I have been thinking of the trait attentiveness or paying attention today. Its occurred to me that being able to pay adequate attention to others and things will help in shaping our mind consciously. Probably indicative of my distractive mind while researching attentiveness I got a little carried away to the concept of mental diet.
For physical health a balanced food diet is recommended. Thinking along the same lines about a balanced mental diet led me onto Grace Bains's blog on health shots.com. She recommends three tips to improve mental well being and cognitive health. According to her a mental diet to develop a positive sense of how we feel, think and act are as follows :
1. Thought control : Neuroplasticity is a concept about the wiring of the brain. Its the ability of the brain to rewire according to the stimulus that leads to reorganisation and growth of neural pathways. So neuroplasticity has it that we can reprogram our brains by consciously deciding on the thoughts we keep.
2. Positive affirmations : Having a positive self image through positive affirmations. They are preferably a short note to oneself which is in present tense and which needs to be repeated to oneself again and again through the day.
3. Meditation : It's an act to gain the mental poise and balance necessary to have mental well being. Though there are various types of meditations the essence of all of it is to calm the mind and become aware of ones thoughts.
What we feed into our heads is the primary constituent of a mental diet. How does that happen. How do we feed our brains what is required and vital for mental well being. It's by paying attention. So here we go. I am back on track thinking about attentiveness.
What is attentiveness ? It is the trait of being kind , thoughtful, polite and considerate to others. Some synonyms are alert, watchful, vigilant. I came across a good write up on attention in a blog named mindwiper.com. According to it attention is of three types - sustained, selective and divisive. Sustained is when the person is attentive for long period of time. Selective attention is when one is focussed on only one thing and others things surrounding it disappears in the mind. Divisive attention is that which fluctuates from one point to another. Ashim Sarmah(mindwiper.com) gives three reasons for why paying attention is important.
1. Energy flows where attention goes. Life requires two main things energy and time. When one pays attention to the relevant matters then the minds primary processing unit takes care of it. Important to let energy flow into the vital matters in the mind. A mental diet where there is sorting out of the unwanted unhealthy mental thoughts thereby reducing the mental noise happens.
2. Attention and intelligence are inseparable. Decision making , problem solving and deductive thinking all require attention. If the attention span is less it leads to making unintelligent conclusions.
3. Effective Communication requires attention.
Ashim also goes to give three ways to improve attention
- Recognising wandering of attention
- Engaging the mind
- Practising mindfulness.
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