Tag: goals

HOW TO HACK YOUR BRAIN FOR NEW YEARS RESOLUTION SUCCESS

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

Are you a person that sets a New Year’s resolution every year, but doesn’t quite follow through with it? Maybe you know a lot of friends and family members that set goals, but by the end of the year, you ask them if they’ve done them and they haven’t. Whether you’ve been successful in the past or not, this is a new year, and you absolutely can hack your brain through cognitive-behavioral processes to achieve success in your New Year’s resolutions. You can do this in three easy ways. 

Setting SMART Goals.

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Action-Oriented, Realistic, and Time-Oriented.

Specific: You want to be specific about your goal and map out how you’re going to be able to do that. For example, I want to learn steel mace this year. I know the basics, but this year I’m going to dedicate some time towards getting better and more proficient at steel mace. At the end of the year, I want to certify in that, so I have a very specific goal. 

Measurable: How can you measure your goals? So my measure is going to be when I complete the certification. If that doesn’t happen this year that’s okay, but I’m going to work towards that, so that is my precise measurement. 

Action-Oriented: Next is action-oriented, how exactly are you going to achieve that goal? So, I’m working with a coach and I’m going to practice two to three days a week on steel mace. I’ve signed up for the certification so that each month I’ll be working towards a specific goal. Essentially, how are you going to map out achieving that goal? If you don’t do that, you are not setting yourself up for success. For example, if you want to lose weight, but you don’t like to grocery shop, then that is not going to work out so well. You have to figure out how you can meal prep or maybe you need to hire a professional to help guide you because you’ve been doing the same thing over and over again. 

Realistic: Is it realistic, is this possible, or is it too farfetched? For example, saying I’m going to lose 40 pounds in a month or I’m going to go to the gym five to seven days a week are not realistic goals. You need to give yourself time to adapt and work into a new habit as opposed to just going all in and then crashing come February. 

Time: Lastly is the building in the time. So what are you measuring and then what is your timeline to achive it? For example, by June or sooner I am going to begin to work out three days a week or by February or sooner I am going to eat six servings of vegetables a day.

Take your time and go through this process. Make sure your goals are strong, realistic, and measurable so that you can be successful. 

2. Hacking that habit loop, and rewarding yourself. 

When you are setting a new goal, you want to try to reward yourself immediately after you’ve done something. For example, you wake up in the morning and exercise, right after you are done exercising you want to reward yourself. That could be something as simple as taking a hot shower or eating a piece of chocolate. Whatever is rewarding to you. Research shows that you should do it immediately after the activity to help reinforce that process and reprogram your subconscious mind.

3. Consistency.

You have to be consistent when trying to gain new habits. Even when it’s hard, you have to commit, perhaps for two minutes or five minutes. You have to be consistent and once you do, it becomes easier and easier. Sometimes you have to break through a lot of barriers and a lot of subconscious behaviors that have been working against you for so long. Remember your subconscious mind always likes what’s easy and likes to follow the path of least resistance so you have to work hard to break out of that. 

This year, change things up. Don’t be the norm. Happy New Year!

If you’d like to schedule a free 15 minute virtual discovery session, please email drarianne@staging.movementparadigm.flywheelsites.com or text 302-373-2394 to schdule. We’d love to help you get healthy again!

For more content, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here.

GUT-BRAIN CONNECTION 101

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

The gut-brain connection is so powerful in your immune health, hormonal health, and nervous system. If you’ve ever had a gut feeling then you know exactly what the gut-brain connection is.

The gut-brain connection is bi-directional communication between the gut and the brain. The gut, meaning our second nervous system or our enteric nervous system, and our brain, our first nervous system. This bi-directional communication happens through multiple pathways, including hormonal, immune, and our nervous system.  The objective of the gut-brain connection is to maintain normal gut function, as well as appropriate behavior.

The first brain has 100 billion neurons, and our second brain, our gut has about 500 million neurons. You can see how powerful this neural connection is, and this neural connection happens primarily through the vagus nerve.

The vagus nerve originates in the brainstem and then wanders down to the gut. It signals in both directions. For example, if you are getting anxious about a presentation that you have to give you might feel that in your stomach, but if you are eating some kind of inflammatory foods, then that can cause you to potentially feel anxious.

Now, the next connection is hormonal, and this is based on the neurotransmitters or the chemical messengers that we have that communicate between the gut and the brain. Ninety percent of our serotonin is located in the gut that is produced by gut bacteria. Serotonin provides us with a sense of happiness. We also produce 50 percent of our dopamine, our feel-good hormone, in our gut. Another hormone we produce is called GABA (Gamma-aminobutyric acid), which decreases feelings of stress and anxiety.

Last but not least, our gut-brain is connected via immune pathways. Seventy percent of our immune system is in our gut. So, when we have any kind of gut issue, we typically have an immune or inflammatory issue. In the case of a leaky gut, for example, when you begin to have pathogens and toxins that are crossing the epithelial lining and moving into the bloodstream, this is going to cause an immune reaction. If this continues, this can cause a leaky brain because those pathogens and potentially undigested food can cross the blood-brain barrier causing inflammation in the brain feeling things like brain fog. So, as you can see there is a very strong immune system connection as well.

You may be asking, what can I do to optimize my gut-brain connection? The first thing you can do is try to eat an anti-inflammatory diet, which simply means whole food, natural, clean diet. Make sure that there are lean proteins, healthy fats, and lots of vegetables and fruits. If you are experiencing any specific gut or health issues, please make sure to reach out to us we’d be more than happy to help you.  We can see you virtually or in person.

The next thing is to manage stress. Stress is one of the biggest things that can impact the gut-brain connection on both levels. You can help to decrease your stress through mindfulness, meditation, breathwork, yoga, journaling, reading, or whatever is helpful for you, perhaps even speaking with someone.

Next, is making sure you’re getting enough sleep. Also, make sure that you’re getting an optimal amount of sleep as well as quality sleep.

Lastly is movement. Instead of thinking of exercising 30 minutes a day, try to just move as frequently as you can throughout the day. This will help to optimize your immune system, nervous system, as well as your hormonal system by getting in regular quality movement.

I hope this helps you become more successful and achieve what you want in your life and your health.

Reach out for a 15-minute FREE discovery session to see how we can help you on your journey.

For more content, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here.

Other things that may interest you:

5 STEPS TO HEAL YOUR GUT

Vagus Nerve Hack | Breathing Before Eating

How To Do An Elimination Diet

UNLOCK THE POWER OF EXTREME FOCUS | Wake Up Your Reticular Activating System

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

Do you want to unlock the power of extreme focus and be able to use your mental energy to do whatever you want? Well, let’s start by waking up the reticular activating system of your brain.

Have you ever decided to buy a car, or if you’ve bought a car and you’ve picked a certain color and now you see that everywhere? When I decided that I wanted a jeep, I began to see jeeps everywhere. When I bought a jeep, I realized that the roads are inundated with Jeep’s.

My Reticular Activating System has brought to my attention, to my consciousness, that all these Jeeps were around all along, but now, I am noticing them. The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is a bundle of neurons located inside of the Reticular Formation, which is in the brainstem. This is the most primitive part of our brain.

The Reticular Formation is responsible for cardiovascular function, pain perception, sleep cycle, consciousness, and habituation, which is directly linked to the Reticular Activating System.

What is the Reticular Activating System (RAS) responsible for?

The Reticular Activating System is responsible for our wakefulness, our ability to focus, our fight-flight response, and how we ultimately perceive the world. It can control what we perceive in our consciousness, essentially a gatekeeper of information.

When we are at a restaurant and we’re speaking to our friend or significant other, we can tune out all of the extra noise that’s happening. We are then able to focus on the conversation that we’re having. That is a perfect example of the RAS at work. Otherwise, our system would be overwhelmed and just inundated with constant sensory information.

The RAS acts as this gatekeeper so that we can focus our attention on specific things, and remember… these specific things can help us meet the goals that we’ve set for ourselves.

How can you wake up your RAS so that you can have extreme focus, better sleep/wake cycles, and be able to have a deeper consciousness and intention throughout your life? Read on.

1) Evaluating the head and neck position.

If you have had a concussion, some kind of traumatic brain injury, a sports injury, whiplash from a car accident, or just chronic overuse and repetitive stress injuries; you could have some type of misalignment in the cervical spine. This can cause compression on the brainstem and affect cranial nerve innervation.  As the head comes forward into this extended posture, it can create compression. It, therefore, decreases blood flow around the brainstem for the cranial nerves and the reticular activating system to function at its optimal capacity. So, reach out to your physical therapist or movement expert to help you with this.

2) Vestibular/Visual Exercises

The RAS is connected to our vestibular system. Think of our inner ear, and the connection with our visual system. A great exercise to do is to hold your finger out in front of you. Keep your eyes focused on your fingertip, and then turning your head back and forth. As you’re continuing to gaze right at your fingertip, you can start to move your head side to side, then you can go up and down, and you can even go on a diagonal.

3) Meditation

Meditation is a fantastic way to be able to use your senses to hone in on your present experience and filter out whatever is unnecessary. Of course, just like anything, meditation is a practice that needs to be cultivated over time. It is probably one of the best ways to begin to tap into the power of the RAS. This can help bring you clarity and focus to allow you to reach your goals.

4) Turning your brain on the exact messages that you want

If you want a silver Jeep, start thinking about the silver Jeep. It’s that simple. If you want to be confident in a dress that you want to wear, then start thinking about it. If you keep thinking that you can’t do that, you keep getting distracted from your goals. You keep thinking about all the things that you haven’t done or you can’t do, then unfortunately you will not be directing your attention, focus, or drive and activating this RAS to achieve what you want. So start thinking about what you want in your life. Use that as a way to really drive your conscious behavior and therefore your subconscious behaviors.

I hope this helps you become more successful and achieving what you want in your life and your health.

Reach out for a 15-minute FREE discovery session to see how we can help you on your journey.

For more content, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here.

Other things that may interest you:

Chew Your Food To Heal Your Gut

What do your gut bacteria do? | 10 Functions of Gut Bacteria | Microbiome

Vagus Nerve Hack | Hand Reflexology

HOW TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS; Hacking your Subconscious

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

Have you struggled with setting goals for yourself? Or maybe you have struggled with achieving your goals? Our conscious mind is one percent of our mind whereas our subconscious mind is 99 percent of our mind. To achieve whatever goals you set out to do,  then you have to make sure that those two are aligned. The conscious goal could be, for example, “I am going to work out three days a week,” but the subconscious mind takes into account all of your past experiences with trying to work out either successfully or unsuccessfully, all of your thoughts, emotions, and day to day activities. We have to make sure that if your goal is to work out three days a week, you are doing everything in your power to set yourself up for success so that you can achieve that goal. For example, if you do not necessarily block the time out, you don’t have enough time in your schedule, you don’t know where you’re going to work out, you don’t know what you’re going to work out with, or you don’t know what you’re going to do for your workout; then, the goal of working out three times a week will be highly unsuccessful. A good example of this is New Year’s resolutions. Many people set forth all of these New Year’s resolutions, and the majority are not successful because they are not aligning that subconscious mind with the conscious mind.

The second thing to consider when goal setting is using the different language of how you make your goals. “I would like to work out three times a week or more by January first or sooner is a good way to write your goal. That allows you to change the power of the subconscious mind. Changing how you set your goals and then also how you set yourself up for success to achieve your goals is a sure way to success.

I am 100 percent confident that you can achieve anything that you put your mind to, but make sure that you go through the process of setting a realistic goal, setting yourself up for success to achieve a goal, and then also using the right language and not limiting yourself by barriers or numbers. Instead, create an openness to do really amazing things.

If you need help on your journey to better health, contact drarianne@staging.movementparadigm.flywheelsites.com to schedule.

Reach out for a 15-minute FREE discovery session to see how we can help you on your journey.

For more content, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here.

Other things that may interest you:

What is stress doing to your weight loss goals? I Hormones

10 Best Health Hacks for the New Year

HOW TO HACK YOUR BRAIN FOR NEW YEARS RESOLUTION SUCCESS