Ok guys and gals! This is a big one!
Ask yourself! What if your procrastination is caused by what you are eating or consuming? Could it be that you are NOT eating the right stuff for your health and therefore your mind is finding it hard to focus and act on your tasks?
I can almost hear the skeptics and the baffled people among you exclaiming; "OH come on Mark, what has my nutrition to do with the tasks I have to do?"
My reply to that is: "EVERYTHING!"
Are you consuming the right stuff to be a non-procrastinator?
Here is how to find out!
Do you often feel low on energy?
Do you often have a foggy mind?
Do you often find yourself easily distracted while doing a task?
Do you find it hard to sustain attention on something even for a short time?
Do you often get feelings of depression for no apparent reason?
Do you often feel tired in the morning even after a long night's sleep?
Do you experience short term memory loss? (Now, where was I?)
Are you often unable to just sit down and do tasks that require you to stay in one place?
Are these excuses you make often or maybe even the cause of
procrastination itself?
What you eat provides the building blocks for your body and brain, it affects your mood and energy levels and the general functioning of your body.
Now here's my important message for today!
What you consume can affect various aspects of your mind related to procrastination. with the wrong diet and consumption of certain drugs you could be literally eating procrastination everyday! (Not to mention bad health)
Your brain functions properly when it can create the chemicals it uses with ease. It needs to be able to create good quality serotonin, dopamine, endorphin, gaba, tyrosine and all the essential neuro-chemicals. From what must they be built? From what you eat, right?!
So what must I consume?
I'll tell you in my next blog post :-p (perhaps I should even write a longer article on this)
But before that, there's a much more important question to ask.
Am I consuming something bad I can easily eliminate?
Are you informed about the contents of the food you intake, or do you wait for somebody else to warn you? You really should!
There are 4 things in particular which are bad for your brain and you can start to eliminate them today. Be warned though, these are addictive things! They are...
Caffeine (found in coffee, teas and soft drinks)
Alcohol
Refined sugar (white and brown sugar)
Nicotine
(Let's leave fats for Part 2, ok!? ;-) your brain actually needs some kinds of good fat)
Here's the problem - for most people the above are associated with fun! The truth is though, that fun comes from within, we create it! We don't need substances for that if we're wise.
Caffeine
Decaffeinated Coffee from now on?
Actually there are alternatives, if you like that fun ritual of dissolving something instant in some warm water and enjoy! My sister has suggested that there's a product derived from malt that tastes almost like coffee but milder. I use cocoa powder (without sugar) instead because it is very good for the brain.
Tea has a lot more caffeine that some coffee seeds. Green tea is rich in anti-oxidants and is very healthy, although there is a little caffeine in it. However, humans being the most suicidal species on Earth, have decided to ferment the leaves and make them turn brown so that we can have a brown coffee that is depleted of the beneficial stuff and has much more bad stuff like caffeine in it! Take camomile or green tea if you like it. My best recommendation is licorice tea! Yummy!
Soft drinks- are the stupid man's drink. They are designed to quench your thirst by having those CO2 bubbles attack your taste buds and numb them. In the mean time your body is filled with stuff that has to be eliminated by consuming more water. In other words, they make you thirstier, trick you in believing that you're not thirstier and also fill your body with junk like caffeine and sugar. I mean WTF?! Can't we just drink water? It' s even cheaper!
How do you know if you're addicted to caffeine? If you get a headache whenever you don't take a coffee in the morning you are addicted to caffeine. You will need to go cold turkey. Start drinking a lot of water and consume fish oil (or flaxseed oil if you're a vegetarian) for a week to get this drug out of your brain tissue with the least pain. I did it, and my
Alcohol
This is a complex sugar that makes people crazy, is broken down very slowly into other sugars and is very unfriendly to the brain. Like the soft drink, it gives a rewarding feeling of happiness while doing bad stuff to you!
But some have heard that a little alcohol is good for you? Actually the only healthy thing is red wine if you take it with a fatty meal, like a huge beef or pork steak. The alcohol neutralizes the fat, the fat neutralizes the alcohol in return and the antioxidants in red wine will make your body and brain happy. Other alcoholics are un-necessary and can only harm! Be responsible.
Sugar
If you want energy, take sugars by consuming fruits! An apple gives a better boost than a cup of coffee. Sugar causes the brain cells to age very quickly and die off and also clogs your arteries.
But aspartame is bad too? If you need to use a sweeten stuff you either use glucose (which is still sugar but much easier on your body) or use stevia (a plant) or stevia extract. You can even use natural honey occasionally! Taking vitamin B supplements helps your energy too.
If you're adventurous you may even like to start getting used to tasting stuff without sugar. I love tasting stuff just as nature intended, it makes eating a varied experience.
Nicotine
Useless, addictive, anti-social! Makes people stink at best and suffer chronically at worst. It also has no value for the price you pay for it.
If you smoke you are not just poisoning yourself and others. You are depriving yourself of the most important component for energy - Oxygen. You can survive for weeks without food, for days without water but without air...
Concluding Part 1
I realized time ago, that I could teach people to overcome procrastination like I had. But giving the right instructions to a brain that can't handle them is an exercise in futility. Get eliminating poisons from your life today, my friend. Seek help and you'll find it. Love yourself so that you can stop harming yourself, you are a wonderfully designed marvel. :-)
Part 2 will come in a week or less, stay tuned!
Mark Mifsud
PS: All of the above create sleep disturbance too!