Let's Manage Our Mental Energy Through Daily Rituals

Do you think you are using your energy efficiently? Or are you wasting it on unnecessary things? I'm talking about both physical and mental energy here. How about starting to feel more energetic and to spend your energy more efficiently with minor changes that you will add to your life?

You can start by making a chart to understand how you manage your energy. Write down your sleeping and waking times in a notebook. Are you sleeping well enough? How is your diet? Where is exercise in your life? You can get information about your physical energy and ways to increase it from your doctor and a dietician about your diet.

Let's get to how to manage our mental energy. This time write down the following in your notebook. What do you do for your spiritual care during the day? Again, how do you talk to yourself in your mind during the day? What kind of movies and TV shows do you watch? You know very well how our feelings and thoughts affect our energy level. I'm sure you don't feel very energetic when you are full of negative thoughts and you look at the world with negative eyes. So what can we do to prevent our minds from negatively affecting our energy levels?

If people who annoy you are constantly occupying your mind, if you fight them in your mind, you are wasting your energy. Again, if you use social media a lot, if the bad comments written there bother you, then you are using your energy badly. You can spend the time you will spend on these unnecessary activities by feeding your mind with beauty. Say goodbye to the quarrels you have in your head.

Use social media sparingly, and do social media detox frequently. Read books that inspire you and are good for your soul. Watch movies without violence. Meditate to give your mind a rest break. Don't watch the news that much. Don't waste your precious time persuading people who disagree with you on an issue. Make it a habit to calm your mind and focus your attention on this moment with some rituals that you will add to your life. Charge your mind and increase your energy level with breaks during the day. Here are three suggestions for this.

1.Do not fight your mind, accept it and give attention to the moment.

I know this sounds like a puzzle, but there are many techniques to do with this, especially in Eastern teachings like Zen Buddhism. Let's say you are in a day when you make bad words to yourself in your mind. Instead of fighting the words in your mind and trying to change them, accept their existence and pay attention to this moment. One of the techniques that will be useful in giving your attention to this moment is the "5-4-3-2-1 Technique" that I mentioned in one of my previous articles. How will you apply this technique?

5: Become aware of the 5 things you see around you. This could be the vase in your living room or the blanket on your sofa.

4: Be aware of 4 things you can touch around you. This could be your pillow, your chair or your book.

3: Become aware of 3 things you hear around you. This could be the footsteps of your upstairs neighbor, the chirping of birds entering your house when you open the window.

2: Be aware of 2 things around you that you can smell. These can be your perfume or soap.

1: Be aware of 1 thing around you that you can enjoy. For example, taste a fruit in your home just by paying attention to it.

With the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 technique, try to bring your attention to the present moment, to the present. Our mind is inherently past or future oriented. When you feel that you are starting to lose yourself in your mind, make it a habit to bring your mind back to the moment with these types of techniques.

2.Do the tea meditation

Tea meditation is to focus our full attention on the color and smell of the tea and the act of drinking tea while we are making and drinking our tea. You can drink any type of tea you love to practice this meditation. The tea ceremony is part of the Zen meditation rituals. According to legend, the emergence of the tea plant is related to Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism. Adding a relaxing activity like tea meditation to your daily life will help you charge your mind nicely. Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist priest and activist, describes the meditative effect of drinking tea very nicely: “When I drink tea, I only have tea and I. The rest of the world melts away. There is neither anxiety for the future nor dwelling on past mistakes.

3. Keep a Thanksgiving diary

I am giving a recommendation that I have given over the years, because it is really important. How many complaints are we complaining during the day, right? Yet how many things in our lives to be thankful for. A study published in Personality and Individual Differences in 2012 found that people who are often grateful for their lives feel healthier than people who are not.

According to research by Dr. Robert A. Emmons, one of the world's leading researchers in gratitude, being grateful can protect us from the negative effects of toxic emotions such as grudge and jealousy. From today, you can take a step towards making gratitude a part of your life by keeping Thanksgiving Diary. Take a notebook from the stationer and write down three topics that make you happy and thankful every day. You will start to feel much better at the end of the month.

To understand how you spend your energy, make a habit of asking yourself the following question every day: "Do I use my mental energy today to make myself feel good and do things that are beneficial to life, or is it to feel bad?"

I wish that we learn to manage our energy well and spend all our energy to beautify and heal ourselves and the world. Come on together to love ourselves and make the world beautiful.