I've got 4 very practical steps for you today. "How to avoid a nervous
breakdown?" Pay attention. I promised you 4 steps. The first one has to do with
your body. I want you to move fuel and rest your body appropriately. This is
really important, folks. You know, I get the question all the time: "Is this a
psychological thing or is it tied to my health? My fitness?" Look, your brain is
part of your body. It's your brain that controls your emotional experiences and
how you handle your relationships and how you feel and what you say and what
you do. It's part of your body. So, moving your body is really important. The
research shows that you need to have good aerobic activity going on at least
3 to 5 times a week for a sustained amount of time. You need to be
moving your body with intention and intensity.
This helps to purge some of the toxins out of your system. It allows every
system of your body to function more efficiently and effectively.
You know what? The research on depression and antidepressant medications, anytime
its pitted against exercise. Exercise tends to get better numbers in the
results for depression. Better than antidepressant medication. That's why
it's so important. I also mentioned that you want to fuel your body properly. You
think about your vehicle for example. If you just go run the garden hose into
your gas tank, what's going to happen? Yeah. Not good things. What if you dump one of
those 54 out sodas right down in there? It's still a problem. I want you to be
running good fuel through your body. And rest. This came out of some research at
Harvard where they said you got to get enough sleep. In fact, Doctor Eddie
Halliwell called this brain maintenance where you get enough sleep, you eat a
balanced diet, pay attention to the fuel and you
get regular exercise. Those things are essential to avoiding a nervous
breakdown. Because we're talking about the equipment, the proper operation of
that equipment. Here's tip number 2: And this does have to do with your thinking.
I want you to practice Metacognition. That's kind of a fancy psychological
word. All it really means is thinking about thinking. This is a higher level of
thinking where you actually start to think about your thinking. And when you
do, you're going to notice some things happening. There's 2 processes that are
always going on in your mind. You can't turn them off. They're going to happen
whether you're aware of them or not. I want to call it to your attention so
that you can have some choice. Those 2 processes are evaluation and creation.
Evaluation is simply judgment. Notice that you're doing this.
You constantly judge yourself, your relationships, your finances, your job,
your co-workers, people in your community, you judge me. It's cool. I know. I get it.
You can't turn it off. Just notice that you're doing it. That's what I call
evaluation. Evaluation and how you judge your life makes a huge difference. And
when people have a nervous breakdown, it's usually because they think that
things are not good in their life. Interesting. That is a judgment. I'm not
here to tell you how to think. I just want you to see that you are. So, notice
that you're judging, you're evaluating your circumstances and you're coming up
with some kind of an answer to that. You have some choice in what will you judge
it. This is hard, really? Compared to what? Well compared to something easier. Just
notice that you're doing it. This makes a big difference because then you're in
choice, you're in control. Now, the second process that I told you about is
creation. Creation of what is to be. And this doesn't exist yet. Because we
haven't created it yet. A lot of nervous breakdowns are centered around the
anxiety that comes when we expect that something is going to go wrong or be bad or
painful or difficult. Okay. How good are you really at predicting stuff? Yeah, me
neither. We think we know what's going to happen.
But honestly, you don't. And so you're imagining that. What would happen if you
started to control that process a little more and intentionally expect or
anticipate or predict that what's coming is even better? Do youy see how that changes
things in the way that you feel? You want to avoid a nervous breakdown, you have to
start learning what's going on in your own mind that requires metacognition,
think about your thinking. Notice that you're doing the evaluation and the
creation and that you have something to do with that. That leads me into tip
number 3. Understand choice and control. You've noticed this already,
right? That some things you just don't have any control over. And a lot of times,
those are the things that you're worried about. Or they're the things that are
convincing you that your life is not good in one way or another. So, we're
going to use the metacognition from the last tip and bring that into our
understanding of choice in control. Notice how you talk to yourself. Do you
ever say, "I have to do this." And I really need to, and I've got to, and I
have to, have to, should, must. We're beating ourselves up with that. What if
you were to trade all of those obligatory words for choice? "I choose to".
Now, you're going to feel some resistance and you might be through, "But Dr. Paul, I
have to do this." Really? What would happen if he didn't?
I'm not suggesting that you don't do that thing. I want you to notice that you
have the ability to ask the question what would happen if I didn't and that
implies that you might choose not to. That hopefully brings up all the great
reasons why you choose to do what you're telling yourself that you have to do. "Oh,
well. I have to go to work Dr. Paul." Oh, really? What would happen if you didn't?
"Well, I wouldn't have any money. I couldn't feed my family." Oh, okay. So, you
choose to go to work because you prefer to have some money and feed your family?
Now, is this just semantics? I get that all the time and somebody's going to put
that in the comments. I know. Notice that the words you choose matter. They make a
difference and they change how you show up. That's why I wanted to come to your
attention. And I told you I'm not here to tell you how to think. I'm not that
powerful. I just want you to see that you are, okay? See that you're thinking. And
see if there might be some choice there. Choose to versus have to. That's tip
number 3. You really want to avoid a nervous breakdown, you're not going to do
this alone. Get some help. Interact with people. We
are social creatures. It's in our makeup. And even if you're not a very outgoing
person, it's important for you to connect with others. And I strongly encourage you
to associate with people who will support your sanity. You probably noticed
some people actually make it worse. They fuel the fire, so to speak. Be careful
about that. I've heard it said many times that we become like the 5 people we
hang out with the most. And when I first heard that, I started looking around
asking myself well who am i hanging out with? And do these people really support
my sanity and my productivity and my happiness? And if they don't, maybe it's
time to re-examine how you're spending your time and with whom. You might also
consider getting a coach, a therapist, a counselor, someone that you can talk to
very openly and freely about the things that are on your mind. When we do that,
it actually allows us to do some of those other steps better that we've
already talked about --The Metacognition, thinking about your thinking. Being able
to reframe things into a choice instead of a have to. Talking to somebody can go
a long way to do that. And there's also groups that you can associate with or
courses that you can take. Let's turn on your brain and tap into the human
treasury that surrounds you. Here's another interesting thing about the
Association part: When you start to focus on what other people need or desire or
could benefit from and you look inside of yourself and see what skills or
talents or gifts you have that could come to address some of their problems,
it changes everything. Engage in service. Look for ways to get
outside of yourself and enhance or enrich the lives of other people. I'm
including that as the fourth key strategy that I wanted to share with you
today about how to avoid a nervous breakdown. It's powerful. There! That's
simple, right? Well, it is simple, okay? Simple and easy aren't the same thing.
And if you'd like a little extra assistance with this, that's what we're
here for. I've got a whole team of certified coaches
who can assist you with working through some of the things that have caused you
to be concerned about this in the first place. Would you connect with them? You
can get there by going to DrPaul Jenkins.com/breakthrough
call. And that will hook you up to our calendars to talk to one of our coaches.