8 principles to achieve optimum mental health | Dan Banos | TEDxRockhampton

thank you kindly, you are right, I would like to thank you first of all for allowing me to introduce you to a passion that I have and allow me to introduce you to a concept that we call and that you may have heard before called neuroplasticity, neuroplasticity is nothing more than the ability of the brain to power adapt based on what we do, so you and I have the ability to change some of the structures that come with it and also change some of the processes, and I'm excited about this concept because the reality is that this concept is the basis to

achieve

optimal

mental

health

and these eight

principles

or habits that I am going to encourage you to do will be challenging, they will be out of the ordinary but I think they will provoke you and allow you to visit people and share these concepts, but it will also do something very important , which is what was mentioned above, will allow you to visit people like me less and that is a good thing whether you believe it or not, so these eight

principles

are not just believe in them and practice them, but they are based on evidence , so I would like you to pay attention to this so that maybe you take one, two or three and practice them when you get out of here. number one, it's very simple, it's a principle of nutrition, nutrition is an important thing and let me share with you something that some of you may know, some of you may not know, but one member, the name of dan batna, is associated with people. of national Geographic and the mission was to find a group of people or towns around the world who can demonstrate that they can live

health

ier physically and

mental

ly.

These are people whose norm was to reach 100 years or more, so as soon as they found them they named these zones around the world blue zones and they found nine characteristics that I will not share with you but I would like to share one that is related to this concept one characteristic was that centuries-old cultures and groups of centuries-old people have the basis of their diet is crazy beans, right? I have an advantage there. I am originally from Mexico and Mexicans have a lot of beans. I'm not 100 sure that I'll live to be 100, but I hope I can because, like I said, I believe this and I practice this, what they've found is that people who live to be over 100 physically and who are physically and mentally capable Above average also only consume meat or meat products only five times a month and it shouldn't be that way. a surprise because even recently, maybe a couple of weeks ago, australia's national diet council has reshaped the pyramid.

I don't know how many of you saw it, but at the bottom most of it is plant-based. so the message is plant based and that's what they found that these societies have adopted, so the number one principle is nutrition. Principle number two should come as no surprise. Principle number two is exercise. Now, what we have discovered is that exercise is a matter of life. We cannot

achieve

optimal capacity if we do not become active. There's a lot of research that I could share with you, but let me and maybe believe, get out of here, maybe do some research that exercise alone can have a big contribution in decreasing capacity. symptoms of depression and anxiety it is very simple you exercise and you generate endorphins good happy chemicals you exercise regularly and you will also generate the production of a neurotransmitter in your brain called neuropathy serotonin and dopamine all of this is related to depression, parkinson's disease and also Alzheimer's disease, so actively participating in exercise will definitely contribute to optimal mental health that will put you and the community above average and reduce visits to people like me.

Principle number three will be water. Water is so important for seventy percent of our bodies. are made of water eighty percent of our brains are made of components that are water, which is a large amount, it is a high percentage, so it should not surprise us again that to achieve optimal mental health we need water perhaps more than the one we use now. Let me share with you something: there are certain chemicals that we can only achieve by eating foods, certain types of foods, we already talked about foods, we didn't go into details, but there are certain foods that we can consume, one of the certain types of foods.

It produces something or gives you something called tryptophan. Tryptophan is a substance that if it reaches the brain in good proportions will allow you to secrete more endo serotonin. So tryptophan is the raw material that the brain needs to produce serotonin and you will be thinking well, what does that have to do? do with water, now you're talking about food and I'm confused. Let me share with you why water is so important. The reason it is so important is because water is one of the elements that allows these things. we consume and these nutrients travel to the brain the key is simple the formula is simple more the more water the more tryptophan goes to the brain the more raw material we have to generate serotonin and the happier you become with some of the things that water can give you is great clarity in your mind, but some of the things not drinking enough water could give you is a reduced ability to be happier.

People who do not consume enough water feel more frustrated, have less mental clarity and then it will by default affect their mental health performance. The next principle is sunlight. I'll keep this simple, we need the sun and that's basically it, and there are three reasons that I can share with you why we need the sun or at least A couple of them are that if we allow ourselves to get sunlight on a regular basis, we can actually achieve a higher level of sleep, our sleep will increase, it will be deeper and we will feel refreshed the next time, which by default will increase our ability to learn to memorize and concentrate is very simple, sunlight too, believe it or not , it can also have an impact on the level of pain that you may be physically in if someone here or if someone in the community is in some pain, sunlight can lower the level. of the pain that someone has it's amazing what sunlight can do if taken in the right amounts let me share the following principle this is a principle that is very important temperance I don't know if you've ever heard these words uh not many people do has done, but allows To share what this means, temperance implies that we must create and practice a balance in our lifestyle, a balance that will place you above average, what that implies is that we must make sure that we allow ourselves to introduce certain habits and behaviors. that will trigger and enable you to perform better in mental health, you may be thinking, can you explain a little more?

Let me share with you something that our societies are run in such a way that we tend to take something that is bad and make it good and sometimes unfortunately we take something that is good and make it bad. An example is something that happened in the 1950s, in the 1950s, sometimes someone realized I think smoking is linked to lung cancer, so what people did in the 1950s is They introduced what we call the filter in the cigarette because the cigarette tower was related to lung cancer. Today we continue to know that smoking is one of the biggest causes of illness and death in our societies, so they didn't solve it with anything else.

What we know is harmful and tend to accept it is the use of alcoholic beverages. Australia reported in 2011 to 2012 that 19.7.7 is a reasonable percentage. 19.7 percent of interpersonal relationship breakups occur as a result of an alcohol-related problem. That does not take into account a psychiatric condition that is a high percentage. What alcohol can do to us is that it can damage the cortex of the frontal lobe that allows us to make good and accurate decisions. Research has shown us that consuming such a substance increases our likelihood of cheating by between 30 and 50 percent. It's funny, because many times, when we do business, there is always something like this involved, so we need to prepare a group of ourselves to reach a good agreement, but I am not saying that everyone who does that is cheating, but the research and the numbers that are what indicate another harmful substance for health that decreases our mental capacity and our ability to deal with things like depression and anxiety is coffee caffeinated drinks caffeinated drinks that stress our nervous system and stress it so much that it can increase the level of depression or depressive symptoms and also the level of anxiety.

So what is temperance basically? We need to learn to abstain from certain things that could be harmful and perhaps use certain things that are good for us. within a measure, it is creating a balance and I think the image describes that it is creating a balance in our life, it is not just about what you drink or also what we do in general, if we work too much or too little, it can disturb our performance o If we play too much on too little it can also have an impact on our performance. Another is: I would like to share with you a story that may be unbelievable in the 1990s.

No, that was wrong. 1919. That's a year in Eureka, California. The hospital was facing a major flu epidemic and it was getting out of control to the point that the head doctor said, I think we have to call in the army. I don't know, we don't have space, so the army came and, in turn, they brought tents, coats and some blankets and so the hospital was overflowing. All those patients who were spreading the infection were placed in these tents and the only thing they had apart from the blankets were hot water bottles to keep your feet warm what they found is that the people who were in the tents were not dying compared to the people who were in the hospital.

Once someone realized what was happening, they turned down the hospital heaters, opened the windows, and put heavy underwear on the patients and death. The rate decreased, the key today is to spend time outdoors. If you think about it, a lot of these things are interrelated with each other if you exercise, unless you go to the gym, and that's fine too, but if you exercise outside, you get that air that you need. Scientifically it makes sense that you get oxygen and oxygen cleanses your blood, blood is the same blood that will reach your brain and we want to create the best environment that we can have in our brain in our systems to be able to create those feelings of happiness neuro neurotransmitters the challenge is to spend time outside and open our houses open the windows let the sunlight and let the air do what it's supposed to do do what it was created for now the next is to rest I would like to emphasize something here we live in a society that is very oriented to the results, unfortunately we live in a society that says that in order for us to be successful we have to achieve the highest goal of any position you can have, it is a society that says I have to put the man or woman at the top down to that I could be that person eventually and that creates a lot of stress in that we live in a society in which we expect many people, many children, to reach the top that they can and we should expect such a thing, but sometimes we try so hard that We lack the amount of rest we should have.

One of the things we know is that the idea that staying later at night is better because I achieved better results is a fallacy, it is nothing more than self-deception, some of you and I had also experienced that before knowing these principles and practices and some of you will know or would have thought about staying up late at night because I seem to accomplish a lot more in the middle of the night it's amazing but research shows otherwise a group of people were kidnapped and exposed to a late night party that lasted all night, no alcohol or substances, the key was that the only isolated key factor was keeping them awake for as long as possible. as much as you can and then the next day do a critical test.

A critical thinking test was compared to a group, a controlled group of people who had slept eight hours a night. The results will be very interesting for you to know and share with you now, you will be waiting for this the eighth night control group the eight hours of sleep control group performs better on the critical thinking test, but the next thing What you might not be thinking about is that the all-nighter group performs worse, but they have a perception that they performed better and then another self-reported test, a reflective test showed that not only did they have a perception that they performed better, but who had more confidence in their work.

The other people who slept well the night before performed better. less confidence, but the results speak for themselves rest can give you mental clarity can help you remember and memorize things clearly can improve your ability to be creative to think objectively and analytically rest is something important that we should not forget if we wantachieve optimal mental health and exceed the average the last is confidence there is an author in the 20th century who said that the greatest need in this world is for people who defend the truth like the needle of a compass towards the pole;

The world's need to have people who stick firmly to their principles even though the heavens fall is quite an interesting concept, it may also be a bit poetic, but nowadays it is very difficult to develop confidence in many things, when you think about it, I'm talking about rest and We have that tendency to want to achieve this ultimate success and for that sometimes we have to put someone else down, so it's hard to trust a lot of people, but what we found, what they found, what These researchers at first, the one of my The conversations they found in terms of people who live longer, healthier and happier is that they have three things in their lives: One, they have people who love clothes and they invest in that number. two, they also spend a lot of time with like-minded people, like you, who want to talk about like-minded things and maybe different ideas to improve our community, and number three I missed.

Maybe I didn't sleep very well last night. I'm kidding. Number three, they also demonstrated that they regularly met with those people they resonate with, so number one, they got the parents, grandparents and children. close to number two they actually met uh the research goes deeper and they found that people who have some type of faith and meet at least four times a month achieve or have a probability of achieving a higher lifetime spending expectancy of 14 years in simple words people who come together and have some similarities in faith four times a month can expect to live 14 times uh 14 more years that's just research uh I appreciate the presentation earlier that talks about the meaning of life and just having a meaningful life and knowing what your life is like knowing why you get up every morning can give you seven years seven extra years I would like you to think about this because today although it is difficult to believe in people and society we need to achieve a sense of trust, This new strategy goes further and states, or rather, emphasizes the idea that we can reach a level of trust in a higher power, you can call it god or you can call it whatever you want, something that gives you a sense of purpose.

What we have discovered is that it decreases anxiety, increases motivation and gives you a happier life. Let us summarize because you might forget what this news is. Start nutrition exercise water sun temperance a rest and trust in divine power today my challenge to you is choose three of these, you can do it even today and tomorrow, go to your GP, your GP friend in the city and tell him, GP, what can I do to exercise safely? Do I have any condition that prevents my exercises? and if he doesn't and if he can give you a hand so that you can develop a good exercise program with the limits and capacity that you currently have.

Exercise number two, don't wait too long, let's network after here, but don't wait too long to go to bed. try to get eight to nine hours of sleep she liked it she wants to go and number three make commitments get those people you love those people you hug have a sense of purpose and make a commitment today a new beginning is something I challenge you to do to practice and if you want to practice and achieve greater optimal mental health a greater capacity this can be yours today you do not have to go to the psychiatrist you do not have to go to the psychologist unless you have a condition that needs it that professional contribution, but otherwise you can achieve a greater capacity that will place you above average, thanks