Why You Need To Pay Attention to Body AND Mind, by Anik Singal
One of the biggest mistakes I see high performers make – from entrepreneurs to sales people – is obsessing about their productivity, but ignoring their health and wellness.
They think the two are completely different issues, but they’re closely connected.
For example, back in college I knew a lot of people who were going to medical school.
If you know any medical school students yourself, you know that they have intense lives. There’s always more work for them to do than they possibly had time for. Many of them used this as an excuse to not take care of themselves. They didn’t exercise, they had terrible diets, and they didn’t sleep. Others made sure that even as they took on all these responsibilities, they still blocked out some time to take care of themselves.
Those people who took care of themselves did A LOT better in class than those who did not.
As I’ve done my own research into health and nutrition, I discovered something really powerful: your body heavily influences your mind.
If you have a really healthy lifestyle where you’re eating right, exercising, sleeping, etc, then your mind works 10x better than when you do not.
If you want to get to the next level with your productivity, then you absolutely must invest in improving these areas. In some cases, that means spending more money, but it primarily is about investing MORE TIME. I know, it’s hard. A day in the life of Anik Singal never seems to have enough hours too. However, it is critically important that you make these investments. Here are some simple ways to start investing more in your health and wellness so you can take your career to the next level:
Cardio
Cardio boosts something called BDNF, which helps nerve cells grow and connect. Why is BDNF good? Well, studies on animals show that when you have more BDNF, you’re a lot sharper and happier.
Eat Lots Of Healthy Food
You want to fill your body up with as many nutrient-rich foods as possible. A great place to start is to start eating more berries and green vegetables. These will put your brain on overdrive!
7-9 Hours Of Quality Sleep A Night
If there was a list of “Things Anik Singal should become more disciplined about,” it would be this. I cannot emphasize enough how important sleep is, but also how hard it is to be disciplined about!
When I say 7-9 hours of “quality” sleep, I’m referring to uninterrupted sleep in a quiet, dark room. Use an eye mask and ear plugs if this isn’t possible. Look, I’m a really busy guy with some weird sleeping patterns, so I know how hard this is. But when I’m under slept, I notice a dramatic decline in my mind’s performance.
Supplements
There’s a lot of great information out there about supplements, although you can go overboard with them. Three supplements that have been thoroughly studied and shown to give you nice boosts in focus and productivity are Omega-3’s, the amino acid L-Theanine and B-12 vitamins.
Health and fitness are deep topics, and you’ll find a lot of terrific information out there about them.
The important thing is to realize that if you want to be more productive, you need to take this part of your life seriously. Go out, get educated and IMPLEMENT what you learn!
About the Author: Anik Singal is an Entrepreneur and speaker, you can read more about him and follow him on his Twitter and LinkedIn profiles.
