BUILDING EMOTIONAL FITNESS

Being able to choose how you think and feel every day and coping with whatever life throws at you, free from stress, anxiety and worry is probably one of the most critical factors essential in today’s world. And this applies in all spheres of life, be it our personal life or work life. To choose how we think and feel, we must first understand the nature and purpose of emotions and thoughts.Our instincts stimulate the emotional part of our brain so that we can feel our most basic needs. This creates emotions which drive us towards or way from things in order to satisfy our needs which in turn stimulates our thinking so that we make decisions regarding how to best satisfy our needs. This relationship between our instincts and the emotional and rational parts of our brain represent a virtuous circle which helps us to identify and satisfy our needs. But it can turn into a vicious circle when our needs are not met. Our needs are both physical and psychological but when they are not met our emotional brain demands satisfaction. This can overwhelm our ability to think rationally by triggering our fight and flight response which creates physical tension in our body and drives our thinking into a defensive and protective pattern which can result in panic, anxiety worry, stress, and depression. Romantic breakdowns, friends changing, marriage break down, losing a job, parent’s pressure, failing an exam and extraordinary events like deaths, serious illnesses and natural disasters etc can occur without a warning.Emotionally resilient people are more effective at managing stress and to cope with issues and problems than their non-resilient peers. There is this book by Paul Bird titled "Emotional Fitness...changing the way we think and feel". According to the book, six core instincts that drive human behavior are Survival - Engagement - Achievement - Reward - Control - Harmony. It says that 6 P's we need to manage for changing the way we think and feel are Perspective - People - Purpose - Pleasure - Power - Peace. This will help us achieve happier, more emotionally fit lives. We have to protect ourselves with skills that help us bounce back every time, all the time. And of course, to be emotionally fit, one has to be physically fit as well so that healthy body leads to a healthy and wealthy mind. Even little exercise releases chemicals in our brain that lift our mood. It can help us to sleep better, have more energy and keep our heart healthy. And of course, one needs to sleep well. I believe we need to sleep seven to eight hours on an average to make our body and mind to rest fully.

SLEEPING OUR WAY TO FITNESS

In a small study of Stanford University's swim teams, researchers tracked swimmers' performances during their usual sleep/wake patterns, and then after they extended their sleep to 10 hours per day for 6 to 7 weeks. After getting more sleep, athletes swam a 15-meter sprint 0.51 seconds faster, reacted 0.15 seconds quicker off the blocks, improved turn time by 0.10 seconds, and increased kick strokes by 5 kicks. I need anything between 6 to 8 hours of sleep for a healthy day ahead. I have many friends who I see finding themselves wide awake after a few hours of sleep, or waking up often during the night. This happens to me too many a times. It is called "parasomnia" or "sleep maintenance insomnia," and it's much more common than people think. A new generation of sleep scientists are overturning the conventional wisdom about parasomnia. They say: You can do it. With a few simple changes in our routine, a little visualization, a couple of surprisingly counter-intuitive moves and perhaps an attitude adjustment, a peaceful night of slumber can be ours. Here's their best advice: Throw out your definition of a good night's sleep: Just as three square meals a day has given way to all-day grazing and smaller portions, "what's good for us" has changed here, too. Thinking its necessary to stay asleep for 8 hours straight may be unrealistic for may who have the problem of "parasomnia". Just as we experience a dip in alertness mid-afternoon, the inverse is a dip in sleepiness in the middle of the night. There's strong evidence that there's a kind of awakening that's totally normal. I have read somewhere that even waking every 60 to 90 minutes can be part of a healthy sleep pattern. The deeper stages of sleep, or REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, occur about every 90 minutes and get longer as the night goes on, so our brain might become more alert between those cycles. Since we're conditioned to think that waking during the night is a problem, when it happens, we panic. That reaction causes our brains to awaken even further. If you find yourself awake in pre-dawn hours, we should first assess our physical state. Do we have an ache, a cramp, or need to go to the bathroom? If so, we need to take care of it. If we don't have a physical complaint, then chances are we are experiencing a normal stage of the sleep cycle. Knowing this helps replace worries that we will be useless without 8 solid hours of sleep with more neutral thoughts. The useful thought is: ‘I can handle the disruption and still feel rested.’ Getting bed-ready: Simply taking 15 minutes to sit quietly, meditate, pray, or do rhythmic breathing can allow our mind to slow down enough to sleep through the night. Establishing any ritual that we do before bed -- anything but checking our e-mail! -- will do more than relax us right then and there. The repetition also conditions our brain and body for sleep.

LIFE LESSONS

Sometimes thinking about our life and figuring out what we have learnt thus far is just as important as living our lives. We all live our lives and go through various phases -- some of these phases are very distinct and give varied kind of experiences and make us learn and unlearn a lot of things – we may even learn things which we may have never dreamt of. Here are some lessons that I have learned thus far in my life and I pass this on to you with the simple hope that it helps you in some way at some point in your life. 1.Compassion helps us understand our place in the world and ensures we are emotionally well rounded. 2.Our health is our life. We should try our best to lead a healthy life. 3.Bad things do happen to good people (also). We need to be prepared and absorb it as it comes and keep our balance. That’s what I call Emotional Fitness. 4.Healthy mind is more important than a healthy body 5.They say, time heals all wounds… regardless of how we feel right now. 6.Greed and bad intention should bury even the lucky eventually 7.Laughing, crying, screaming, abusing, praising and anger… All are vital. All make us human. 8.We should feel proud and savor our young days and the friends we had and the time we spent together and strive to keep meeting all old friends from time to time to feel young and happy. 9.Life is uncertain and we should not hesitate to do what we want to do and oppose the bad. Sometimes there is hesitation in doing that & I feel hesitation is the product of fear. And most of us do not fear to die, but we have ‘FEAR’ in us only when we have near and dear ones around us >>> we fear only for people whom we care for and love. 10.Love is great. It feels great to be loved and at the same time care and love for others – it could be for your parents, your spouse, and your child. 11.People deserve a second chance, but may be not a third. 12.Carelessness is the root of failure 13.Money makes life ‘easier’ -- but only when the money is yours, clean and free. 14.Motivation comes occasionally. We should act on it while we are motivated. 15.Attracting & infatuation works in the short term, but like minds will only mesh in the long run. 16.Life is round. Whatever one does in life, one gets back in due course of time. 17.Patience generally pays off in the end – may not be true always... so beware. 18.No matter how much you care, some people just don't care back. Be off them. 19.Attitude is good, but attitude beyond a point becomes arrogance. There is a thin line between attitude & arrogance. Control your attitude or it controls you. 20.Detailing of things is very important. 21.It always better to be planned and systematic. It has no bad side effects. 22.No two people can be fully compatible. Even parents may not be compatible with their children. Compatibility is all about how much we care for, love and need the other person. 23.There are some people in this world who change jobs, spouses, and friends – but never think of changing themselves. 24.Change can only come with the ability to accept one’s mistakes and drawbacks. 25.We can keep going for long after we think we can't. 26.No matter how bad your heart is broken the world doesn't stop for your grief.

MASTERING OURSELVES

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing ourselves is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength, mastering ourselves is true power. Being the master of ourselves goes deeper than getting up when the alarm goes off, although that's an important first step. It means more than controlling our spending or eating habits, although that too is essential. It means more than exercising, even when you don't feel like it, or reading a good book when you would prefer to sit in front of the TV and eat wafers. 1.We must control thoughts. The greatest power we ever got is the power of our thoughts. There is an Intelligence inside us that can elevate our life at the highest level. Everyone should learn to collaborate with this Intelligence which is organized to react on our intentions and to create with us a life of abundance and happiness. Thoughts are energy. Every thought carries an energy level. Our choice: we choose thoughts which lower our energy level, or we choose thoughts which increase our energy level. It's in our hands! Or better: it's in our head! How we will feel and act depends on what we think. Every action and emotion is preceded by a thought. Once we've learned how to become the master of our thoughts, we become the master of our life! 2.We must control our view of ourselves. If we were able to judge ourselves by the same standards that we apply to our friends and family, we might be able to gain a better viewpoint. Keeping a positive spin on our abilities can make a major difference. 3.To master ourselves, we must master our emotions. So many of us allow moods to control ourselves. If the day is bleak, we get bleaker. If the night is dark, we get darker. We take our emotions to an extreme, and never really become the master of our fate. 4.To become a master, we must practice. By its very nature, Mastery requires practice. It requires work. It requires dedication, change, sacrifice. 5.We must protect ourselves from self-pity. Self-pity is our worst enemy. 6.Give ourselves a push. Set goals to work on the parts you want to master first. Set a specific, detailed goal, a date for achievement, then plan out your path to success. 7.Learn to like ourselves 8.Don't take ourselves so damn seriously All of the above seems so simple and very elementary, but it is easier said than done. Those who can master it, I am sure are successful in getting what they want out of life.