Chad Zizelman Coaching

When it comes to your health, what you eat and your physical activity tend to take the spotlight.

How many calories are you consuming?
What’s the macros?
Is it organic?
Don’t consume too much salt!
What’s your step count?
Did you get in at least 3 days of exercise?

The list goes on forever.

While food and exercise are absolutely essential to your health, we tend to let them take a little too much of the spot light. Even when you try looking up what you can do for your mental health you can many times be led right back to diet and exercise (once again, this isn’t exactly wrong). Many times, we obsess to a fault.

What about our mental consumption though?

Believe it or not, what you consume mentally is just as, if not more, important than what is on your plate or how many miles you ran today.

Here are just a few of the countless benefits of a healthy, non-stressed mind:

• Strengthened immune system
• Better sleep
• Improved heart health
• Better creativity and work performance
• Stronger relationships
• BETTER WEIGHT MANAGEMENT

Really, taking care of and monitoring your mental consumption can have a positive impact on just about every aspect of your life.

Take into consideration this.

The number one killer in the US right now is heart disease, which is typically associated with conditions like high blood pressure. Along with proper diet and exercise, reducing stress in your life can have a major impact on this.

So what ways should you be evaluating your mental consumption?

This has been a major focus of my personal studies in the past several months and here are several ways that I came up with.

Social Media

I think it’s safe to say that social media can be one of the most negative and toxic sources of negativity online. In fact, I thought it was so bad that my primary goal going into the 2022 was to take a break from multiple platforms and reevaluate my usage.

I didn’t pull the “I’m deleting all my accounts!” because of multiple reasons. However, I did a complete overhaul of my accounts and did my best to change the content that I see.

Remember that social media is mostly ran by algorithms that track what you are interests, searches, engagements, etc. With that, it is pretty simple to influence.

For me, I focused my efforts on who I followed and just reevaluated who I engage with. I have to emphasis on the engagement too. If you go and start arguing with someone online, they will pop up more, along with those providing similar content. Just avoid the arguments.

News and Podcasts

Over the years, I’ve heard many business gurus say that you should simply avoid turning on the news. The news is only focused on what gets viewers and unfortunately, conflict and grief generate larger viewership than anything that brings you happiness.

That’s why when you turn on any news channel, they are always talking about all the tragedies happening around you. Even when you look at the breaking news bar at the bottom is just spewing negativity.

I’d say that sports is the only major exception, though I would be lying. Look at how professional athletes respond to the reporters. They are always pointing out the fact that all of the reporters manipulate situations to seem exponentially worse than they actually are. Players are constantly having to speak out and provide context to the stories being released.

Podcasts it seems to be a lot better simply because they are usually more singularly focused and you can review what each podcasts to follow. There are still plenty of negative podcasts out there. They are simply just easier to avoid than mainstream news outlets.

My recommendation is look for smaller and more singular, focused news and podcast sources. There are so many great people out there trying to provide you all the content you seek, but in a positive manner. Do your research and find those that people and companies.

Friends and Family

Ever hear the phrase, “Love them, hug them, send them a Christmas card”?

Well, it basically means this.

You can’t choose family and sometimes you don’t want to just cut a friend out that you have a lot of history with. However, you can choose to simply not involve yourself in their negativity.

Just show them love. Give them the affection they need. When the holidays and special events come around, send them a card.

When it comes down to it, certain friends and family can be anchors in your life. They live in misery and misery loves company. They try to keep you in their miserable corner and if you have any sort of argument against their misery, they are at your throat.

If you can lift someone out of their negative environment, more power to you. Personally, I have done that for certain people and love that I made that decision. However, some people simply don’t want help and you just have to understand that.

Even if it is a family member or lifelong friend, simply distance yourself a little. If they grow concerned and ask what’s going on, just tell them that you are trying to create a happier life for yourself. If they want to too, they are more than welcome to come along on that journey. If not, I’m sorry but you need to prioritize your own happiness and they have to understand that.

This is one of the hardest changes to make in your life, but man is it important. At the end of the day, you are who you surround yourself with.

Workplace Conversation

This one is pretty simple for the most part. Work place gossip and complaining about the job is a common practice in just about every job in every industry. I mean, how many people do you talk to that actually truly love their job? Not many.

The best thing to do is just avoid partaking in the gossip and negative talk. If someone directly asks you your take, either come up with a positive response or just say “hey, I’m honestly good on the conversation. You guys have at it.”

You don’t want to alienate yourself from the group but you can be the person who just doesn’t involve themselves in certain conversations.

Honestly, if you choose to do this you may find that something surprising happens. People may actually follow your lead and start to do the same thing and avoid the negativity too. I’ve seen this happen way more times than you probably think.

Self-Love (Internal Conversation)

I read A LOT about self-love and creating happiness in ones self.

Women are fed a lot of unrealistic expectations on what they look like and end up hating who they are and how they look.

A practice that I’ve heard a lot of recently is that women are encouraged to sit or stand in front a mirror every day. During these few minutes, they are supposed to name as many things about themselves that they like each day.

They do this every day and as time goes on, the list just keeps growing and growing until finally the positives outweigh the negatives. Personally, I think this is an incredible but simple concept that makes a lot of sense.

Well, everybody should be doing this mentally throughout every single day. There is so much pressure on all of us in just about every facet of life. We are constantly fed reasons to hate ourselves.

Constantly highlight things about yourself that you love. Build on your strengths and embrace them. When you have a win, celebrate that win no matter how big it is. When you dream, dream bigger and tell yourself that you can do it.

I plan to touch this topic in particular in another blog but it really isn’t a complicated subject. Just LOVE YOURSELF! You deserve it. If you don’t feel like you do, email/call/text me and I will gladly love you myself.

Reconciliation

I saved this topic for last because it is something I am still working on myself. It takes strength and courage.

When we wrong someone or make a harmful decision, it stays with us. It may not always be on our conscious mind, but it is certainly always in our somewhere up there. Each wrongdoing can seem like a mental bag of sand floating around.

My life has been far from perfect and I have only just begun my journey of reconciliation.

The biggest thing is that you need to reconcile with yourself and remind yourself that you are never who you were yesterday. We change and adapt and you don’t have to hold on to your burdens. Remind yourself that everyone makes mistakes and you are no different.

It helps to actually send apologies. Often times, this is best done via writing or email. It’s easier to keep your emotions under control and keep track of the words you are using. When you do so verbally, you can lose track of yourself and get lost in the emotion of it all.

By simply saying sorry, you are letting go of the weight and allowing yourself to move on. The person doesn’t have to forgive you. You just have to let them know that you are a different person and that that person who wronged them is gone.

I’m sure that there are plenty more ways to keep your mental diet in check. These are just what I have come up with in my research so far. If you have any additional thoughts, I would love to hear from you.

Stay positive my friends!

**I did touch base on medically-related subjects on this. Don’t look at blogs like this for medical advice. If you are concerned about your health, seek guidance from medical professionals because I am certainly not qualified to help you on those subjects.

Feature Photo by Priyanka Singh on Unsplash