, it can be small things you do differently on a daily basis.

For example, taking a different route home. Getting dressed with your eyes closed. Brushing your teeth with your weaker hand. Use your imagination, there are a million things you can do differently!

Even thinking about new things to do differently is good brain exercise, because it improves your ability to think creatively!

All of the suggestions in this article are things that you can do for free. However if you want to spend some money I recommend you get a Nintendo DS with a flashcart.

The flashcart allows you to download the games free from the Internet, so all you have to buy is the Nintendo DS and the flashcart.

There are lots of brain training and puzzle games on the DS which provide excellent exercise for the brain. I recommend Brain Challenge, and Professor Layton And The Curious Village to get you started.

But whatever you do just make an effort to use your brain whenever possible, because a healthy actively growing brain provides a good foundation upon which high self esteem is built.

As a side note, if you feel your brain has been damaged due to previous drug use, or you suffer from depression, get yourself some omega 3 and Lithium Orotate capsules. Both of these will repair any damage done to the brain, and reduce depression.

In addition to this make sure you are eating some good fat. The brain is largely made up of fat, so low fat diets are bad news for the brain.

For more information about lithium orotate listen to Food, Minerals, Mood and Health in the free audio section on this site.

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Related Self Improvement Advice, Ideas And Tips

• The 2 Components Of Self Esteem (7/11)
• Targeting The Roots Of Self Esteem
• Breaking Down Self Esteem (8/11)
• Consequences Of Self Esteem In Life (2/11)
• What Is The Value Of Self Esteem? (1/11)

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