A river is in constant motion. If you were to take a pot full of water out of a river and leave it sitting without movement then the water would eventually become stale and stagnant. Our minds work in a similar way. Do you ever feel like you’re stuck in a rut repeating the same day over and over again? Well, that’s probably because you are and just like the rest of us, we get stuck in cycles of repetition with little or no new stimulus to occupy our minds.
We have big brains and our brains like to learn new things and be stimulated by new situations, new environments, new people, and new places. The idle mind is our enemy. If you neglect to challenge yourself and your mind in new ways, your mind will become your enemy. But why would our minds work against us? It’s really quite simple…… Boredom…….
Stagnation is a lack of movement and boredom is a lack of action. If your mind becomes too stagnant or bored it will amuse itself in various ways by creating scenarios and usually negative thought patterns that have little or no relevance to real life. So in order to be happy, we must not be stagnant and we must challenge ourselves with new stimuli. What is the opposite of stagnation? Movement is the opposite of stagnation and exercise is movement.
Exercise and Nutrition play a huge role in mental health. To train and lift weights properly requires a great deal of mental perseverance, mental focus, and of course movement. So what else does exercise do apart from the release of feel-good hormones like dopamine and serotonin? Well, it’s similar to meditation because it gets your mind to shut the fuck up for an hour. When exercising, your mind is busy and focused. It has no time to think about worries or negative thoughts patterns because it is too busy completing the task at hand. If an idle mind is an angry mind then a busy mind is a happy one 🙂
