Common Brain Drains and Natural Brain Boosters

Have you ever felt so unusually fatigued, and generally drained? While fatigue, despite being well rested, can be generally attributed to many things, the cause of your malaise and mental funk might be quickly resolved by first recognizing and identifying the stress triggers below that could be the underlying culprit behind your morose mood, and replacing them with healthy brain boosters instead.

Can you recognize which triggers might be affecting your temperament and mental health for the worse?

• Not moving.
  Moving doesn’t have to be a full blown sweat session. Just getting some fresh air outside or a walk around the block can cure what’s been ailing you, and give you a mood boost as well. The increase in serotonin and endorphins enable this little magical lift to happen. Next time, have a brainstorming work session outside. Vitamin D is nature’s natural antidepressant, and people who suffer from low levels of the sunshine vitamin often experience greater dips in mood fluctuations throughout the day.
• Complaining.
  Complaining feels good, but it can certainly bleed over from venting in an effort to feel better to downright rumination, an obsession causing more negative feelings to ensue — a vicious cycle that never ends. This can drain you, and the person listening to you. If complaining has a constructive purpose in mind, with a proposed solution in hand, you will wind up feeling better, not worse.
• Interacting with toxic people.
  While it is hard to avoid everyone that drains you for whatever reason, do your best to limit your interactions with those that leave you feeling depleted.
• Excessive worrying.
  Excessive worrying can cause a whole slew of health conditions. Learn to let go of what you cannot control, and embrace what you can control in the present. Then, actually do something constructive to address your issues.
• Fear.
  Fear activates the amygdala in the brain, causing a fight or flight response. This in turn, triggers inflammatory responses in the body contributing to your malaise. Learn to distinguish between downright danger, and anticipatory anxiety.
• Social comparisons. 
  Focusing on what others have or don’t have is utterly useless. It detracts from potential blessings you could be receiving, not to mention blessings you already have but fail to notice.
• No passion.
  Not being goal oriented, or passionate about something is a sure fire way to have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning, or living with purpose. Find you passion, however big or small, and purse it with vigor.
• Making the same mistake over and over again. 
  Experience creates neuronal growth in the brain, whereby we learn from making the same mistakes repeatedly. Learn to embrace what you have learned, and apply its lessons to many areas of your life to enhance it for the better.
• Remaining stagnant.
  Strive to become a better version of you each and every day. Being comfortable is a sign of stagnancy, whereby no growth takes place.
• Chronic stress. 
  Learn to identify your stress triggers, which are quite subjective, and tackle each one with productive ways to overcome and address them and/or avoid them to the best of your availability.
• Negative thinking.
  Optimism has its benefits. Adopting or cultivating a healthy dose of optimism enables you to see things in a positive light, while also having a back up plan(s) in place in case things do not go the way you envisioned.  
• Regret/Anger/Resentment.
  Learn to let go, and forgive others who have wronged you. Forgiving is not a sign of weakness, or of forgetting what has been done to you. Forgiving is a gift you give yourself, a gift that removes the toxicity in your heart that you have been carrying around.
• Not cultivating friendships/gratitude.
  Reach out to others when you need a mood boost. The social connection can do wonders to improve your overall mood, and cognitive function. While you are at it, treat a friend or a loved one for coffee, and express your gratitude to them for something they did for you, however big or small. Small acts of gratitude never go unnoticed.
• Not spending enough time alone.
  On the contrary, spend some time with yourself, and stop putting everyone ahead of you and your own needs. It is when we spend some time with ourselves that we are truly able to reflect, make intuitive connections, and engage in some much needed introspection.
• Not learning anything new/no change in your existing routine.
  While a semblance of routine is healthy for mental stability, and overall health, not changing it up once in a while can leave you feeling drained, and unmotivated. Learn to embrace and incorporate something new into your life.
• Helping others.
  Acts of kindness, however small, stimulate the brain cells to become more empathetic. Learning to cultivate these often underused muscles, exercises the brain in the healthiest of ways. So do good, genuinely think of others, and reap the positive benefits of your actions down the line.  

These sneaky culprits can seem quite obvious in a list form. However when you find yourself not feeling the best you could feel, and you can’t quite put your finger on what may be ailing you, try revisiting some of the suggestions above to become a better and healthy version of yourself. This way you can learn to live more optimally, and have stronger relationships not just with others around you, but with yourself as well-the person you should be advocating the most for.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2017/02/05/common-brain-drains-and-natural-brain-boosters/