How To Change Your Brain For The Better

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Our personalities, thought patterns and emotional responses are wired into our brains, says Richard Davidson, Ph.D., author of The Emotional Life of Your Brain, but you can change your brain. Here are several exercises that will help rewire the neural pathways to help you think more positively, become more self-aware, focus better, understand social cues, ease your emotional triggers and grow more resilient.

•Make Your Home And Workspace Optimistic
If you'd like to have a more positive outlook, Davidson suggests filling your home and workspace with upbeat reminders of happy times, like photos of your family or vacations. So that you don't habituate to them, he also suggests to change the photos every few weeks.

•Express Gratitude
Davidson says expressing gratitude regularly will help you feel more optimistic. Make the effort to look someone in the eyes and say "thank you," and keep a journal to daily remind yourself of what's good in your life.

•Compliment Others
By finding and making opportunities to compliment others, you'll train your brain to see the good in people, in life and in yourself, says Davidson.

•Do A Mindfulness Meditation
If you'd like to become more self-aware, Davidson suggests regularly doing a mindfulness meditation. Choose a time when you feel the most awake and alert, sit upright, concentrate on your breathing, notice the sensations in your body and if you become distracted, simply bring your focus back to your breath.

•Focus For 10 Minutes A Day
If you'd like to boost your focus and attention, Davidson recommends taking time every day for 10 minutes to sit in a quiet room with your eyes open, focus on an object (your desk lamp, a piece of art), keep your attention and eyes trained on it, and if your thoughts wander, bring them back
to the object.

•Pay Attention To Body Language
If you'd like to become more socially intuitive and good at dealing with people, Davidson suggests making an effort to watch people's body language while in public and try to guess what emotions they are expressing. Then, start to take notice of friends and colleague's facial cues and body language and how it corresponds to their tone of voice.

•Identify Emotional Triggers
If you'd like to be less emotionally reactive and more tuned in to context, Davidson advises regularly making a list of the specific events or behaviors that triggered your response. Then spend about 15 minutes thinking about these behaviors while breathing deeply until you feel comfortable and more relaxed.

•Visualize Compassion
If you'd like to be more resilient, Davidson suggests doing this exercises for five to 10 minutes at a time, four or five times a week: Visualize someone you know who is suffering–a neighbor who is ill or a friend struggling in their marriage–and on each inhalation imagine that you are taking on that suffering. On each exhalation, imagine the suffering is transformed into compassion, which will help ease the person's pain.
SOURCE: forbes.com