The 5-Minute Mind

Power Guide

- SPECIAL REPORT -
Your brain is an unfathomably powerful machine, capable of in-
credible things. It really does have the capability to help you get
what you want from life and so much more.

But the problem is that most of us have no idea how to use it. This
is not only a very powerful machine but also an impossibly com-
plex one. And it doesn’t come with an instruction manual.

The result is that we often seem at odds with our brains. We want
to do one thing, but our brain seems to want to do another. We
want to focus on work and get lots done, but our brain just wants
to eat cake. We want to be creative and come up with amazing
ideas, but our brain draws a blank.

A lack of control over our brains leaves us completely at the

whims of our biology and means that it becomes very hard for us
to set goals and stick to them. We end up floundering rather than
being able to go after the things we want and it all results in us
being less happy and less successful.

So how do you change all that? How do you take back control
and harness that mind power? In this guide, you’ll learn precisely
how to do that and how to get your mind to work for you and not
against you.
But First, a Little Lesson

Firs though, we’ll begin with a little lesson about what your brain is
and what it isn’t – and how it attempts to help you. We’ll look at
why it can sometimes seem like it’s being belligerent.

The first thing to remember is that, as with your body, your brain
is not designed to work in today’s modern environment. Your
brain was designed to help you survive in the wild, which essen-
tially meant avoiding getting eaten and making sure you stayed
well-fed. It meant keeping you warm and dry and out of the rain
and it meant ensuring you passed on your genetic material.

What your brain isn’t designed for is sitting in an office and work-
ing to deadline. It’s not interested in getting you out of debt so
much either.

So, bearing in mind the priority is to keep you alive, that means
it’s mainly focussed on registering the things going on in your
body and physiology. To do this, it converts your feelings and
your sensations into emotions and into ideas.

We think we’re sad because we had a bad day. We are not. We

had a bad day because we are sad. And why are we sad?

Possibly it’s because we’re overtired, maybe it’s because we’re

underfed!
Or at least this is often the case.

In other words, your body responds to what’s going on around it

and then produces relevant emotions to ensure that you get
things done.

We know this on a basic level but you probably aren’t aware just
how deep the rabbit hole goes, or how fundamentally important
your physiological signals are to your wellbeing. When you are
hungry, this means you have a dip in blood sugar. That dip in
blood sugar then results in your energy levels dipping and that in
turn sends alarm bells to the body. It produces ghrelin to make
you feel hungry, but it also produces cortisol – the stress hor-
mone. The objective here is to motivate you into getting out there
and doing what you need to in order to get fed.

This cortisol rushes through your brain and makes you anxious
and angry – which is why people get hangry!

The result might be that you have an argument with your other
half and end up upsetting them. If only you had stopped top con-
sider that maybe you were just hungry!

What happens when you eat? You have a release of sugar in

your blood stream and when this is absorbed, it leaves behind
hydroxytryptophan, which is converted to serotonin. Serotonin is
the feel good hormone and so as a result, you feel great. Later,
this converts into melatonin – the sleep hormone.

Struggling to get your work done? Struggling to focus on what you

need to?

Could it be because you just ate? Would you be more productive

if you shifted your routine and priorities round a little?

There are many more examples. If you’ve had brain fog, this
could be because flora in your gut are producing mycotoxins! Fix-
ing your diet might help that. Or maybe you don’t have enough
positive bacteria?

It could be down to the fact that you have an underlying illness

that is causing inflammation via pro-inflammatory cytokines.
These actually work as inhibitory neurotransmitters, causing you
to become less productive and making you struggle to focus.

Even the temperature affects how awake and focussed you are.
And the way you breathe.

So, if you want to get the most out of your brain, the first thing you
need to do is to better understand the link between your brain and
your body. Your body defines the way you feel and if you want to
feel positive, driven, energetic and motivated then you need to
make sure you support that with the right diet, the right lifestyle
and more. You need to sleep. You need to eat. You need to fix
your schedule so you are being productive at the times when your
body naturally peaks.

The Mental Aspect

Simply giving yourself the right nutrients and getting more sleep,
maybe spending more time outdoors, is going to help you to get
more from your brain. But we need to go further than that. And of
course you are aware that there is also a cognitive aspect. What
you think and what happens in your routine can also impact on
the way you perform.

You can also have a bad day because your partner dumps you.
Or because you get fired.

So, what’s going on here?

The answer lies with the very way the brain works and the way it
understands information.

What happens when you ‘think’? The answer is that you visualize
things happening. And the way you do this is by activating brain
regions as though the thing were happening. This is also how we
translate language into something that our brain innately under-
stands.
So when someone tells you a story of how they trekked through
the woods, you picture yourself doing that. The same brain areas
light up as though it were really you trekking through the woods.
You might feel slightly cool as the wind blows against you, you
might feel the branches break underfoot.

Or you might not be aware of it at all – it all happens quickly and

faintly and we tend not to register it.

But the point is that as far as your brain is concerned, you are
walking through the woods. It’s not going to burn calories but by
simply imagining being somewhere calm, or by reading about a
calm situation – you can stimulate the same response from your
brain and body. You can go into a calm, relaxed and creative
state (we are most creative when we relax!).

And what this means is that you can also trigger changes in your
mental state and your body simply by imaging things. And by pic-
turing your future.

So when someone tells you you are in debt, you may – even un-
consciously – picture yourself being homeless, being audited, be-
ing shouted at by your partner. You picture things that do have an
impact on your wellbeing and physiology. And your body re-
sponds in kind: as though you were in real physical danger. This
is what causes the sudden response of increased heartrate, of
rapid breathing, of contracted muscles and of suppression of the
immune system and digestion.

This is how the body responds to threat, this is the ‘fight or flight
response’. And if you really are being chased by a lion then it is
great. But if you’re sitting in your office, it’s no use at all.

And if the stress is ongoing – chronic as we call it – then it can ac-

tually be very harmful and can cause long term damage to your
health.

Taking Back Control

But you can take back control.

The first way you do this is by deciding to protect your physiology

as we’ve already discussed. This response will be less unfavour-
able if you are well-fed, if you have had a good night’s sleep, if
you’re a comfortable temperature, if you’re healthy.

But at the same time, you can also choose to change the way you
react to these situations.

Remember: it isn’t that news that it making you scared, but rather
it is your own reaction to that news. You are only stressed be-
cause you have pictured a certain outcome.
Therefore, it is entirely possible that you can choose to picture a
different outcome and have an entirely different response. If you
choose to think it’s going to be okay, if you recognize that even
your worst fear isn’t that bad – then you can respond in a calm
and effective way.

I often use a specific example to illustrate this point and the im-
portance of our interpretation of events. Imagine that you’re in a
caravan that has crashed and is hanging off the edge of a cliff.
You look out the window and you see that it’s teetering. You go
into panic: sweat beads on your forehead and you start breathing
rapidly.

But unbeknownst to you: the emergency services have already

arrived and they’ve attached a chain to the caravan, safely hold-
ing it in place.

Once you learn of this, everything is okay!

So the situation hasn’t really changed. The only thing that has
changed is your perception of events. Your belief. And that com-
pletely alters your physiology and your mental state.

This is the central tenant of an ancient school of philosophy called

Stoicism. The entire idea behind Stoicism is that we need to em-
brace the possibility of bad things happening. Stoics claim that
there is no benefit in blind optimism. In wishing for a happy end-
ing. Instead, we must accept that life will be tough but in doing so,
we can prepare for that toughness, we can come up with solu-
tions and we can be fortified against any hardship that comes our
way.

In CBT or ‘Cognitive Behavioral Therapy’ – a more modern ap-

proach to psychology – the objective is to look at negative
thoughts and beliefs and then challenge them and remove them.

Let’s take a look at that ‘debt’ situation again shall we. Sure, it’s
not ideal. But the worst case scenario is that you would lose your
savings and go bankrupt. You might be forced to sell your house.

But would you be homeless? No: you’d be on benefits.

What if for whatever reason you weren’t provided with housing?

Then you’d probably move in with your Mum, or with a friend.

What if you couldn’t find work again? Well then, you could always
work for a friend – or you could start a business.

The point is: there is always a way. And yes life can be tough but
that’s just part of its charm. It’s like a test and if you have a plan
and you’re willing to put in the work, then you’ll be fine.

Once you know this, you can tap into reservoirs of power and
strength you never knew you had.
And if you do the reverse: if you use visualization to picture the
reason you’re doing what you’re doing and to see the tangible re-
ward at the end of the road, then you can dip into an incredible
well of motivation, creativity, power and determination.

This is how you unlock the true potential of the brain and how you
can achieve flow states and untapped power. In the full guides,
we delve into all this in much more detail, so check it out and start
using your brain to its fullest potential.

Or go and put some of this advice into action and see just how
much potential you’ve been missing out on!