Category: Science

By Dr. Patrick Porter

People across the globe are determined to make 2021 better than its predecessor. If we’ve learned anything from 2020, it’s the importance of our health and wellbeing. The pandemic brought “mindfulness” to the masses as it created a rare opportunity for us all to breathe, reflect, and focus on the most important aspects of life. Many people (who would otherwise not engage in mindfulness activities) started journaling, meditating, and other practices to ease anxiety and cope with the chaos. The traumatic events of last year forced people to make their mental health a priority. It comes as no surprise that “mindfulness” is at the top of many New Year’s resolutions lists.

Practicing mindfulness is one of the best things you can do not only for your brain but also your body. Mindfulness activities have been proven to help people reduce stress, prevent burnout, boost productivity, and so much more.

As a Neuroscience expert, I am frequently asked about the subject of “mindfulness.” Here are some of my top strategies to manifest mindfulness and incorporate it into your daily routine:

1. Train Your Brain to Achieve Your Goals
Keeping our brain active by creating new pathways is called neuroplasticity, and it’s a key aspect in achieving our goals. This is what keeps us creative, resilient, upbeat and engaged in life, which sparks our imagination and helps us visualize our accomplishments. Setting goals is important, but you will be unable to achieve them if you don’t know the steps to get there. The more you imagine your goals as being achieved, the better you will be able to focus on them. You can visualize your future and work to manifest and realize the goals you set. Think of it as getting something from your room: if you can see the object you’re going for before the lights are turned off, you are better able to find it in the dark. If you walk into the dark without any light prior, you’ll stumble much more along the way. This is the power of focusing on your goals and visualizing yourself achieving them. Focusing on your goals allows you to accomplish smaller tasks related to the goal which gives you more energy to continue to work at it. Focus and energy are important characteristics in achieving your goals.

2. Lean into the Available Mindfulness Resources & Find One that Works for You:
Because the idea of “mindfulness” has risen in popularity, there are many tools and resources available to facilitate and enhance mindfulness practices. With the rise of technology, we have more access to tools and resources to help us learn how to better practice from mindfulness. Participating in mindfulness even once a day in the middle of your day has been proven to provide great benefits. Studies show that you can reclaim up to 80 percent of the energy you had in the morning by having a mindfulness practice, like BrainTap. BrainTap is a resource that facilitates brain waves that help bring your mind to a state of healing, rest, and relaxation, such as found in deep sleep.

3. Be Mindful of Screen Time:
How much of your day do you spend looking at a screen? Often, we go from looking at a little screen (our phones) to looking at a medium screen (our computers) to looking at a big screen (our televisions) to looking back at the little screen before bed. All these screens and harmful blue lights are depriving the brain of much-needed downtime. Though technology has given us great resources to improve mindfulness, we must be cautious to use this technology wisely. People today are being constantly stimulated, which makes impactful mindfulness impossible. The brain needs periods of rest because this is when it solidifies information and stores memories, which cannot happen when the brain is constantly stimulated.

These brain-boosting tips can help anyone, regardless of the stage of life they are in. It’s crucial that we remember to take care of our brain, strengthening it, nourishing it, and resting it, like we do with the rest of our body. As you practice these exercises, you will recognize a difference in the way your brain functions and remembers throughout the day—and your life.

About Patrick K. Porter:
Patrick K. Porter, Ph.D., is an award-winning author and speaker who has devoted his career to neuroscience and studying the brain. As the creator of BrainTap®, Dr. Porter has emerged as a leader in the digital health and wellness field. BrainTap’s digital tools and apps bring mindfulness and meditation practices to the next level and have made tremendous advances in helping mental, physical, and emotional health issues. BrainTap has been praised for helping people relieve symptoms associated with stress, insomnia, pain, and much more.

For more information visit: www.braintap.com

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