What's in Your Mental Diet?
To increase energy levels and elevate mood, take an inventory of your mental diet. Don’t make changes just yet. Compile a list on your phone or weekly calendar, some place that you have with you regularly.
What shows do you choose when you sit down to watch TV? Are they humourous? Reality-based and dramatic? Do you hone in on the world in crisis or are you fuelled by life in the wild? When you are driving or walking or riding... Are you listening to Top 40 hits? Country? Classical? Does your toe tap to golden oldies or rock n’ roll? Did you record these songs in a mixed format, or do you swallow down commercials or news broadcasts when they strike between songs?
What is your daily reading regimen? A newspaper? CNN? Internet broadcasts or a book rented from the library? What subjects attract your attention most often?
Do you subscribe to any daily messages via email? Quotes that inspire? The latest stock market tips?
What is the social scene most dominant in your week and what kind of conversations take place there? Is it the workplace and are most people comedic in nature? How often do you meet up with friends for a good laugh? Are you surrounded by heavy gossip and non-stop drama?
Look at your bedside reading. Your magazine subscriptions. Pay attention to the circle of people you bump into frequently in a week. Anything that shows up for one solid week of recording is the most practical approach to making the necessary adjustments.
Most of us have little to no conscious awareness of what mental calories we consume daily, nevermind the energy levels those calories influence, heavily. It is easy to see that a diet of depressing news updates and toxic co-workers is taxing our energy stores. It is less obvious an adjustment to remove television shows that churn up a negative funk, or reset your car’s radio to the classical station with few commercials that are easy to click off entirely when they arrive at regular and predictable intervals.
Simply pay attention to the feeling you get in your body halfway through a program, conversation, or article you are reading. If you are feeling even a little tense, agitated, or even just slightly annoyed, you are losing energy. Change the channel. Remove yourself from the conversation, gently. Close the magazine. This is just information that you have been exposed to enough times in a row that the effects feel “normal” or acceptable. We can make small shifts or adjustments and they make BIG changes to our moods.
I listen to classical music in my car whenever I drive. I have a sign posted on my front door asking that no papers be delivered, for both my mental health and that of the planet’s. I rent old classics from the library, many of them musicals. If I embark upon a new book that leaves me feeling twisted up in knots, I stop reading before I find out if the good guy wins. I’ll just assume he does. I can barely remember to watch TV, let alone maintain a regular show series that would require me to arrive on my couch the same time each week. But given that my offices are overflowing with people muddling through challenging emotional places, the vigilance I require in managing my mental diet is more than a bit excessive.
Follow your body. Tune into whether or not you are relaxed and energized or clenched and aggravated. Cut out the empty calories found in trash TV and newsprint, and load up on the calories that energize your mind and body. You don’t need to suffer needlessly through The Sound of Music to lift your spirits if you’d rather rock out to the Rolling Stones to get your blood flowing. This is just about trimming the fat and achieving an awareness that every calorie counts.
Kim Sargent
Clinical Director
Canadian Family Health Counselling