The mental diet is a psychological exercise that benefits anyone who practices it. The advantages that this offers are evident in different aspects: mental, spiritual, emotional and physical.
This has to do with a change in our thinking habits and is highly recommended by hundreds of psychologists and psychotherapists.
Have you ever heard that phrase that says, “We are what we eat”? Well, the mental diet works exactly the same, although the phrase that best describes it is the following:
The Mental Diet
As said at the beginning, this exercise, in addition to being wonderful, generates positive results. At first, it is difficult to practice it, because it is not easy, but, if you remain consistent, you can make it a great lifestyle.
The problem of negative thoughts
It should be noted that negative thoughts tend to be very recurrent. They arrive at any moment. It is even estimated that a person has around 60,000 thoughts a day. Of those 60,000, 90% are thoughts of the previous day and 80% of the latter are thoughts of negative or catastrophic content.
The answer is that the human being lives in a constant survival mode. That is, it is designed to anticipate danger or to protect itself from it. So we have a kind of radar integrated that always tells us what bad things can happen.
How to deal with this problem?
This is where the mental diet comes in. A very basic and very elementary strategy that consists of:
1- Engage. For seven days your commitment will be to not harbor a single negative thought in your head.
2- Don’t get hooked. Negative thoughts are going to come. However, you must be careful not to get hooked on any of them. Don’t dwell on that thought; Otherwise, when you find out, you will have been hooked on it for 5, 10 or 15 minutes and your brain chemistry will have changed. Consequently, uncomfortable sensations will begin to take place: anxiety, anguish, tension, worry, etc.
3- Cut off. The key is to detect the negative thought and immediately cut it off. The latter is done by placing a different thought on top of the negative thought. To do this, you must always have an arsenal of positive thoughts.