Age is Not a Number

Last week I had said I’d planned to add to the list of things you can do to reset yourself and slow your aging. But life got a bit complicated, and I have to postpone creating that list until next week. But here is an update to a post I did some 8 years ago that addresses some of these same things.

On January 8th of 2014, I launched what I called my “90 Day Super Quest”. That quest was an ambitious goal to get myself into the best possible physical and mental shape of my entire life and I was starting that exactly 90 days before I turned 70!

Just one week into my super quest, I was right on schedule with my workouts which included tennis, weightlifting, sit-ups, push-ups, and stretching. I had also worked on the mental side of my quest by keeping up with reading, writing, making new friends, and spending lots of time with old friends and family. However, I noticed a problem right around the one-week mark. It was that old demon—that negative inner self-talk. I had become way too focused on the fact that I was getting older, with that number 70 dominating the chatterbox inside my head, and not in a positive way.

But then I just happened to pick up a book that I’ve read and written about many times, and it flipped open to page 55 where the word “aging” jumped out at me. The book was Susan Jeffers’ Feel the Fear and Beyond, her follow-up book to Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. And, wow, does she have some great thoughts about aging and what your inner voice should NOT be saying about the subject, such as:

“I am getting older now. Aging is horrible. I wish my body was young again. Look at those wrinkles. Who could love a face that’s old? I hate it. Pretty soon, no one will want to be around me. When I was young, I could dance all night. Now I don’t have the energy. Why do people have to age? I wish I could be young forever.”

Then she goes on to discuss what we should be saying to ourselves:

“I love aging. My children are grown and now I’m free to do the things I put off doing. I’m glad I joined the gym. I don’t think I’ve ever been in such great shape. I’m going to learn all I can about keeping myself in the best of health. I have so much to look forward to. I learn and grow every day of my life. I wouldn’t want to go back one day. Why would I want to go back?”

Reading that, I realized that I needed to get rid of that number 70 that had become so set in my head. Instead, I started asking myself the question that I used to ask so often, something we all should probably ask ourselves whenever we think about aging: “How old would I say I am if I didn’t know?”.

Back then, when I asked myself this question, I could honestly say I felt 44. And for the rest of my 90 Day Super Quest, I thought to myself that, when I was done with this, I would be in the best physical and mental shape of my life as a 45-year-old! That outlook helped me push through the challenge and to this day, with some reminders here and there, I steer my mental chatter toward the positive and try to stay focused on the age I think I am, not just some number that has more to do with the calendar than what great things I have in my life.

Beautiful Mindfulness

Recently, I re-read Pema Chödrön’s great book, Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change. It got me thinking again about the human mind and how our thinking can be super helpful or just terrible for us.

It’s so very, very important that we try to “live in the now” as much as we can. It’s not easy but we do need to keep working at it because it really can lift our life and happiness.

In last week’s blog, I talked about meditation and how important and helpful it can be for our lives. Pema says in Living Beautifully that, “Meditation is one form of mindfulness, but mindfulness is called by many names: attentiveness, nowness, and presence are just a few. Essentially, mindfulness means wakefulness–fully present wakefulness.”

I totally agree with her.

She goes on to say that, “The specific details of our lives will, of course, differ, but for all of us, wakefulness concerns everything from how we make dinner to how we speak to one another to how we take care of our clothes, our floors, our forks and spoons. Just with other aspects of this commitment, we’re either present when putting on our sweater or tying our shoes or brushing our teeth, or we’re not. We’re either awake or asleep, conscious or distracted.”

Later she says, in reference to creating a comfortable life that this, “means setting up your life so that you have time for meditation and self-reflection, for kindhearted, compassionate self-honesty”. Those things and thoughts are so very important to our happiness. We all need to put a lot of effort into really living in the present moment. Doing that can lift our mood and our life tremendously.

To help me with this, I’ve made a list of what I call My 10 Natural Mood Boosters:

1. Get into a routine

2. Set goals

3. Exercise

4. Eat healthy

5. Get enough sleep

6. Take on responsibilities

7. Challenge negative thoughts

8. Take good supplements

9. Do something new

10. Try to have fun

I’d like to add one extra thing that has always worked for me when I am feeling down. It’s so simple — just go outside and take a walk to anywhere, although a place that’s new for you is best. And yes, it’s very important to live in the now as much as you can—you will be glad and much happier if you do this as often as possible!

The Influence of Self-Talk

 

We all do it – some of it is very good and some is very negative. I’m talking about all of our self-talk. The good news, as you already know, is that you can somewhat control whether your self-talk is helping or hurting you. And that, my dear followers, is all about your brain and what you choose to let dominate and rule. Sadly, most often, self-talk is negative. It’s hurting you and keeping you from reaching your full potential.

Self -talk should say:

1. This is something I can do.
2. I’m so looking forward to this.
3. I can do this very well.
4. This is going to make me what I want to be and get me where I want to be.

But self-talk can say:

1. I can’t do this.
2. I’m not good enough.
3. I’m not going to be able to pull this off.
4. Why do things always happen like this?
5. I’m afraid I will fail.

As Henry Ford famously said, “If you think you can, or if you think you can’t, either way, you’re right!”

Think about this when playing golf. If you think you will hit the ball into the water, you probably will. The body follows the mind. It listens to the self-talk. It believes you. The body says, “Your wish is my command.”

I’ll never forget my self-talk as I was playing in this one tennis tournament. I got to a crucial point where I knew that I could not afford to double-fault. As I hit the net on my first serve, my self-chatter was very negative and said, “Wow, I just can’t double fault here.” Ouch!

What a negative thought and message I sent to my muscles. My mind probably only heard the word “double fault” and that’s exactly what I did. My second serve went long—I pretty much did exactly what I programmed my mind to do. My wish was the body’s command.

The point I’m trying to make is that life is lived mainly inside your head, so you’ve got to know what’s in your mind and how your mind works and the great influence of self-talk!

We all need to understand how the mind works and that you can control the self-talk and the self-chatter. You need to know how to direct the self-talk that’s hurting you and your life and keeping you from your full potential.

I learned a great lesson from that tennis double fault. From the terrible loss that day, I went on to win 4 gold medals at the Huntsman Senior games held each year in southern Utah. Before every match I would have some very positive self-talk with myself, saying things like, “Mark, you have a great serve and a super topspin forehand and a great underspin backhand and you will win this match today!” And yes, I did.

The bottom line is, we all need to practice controlling our self-talk and make it very positive. It’s pretty much all between your ears and mind. Sure, sometimes we will lose but if you are using a ton of positive self-talk, you will find yourself a winner in many, many situations – in sports, business, and relationships. Try it and you will see.

The Power of Repeated Thoughts

People commonly remark to themselves, or to other people, things like “I’m a real good people person,” or “You know, I’m not good with people. I guess I’m kind of anti-social.” Others say, “Hey, I’m really good at fixing things,” or “I sure am a poor public speaker, but I’m a very good writer.” How about you? What do you tell yourself and others that you are good at and things that you are not so good at?

This self-talk is a very powerful thing and it tends to make you much better at some things, but it also can reinforce negative ideas about your life and habits which can hurt you.

I’ve said for many years that I’m very good with numbers and that I am a good wordsmith but, when it comes to repairing or fixing things, ugh… I’m terrible. And for many years now I’ve said to myself and to others, “I’m really, really not physically flexible.” In fact, I can’t even touch the floor without bending my knees big time. But, a few weeks ago, I started thinking about the huge connection between the brain and the body and how my comments about my lack of flexibility was totally reinforcing that weakness. You see, by telling myself over and over again that I was not at all flexible, my body believed it, which wasn’t hard because I wasn’t doing anything to change it either. So, my body was just following the brain’s instructions.

It does surprise me that I didn’t have this wakeup call years ago. I just accepted having a stiff body as an unchangeable fact and by always saying that I was not flexible, I reinforced what my brain was telling my body.

So, having had my little epiphany, I decided to do something about it. I started a simple daily stretching routine and within just a few days I was delighted to see a slow but consistent improvement in my flexibility. Before my stretching program, if I had dropped something on the floor, I would ask my wonderful wife, Kimberly, it she’d pick it up and she always would. But now she doesn’t have to. Even though I’ve got a long way to go to be super flexible, I can see that it is going to happen, just a little bit at a time.

I’m not saying that we don’t each have some very natural talents and abilities but there is also a very strong connection between the brain and the body that can also affect our abilities. We need to remember that we can direct our thoughts to make changes and improvements in our body and in our life, changes that we may have thought were not possible. The bottom line is that our thoughts can reinforce good stuff in our lives as well as some bad stuff so we should pay attention to which kind of thoughts we keep repeating to ourselves and others.

Think about this and maybe experiment with ways to direct you and your body to change or improve. You might surprise yourself.

 

Just a Little ANT Spray

Last week I talked about those damn ANTS (Automatic Negative Thoughts) and how they can invade you and influence your body and your brain. Sometimes they come by the dozens or even hundreds and can ruin your hour, day or even your life.  So how does a person get rid of those ANT’s—what do we use for an ‘ANT’ spray? How do we program our brains to stop the ANT’s from marching one by one through our minds?

Here’s 3 ways to control those ANT’s, given to us by Dr. Daniel G. Amen.  He and others have discovered that just like negative thoughts that can go deep into the limbic system of the brain, happy thoughts have been shown to affect a person by “cooling of the deep limbic system”.

No. 1: When you have those ANT’s, try to quickly think happy thoughts that can push the negative ones out. “Every time you have a good thought, a happy thought, a hopeful thought or a kind thought, your brain releases chemicals that make your body feel good (and cools your deep limbic system),” says Dr. Amen.

No. 2.  Your thoughts are not always correct. “Your thoughts do not always tell the truth,” Dr. Amen again tells us. “You don’t have to believe every thought that goes through your head”. The lesson here is to challenge those negative thoughts that you at all suspect are not true.

No. 3.  Pay more attention to your thoughts. That is, be very aware of what your chatter box is saying, pay attention, and when they are negative, talk back to them.  To quote Amen, “If you can correct negative thoughts, you take away their power over you.”  He goes on to say, “One way to crush these ANT’s is to write them down and talk back to them.  When you write down negative thoughts and talk back to them you take away their power and help yourself feel better.”

Last night I had some very negative thoughts as I didn’t plan on staying the night in cold Idaho Falls, Idaho. I was visiting my brother and had the entire day planned out, but a minor car problem had made it impossible for me to drive home.  As a result, I was having an invasion of ANT’s. So I started talking to myself and changing those negative thoughts to “Hey, wait a minute. Now I can spend more time with my brother and his wife and talk about all the good memories of our childhood etc.” Wow, things started to change big time in my head. I took a long walk in the brisk night air and listened to the loud mooing of the cows and the strong field and farm aromas, staring into the beautiful sunset sky as I watched literally hundreds of geese flying overhead. My brain, my mood, my whole being was lifted so high I felt I was 50 years younger. It brought back so many fond childhood memories and I felt I was walking on air.  Talk about quickly killing thousands of ANT’s!

Even now, a day later, my body is still reaping the huge benefits of denying the negative thoughts and replacing them with positive brain activity. It’s not just a momentary thing that you change when you get rid of those ANTs, it’s can contribute to a whole better outlook on life.

 

 

Getting Back Those Sweet Dreams with P.A.s

So how well do you sleep at night these days?  Remember when you were a teenager—no problem sleeping then! You’d usually crash out as soon as your head hit the pillow. There was no waking  up in the middle of the night for unknown reasons, no worries keeping your brain from turning off, no waking up for a trip to the bathroom which also woke your worried mind. There was just deep wonderful uninterrupted sleep!  Boy, those were the days!

99% of my readers are definitely not teenagers so it’s likely that, like me, you have experienced many nights of restless sleep—lots of tossing and  turning and waking up worrying about some problem or unknown outcome. The good news is that you are not alone and there are things you can do to help reduce these disruptive moments.

When I wake up in the middle of the night my mind can so quickly go into a highly negative mode and I just lay there being a big time worry wart.  I have discovered that most of us humans, especially  as we age, have brains that seem to automatically lower our natural  mental defenses and logical mature thinking to a very weak state when we  are tired, hence the worried state of mind. To get  back to sleep one can try some of the old methods such as counting sheep but a much better method is to first work on changing that worried mental state. Once the worry is reduced, sleep will come much more readily. But how do you do that?

It’s actually quite simple. Turn the chatter filled with fear filled questions and negative thoughts into inner talk that is filled with positive, supportive statements. Use your P.A.s! PA’s (positive affirmations) can be repeated in your mind the same way those worries and doubts are being echoed over and over. Keeping your positive thoughts generalized and not at all focused on the situation that is worrying you will keep you from taking a “but what if?” detour. So you put aside thoughts of the things that are worrying you and say something like, “I feel relaxed and very, very sleepy,” over and over in your mind. Don’t let anything else creep back in. Repeat the PA and imagine how it feels to be that relaxed and sleep and pretty soon you will actually feel that way, your mind will agree that this is true and you’ll quickly be back in sleep mode. Try it.  It’s amazingly simple and effective!

There is more you can put into your arsenal to insure a good night’s sleep and a relaxed well-rested state of mind. We will go into another very effective method next week but in the meantime, sweet dreams!

Take Control of Your Internal Chatter

In my singles match against a strong player at the Huntsman World Senior Games this last week, I found my internal dialogue turning very negative and as it did, so did my game. I was playing terribly–double faults, mis-hits, into to the net, etc. I just stunk.

In the first tie breaker, I found myself down 4-2. It was then that I said to myself, “You’ve got to get positive here or you’re going to lose.” So I pushed the negative thoughts aside and, sure enough, I won the next 5 points and the first set. During the second set I consciously kept my internal chatter much more positive and as a result my game was also consistently better.

The way we talk to ourselves is so very important in everything we do in life. If you say to yourself just before going in front of a microphone, “I am not going to do well today”, your subconscious hears you and, yep, you’ll probably blow the presentation.

And it’s not just the negativity. It’s also the language we use. Studies have been done that show when, for instance, a tennis player says to themselves “I just can’t double fault”, a huge percentage of people will go ahead and double fault. This is because the mind sees the most descriptive part of that thought, the act of double faulting, and ends up subconsciously focusing on that potential, just as it does when you think negatively.

So be careful and pay attention to all that chatter inside your brain. When you’re in the moment, push the negative out and imagine only the positive.