Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
Welcome, or welcome back to Success with Srini. Today on the podcast, I want to highlight a significant aspect of the life of our day to day existence, which we as evolved individuals who don’t really take that much care, which is the mental self of us, the mindsight of us, we are very concerned about the food that we eat, the way we look physically. So our bodies, we do take care of that. But our mind, we don’t. Even though we know that we need to keep ourselves active as we age, our mental faculties, diminish, they kind of fade away, we need to keep ourselves agile, we need to keep ourselves, our reflexes, very, very active and all that. But still, we don’t. Not only that, over the last 20, 30 years, there is a tremendous amount of evolution that has happened. When it comes down to the body aspect. You have pain, you have some dysfunction happening with your body, there are medications, and there are approaches to address them. But when it comes to the brain, we are still exploring what the human brain is. And we’re seeing a pattern that’s evolving, which is we see people are living 200 years, 115 years, 120 years, and overall life expectancy is going up. But then you have a long physical existence, but a very short mental existence. So by the time you’re 75, 80, you now have issues like dementia coming in, you have Alzheimer’s kicking in all kinds of brain diseases coming in, but then the body is strong.
So, my father, I’ll give you an example. My father had a stroke, a TIA transient ischemic attack is what they call it. He got that when he was 75 years old, today, 79 years old today. He’s 88. And he has lived, when he got that stroke, as a result of the stroke, he ended up losing a part of his memory and some functions of the brain. But then overall, he recovered, but then he had a strong body at the time he got the stroke. So physically, he was looking amazing. But then the stroke happened and along the way over the years, you know, dementia started taking him, and other dysfunctional started developing. But then, for the last eight, nine years, now, he’s living a very compromised life.
So imagine a situation within which you have a long life, but then you are caged, because of a stroke, not because of dementia, because of some Alzheimer’s or epilepsy or something like that, Parkinson’s, so many diseases. So what can be done it, first of all, I want to establish a problem statement, I want to convey the problem statement before I get into what I think that we all should do. And there is a lot of research on this. And there are a lot of different philosophies, so much different literature available on how to keep the brain active. So I’m not going to get into all the minute things, but I’m going to share an overall approach that I think that we all should take. And I take this because I take this, that’s why the first and the foremost sisters, in order to keep the brain active, you got to be engaged in an activity within which you find happiness. Whatever the activity is, the job that you’re doing, the business that you are running, or a hobby or a passion that you are pursuing, all of that you should be happy doing. That means you are deriving some pleasure on a daily basis. You want to extend that derive some pleasure on an hourly basis, do it, but at least on a daily basis, starts from there.
Now, it doesn’t have to be a work or a business or a hobby situation. Let’s say you’re working very hard in a job within which you’re not finding happiness, then why not watch a movie? Why not take a walk? Why don’t we’ll make some friends, whatever that is, you need to create some happiness consistently to keep the mind active. That’s the point. Then we now also know that if you laugh, and you engage in watching funny movies and that have some comic elements to it, or you are laughing with a bunch of friends on having some discussions, whatever they tend to laughter tend to give the necessary dopamine effects to the brain. I don’t know I think that’s the right way to say it but then contributes to the overall health of the brain of the mind. Then obviously, we know now that if you continuously pursue new interests, love a new language or learn music or painting or something on a consistent basis, in order to learn not to achieve anything but to learn the learning part itself keep the brain active, we now know that we also now know that if you just simply play any game, not to win, not to master the game, but just play any game. I did a podcast many, many months ago. And I talked about how by just simply going into the sunlight, or simply leaving the elevation and going up, in other words, climbing a mountain or hiking a little bit higher than where you usually stay a little bit higher that tends to activate the brain. So any kind of exercise that is interesting as challenging. And you do that, from time to time, gives the necessary nutrients to the brain to function keeps the mind active.
One thing that I want to also point out, when I go into consultations, I hear people telling me about all the stress they have in life. People complain about generic stress. Most people don’t spend enough time to explore within the overall stress they’re feeling, what specific areas of life from where the stress is coming from. So there is no specificity they don’t invest in finding specific reasons why they’re experiencing stress. So a part of keeping the mind active does involve that you recognizing your stress from where it’s coming, why it’s coming, and what kind of response you have for it.
If you had challenges in the past, and you went through a lot, but you did overcome those challenges. That means you have a response to stress. Why not bring those memories back? Let’s say you are facing a situation right now. Why not bring those memories back and strengthen your response, because you already have a response pattern within you to deal with what’s happening right now.
A few days ago, I think yesterday, or maybe the day before yesterday, I talked about how and why it’s important that you express yourself, and keep the emotions within you keeping your feelings within you. Emotions, let’s talk about that first. Emotions, you know, if you bottle up emotions, then it’s challenging. It takes you down. Expressing yourself sometimes is difficult. But while you are happy expressing all good things in life? Why not express things that are bothering you? You have a sad feeling love a scary feeling. Why not express those feelings to someone who is near and dear to you, a friend of yours. And if you professionally want to do that, that’s an extended thought. But then not necessary. Just why not talk to people who love you and care for you. And tell them this is how you’re feeling. This is how you’re experiencing something deep within you. And take the feeling out express its views in a way before it does any damage to the mind.
See, life is about thoughts and feelings. Life is an interplay of thoughts and feelings. So sometimes when the thoughts are not right, you have to manipulate the feelings to align the thoughts. And sometimes the feelings are incorrect. You have to tweak the thoughts to change the feelings to say it’s this cyclical, the circular and relationships are made directly proportional to each other. Now, here’s what we know. Here’s what I know people who are on top of their feelings usually win in the race of life anyway.
One example I have shared, I have experienced myself and I’ve shared this multiple times with many of my clients also on this podcast at some point for sure on my radio show, which is you don’t need to talk and express your feelings to anybody. Why not write down those feelings? They could paper write how you’re feeling within yourself. And legends, celebrities, stars, extraordinarily successful individuals from history. They have all done this to express themselves on paper in Saudi became stronger day by day, they became stronger and achieved much bigger things that they never thought that they would achieve in the first place. It’s not necessary that you have to talk to someone, you can express your feelings, write them by writing on paper, which improves your writing skills. And a month or two later, when you go back and you start looking at what you wrote, you’ll be amazed, did I write all this? What was I thinking when I wrote this? So here’s how I want to wrap this up today, this podcast, he got to participate in activities that bring joy and laughter frequently. You got to consistently find new interests, and engage yourself in playing some games. That gives the mind the necessary workout. You got to also understand how you react to your reactions to situations primarily to stress. And you have to do whatever you have to do to express yourself. And you don’t bottle up your emotions.
These are some ideas, some thoughts, I don’t think these are all complete. I don’t think I can spend the next three hours or five hours here on this podcast, I still cannot touch the topic called Mind. And this whole podcast and everything that I do has to do with my mind anyway. But there are so many other strategies that will address how to put the mind in a peak performance state in a peak condition. And this is not complete this podcast is not complete, at least not this episode. So my idea is that you at least this will, this will motivate you this loop just by you. My idea is that this will motivate you, this will inspire you. And then you will do whatever is necessary. If you want to go deeper into this, you will do your own research. But at least this will give you the start. That’s the goal of this podcast. I’m going to stop here.
Hopefully, this is helpful. If it is do me a favor, write a review, share the podcast with your friends and family. And then you have any questions for me on the direct line, my phone number is 888-818-0404. That’s all for now. Wherever you are, be safe. Talk soon. Bye now.