Читать книгу Happiness Diet for Your Mind - Timothy Anspach - Страница 4

I have a challenge for you before you read another page of this book. For the next week I want you to stop indulging in your normal morning routine and replace it with what your routine was a child. If your childhood was not one of enjoyable experiences then do what other children did. I want you to watch cartoons, listen to happy kid’s songs, watch shows on learning and nature and spend your morning really having fun. No local or national news, no Facebook, talk shows, or game shows, no ESPN or gossip shows, no newspaper articles, no adult topic books or magazines, only things you would give a 5 year old to indulge in.

The goal is to find the same songs, shows, and books you read and indulged in as a child and then to indulge in those again for this one week period. Google search the books you read and find the old songs, cartoons and TV shows you watched as a child on YouTube. Spend 30 minutes each morning indulging in these mediums instead of your normal current stimuli.

During this one week period I want you to try and only engage in conversations about childish or educational objective things. Avoid conversations about opinions, politics, religion, and other such subjects. Try to remember what conversations you had as a child with your friends and family and try and recreate those conversations. Talk about what you did during your day and what you are currently experiencing or working on.

Don’t worry, this is just a temporary experiment, the goal is not to permanently stick your head in the sand to the problems of the world, but rather to become aware of how powerful the stimulus we choose to indulge in each day can be on our mental state of mind. I have not met one person yet who does not feel a dramatic difference in their mood after this simple week long experiment. The different thoughts you begin to have created by the change in the stimulus you have chosen will be polar opposite to those created by news media and Social Networking. The point is not that we all need to watch the “Smurfs” for 30 minutes each day, although that probably wouldn’t hurt, but rather to be aware of how the stimulus you choose to indulge in on a regular basis affects your thoughts which then create your emotions which then create your mental state. In order to have a healthy mental state, you need a healthy mental diet consisting of mental stimulation that gives you the best chance to influence your thoughts in the direction you desire.

So what is exactly is Stimuli and how do you create a diet plan for yourself?