Scare Tactics: Why Your Routine Could be Depressing You

• What depresses me?
• Why the brain is preset to negativity.

Over the past week I’ve found myself getting dragged back into a nasty habit. It’s so bad in fact that it’s leaving me feeling depressed!

What is it? You may well ask. Well it’s something that we pretty much all do.

Sadly it’s something that I’ve done five evenings last week…

Watching the news. In particular one news channel broadcast that is utterly depressing.

Having had it in the background all that I could hear was negativity, scare mongering and rumour.

Most of the stories were not even factual, just speculation and negative at that.

How much worse off the average family would be, how we could be facing future wars, how the rise of a political party would cause chaos.

It was utterly saddening that this news outlet could provide so few facts or optimism.

It’s very true that negativity creates negativity and it’s a vicious cycle. It’s certainly been the most solemn that I’ve seen Aberdeen in all my life (with all the job losses).

If you get dragged down by it, there is difficulty in seeing any positives.

It all stems what you tell yourself. Having been reading into basic psychology, if you feed the brain enough negative stimulus (whether true or false) then you’ll start to buy into it.

It can be difficult to remain positive and every negative outcome becomes much worse owing to the perception that “my luck is down.”

This becomes particularly prevalent with every new health scare on the news. It seems that every year another one is in fashion – bird flu, saars etc. As a percentage of the world’s population it’s marginal the effect that it has. However if you believed the news it would seem that the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1919 was happening all over again.

My point is, you believe what you tell yourself. It’s cliched but if you believe that you won’t succeed then that will probably happen.

I say this having seen my football continue their trend of not winning at a particular stadium in almost 25 years. That’s despite being the better team this season.

Also, having met a psychologist who is now working with a senior football team – the difference in their performances and results says it all.

The mind IS the most powerful part of the human body.

It will decide if you change your lifestyle or not, eat well or not and so on.

People often talk about “mental blocks” but in my opinion it’s not so much a block as being held up by the past!

If you don’t relinquish the past then you won’t be able to move onto what’s ahead.

As much as football is a metaphor, it’s true – there is only so much you can do when weighed down by what’s around you / the past.

The news is constantly telling us that things will get worse. Afterall, where’s the attention in saying how great things are!

Much like the mind is looking out for negatives (in order to protect ourselves) the news does the same.

As my mentor Dax Moy once said; “if you’re travelling though a forest and see tree roots every day, you don’t think twice about your journey. However, if you see a snake that looks like a tree root, then you’ll never walk comfortably along that journey another day in your life, regardless if there is ever another threat or not.”

^ The brain is wired to protect even if that is at the expense of our happiness. Afterall, it only takes one bad experience and our brain thinks it could be game over: “once bitten, twice shy” and all that!

So if you want to be more positive, what can you do?

My ultimate answer to that would be to control YOUR environment.

You decide what stimuli to feed your brain. If it’s making you depressed or dragging you down, then remove it.

Safe to say I won’t be watching the evening news on that channel again.

I hate pessimism because it brings everyone down. Nothing good ever comes out of having a negative outlook.

I’ll be the first admit that I’m not happy with where my business is at the moment but I’ll work harder than ever to improve that.

I’m confident of how well my online coaching works and that why I offer free trials (for a limited time only). If you want to be happier and healthier them the RYPT beginner’s fitness plan is a must for you.

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