3126: [Part 1] Stop Feeding Your Brain Mental Garbage by Michael Mehlberg on Health & Happiness

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[00:01:00] This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 3126. Stop feeding your brain mental garbage. Part 1

[00:01:07] by Michael Melberg of michaelmelberg.com and I'm Justin Malik. Happy Thursday. Welcome to one of

[00:01:13] the only podcasts in the world where articles are narrated to you for free with permission from

[00:01:18] the authors. It's an award-winning podcast thanks to you. And today I have a bit of a longer post.

[00:01:23] I'll read the first half but then finish the rest for you tomorrow. So with that, let's get right

[00:01:28] to part 1 and start optimizing your life. Stop feeding your brain mental garbage. Part 1 by Michael

[00:01:39] Melberg of michaelmelberg.com Less than 10 minutes after waking, I threw up cigar chunks into my

[00:01:47] master bathroom toilet. Shouldn't have been a surprise. 12 hours earlier, the groom and I were

[00:01:53] celebrating his upcoming wedding with a night on the town in historic downtown Leesburg, Virginia.

[00:01:59] As you might have guessed, this night included alcohol and stogies. We drank and walked

[00:02:06] and talked and smoked and drank some more. We opt from restaurant to restaurant,

[00:02:12] downing wine and beer and whiskey all the while drawing down a box of cigars purchased at the

[00:02:19] local tobacco list. At one point, the groom had me laughing so hard that I bit down on the cigar

[00:02:25] butt crumbling the outer paper which I inhaled, coughed up then involuntarily swallowed. I wash

[00:02:32] it down with a swig of wine. All of it came up the next morning. Gross, I know. But it perfectly

[00:02:39] illustrates the entire point of this article. Garbage in garbage out. Garbage in garbage out they say,

[00:02:48] in my case it was wine and cigars. And there was no question as to why. When it comes to how we feel,

[00:02:54] it's easy to see cause and effect. Drink too much, get sick. Eat bad shrimp, another story for

[00:03:01] another time. Pray to the porcelain gods. When we feel bad and don't know the cause,

[00:03:06] we look for one. Just recently having woken up with a splitting headache two days in a row,

[00:03:12] I started wondering what could be causing such pain. Was I stressed? Had I stayed up too late?

[00:03:18] Did I drink too much coffee or eat too many peanut M&Ms before bed?

[00:03:23] Something was causing the hurt. Some input was affecting the output. And since my brain was

[00:03:29] the victim, I was very incentivized to uncover the culprit. It was coffee. Interestingly though we

[00:03:37] avoid consuming things that cause us immediate physical pain like bad shrimp. We remain largely

[00:03:43] unaware of how other inputs like social media might affect our thinking or happiness. And of course

[00:03:50] they do. The books we read, the podcasts we listen to, the television we watch, the social media

[00:03:57] feeds we scroll through are all inputs that can drastically affect our mood, our behavior,

[00:04:04] our ability to meet our goals and our happiness. In other words, what we consume affects all we do.

[00:04:14] The foods we eat, the books we read, the company we keep, and the media we consume,

[00:04:19] all inform us, drive us and guide us in good ways or bad. Which is to say the way I feel and think

[00:04:28] today has a lot more to do with how I fed myself physically and mentally yesterday.

[00:04:34] Consider the psychological research done by power of positivity which states, quote,

[00:04:40] being a witness or victim of violence of any kind can trigger a biological reaction that

[00:04:45] evolves into full-blown anxiety and depression. Or that after the 1929 Wall Street crash

[00:04:54] the United States saw over 23,000 suicides. The highest number recorded in a single year.

[00:05:01] In these two examples, the stakes were at their highest. Negative inputs caused anxiety,

[00:05:07] depression, and even death. But plenty of research shows that hundreds of other inputs cause drastic

[00:05:13] effects to one's health and well-being for better or worse. The news is a perfect example.

[00:05:20] In one study at the University of California Irvine, Professor Allison Holman discovered that

[00:05:26] people directly exposed to the Boston bombing incident reported less stress than those who had

[00:05:32] watched six or more hours of daily news media in the time following that event.

[00:05:38] And why would this be the case? Why would watching the event unfold on the news be more stressful

[00:05:44] than seeing it in person? Professor Holman suggests that the repetitive showing of traumatic

[00:05:50] clips and images is the probable cause. And it's not just sensational media holding power over our

[00:05:57] well-being. Social media, the largest communication platform created in the history of humankind

[00:06:04] is a source of pleasure, relaxation, information, and news for over 40% of the world's population.

[00:06:12] We scroll through post after post, enjoying the occasional update from a friend or family member,

[00:06:18] but also making decisions about whether to pause and read the latest political gossip or

[00:06:23] click the advertisement for an enticing new product. Consider how what you discuss with your friends

[00:06:29] would be different had you not seen pics of their most recent vacation. Consider how upset you

[00:06:35] got over the latest article a distant family member shared on gun control and immigration.

[00:06:41] Consider how your definition of a beautiful person is influenced by advertisements showing

[00:06:46] unrealistic images of quote-unquote ideal bodies which are often photoshopped into unattainable beings.

[00:06:54] Quote, when we consume to change ourselves it's important to ask what we're changing and why?

[00:07:01] If there's nothing inherently wrong with what we're changing, why do it?

[00:07:05] If the reason is to become more like a fictional TV character whose appearance may have been

[00:07:10] digitally altered anyway, we might want to re-evaluate our actions and quote this from psychology today.

[00:07:18] News changes us. Social media changes us. Television in books and the friends we keep change us.

[00:07:26] The change could be good or it could be bad. Either way the way these inputs affect our output

[00:07:34] is something to consider, to be continued.

[00:07:41] You just listen apart one of the posts titled Stop Feeding Your Brain Mental Garbage

[00:07:46] by Michael Melberg of michaelmelberg.com and I'll be right back with my commentary.

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[00:09:40] Social media which you brought up in this first half is even more insidious because of how the

[00:09:45] algorithms work. Feels like since the advent of TikTok this has become worse or maybe TikTok just

[00:09:53] made it more clear and maybe you've noticed this too if you use social media at least I hope you've

[00:09:58] noticed. And that is the more of a certain kind of content you interact with, the more it's going

[00:10:06] to appear. And what's crazy is that it might not even be interacting but just pausing and looking

[00:10:13] just a little bit longer. So if you're not familiar with TikTok it's basically just a bunch of

[00:10:18] short videos that you can scroll through. And if you pause on one and it catches your attention

[00:10:24] maybe it's funny, maybe it's scary, maybe it's inspirational, whatever it is they now know what

[00:10:32] kind of content gets your attention. And sure enough they'll show more of it to you.

[00:10:37] And that works for bad things just as well as for good. It reinforces whatever it is you're fixated

[00:10:44] on and you get more of it reinforcing it even more. It's a snowball effect, it could be for

[00:10:50] something unhelpful or even hurtful. So we should really think about this like Michael said

[00:10:56] but we're only halfway through the article for now hopefully it's been helpful for you so far.

[00:11:01] Again I'll finish the rest for you tomorrow but that should do it for today. Thank you for being

[00:11:05] here and listening every day and I'll be back tomorrow to finish up this post where your optimal life

[00:11:11] awaits.