Why Should You Train Your Brain?

"The greatest treasure a man has lies between his ears", so said and agreed upon by countless number of philosophers, past thinkers, and great leaders. You may also have heard, "The best investment you can ever make is for the mind", "whether you think you can or you cannot, either way, you're right", "a mind is a terrible thing to waste"' and other nuggets of wisdom from accomplished people. They are proof of the importance of training our brain.

The brain is absolutely capable of producing the most powerful or benign energy in the universe, Thoughts! Believe it or not, our successes and failures are the direct results of our actions, and all our actions are governed by our thoughts, either consciously or subconsciously. In recent years, the latter has been proven to be more active and potent than we give credits for. When it is said that success and failure start from within, it can literally be referring to our subconscious mind.

Let's put it this way, it is possible that your subconscious mind may deny and refute every logics, reasoning, arguments or goals that you have formed in your conscious mind. This effectively set the stage for an inner conflict.

For example, John had decided to lose weight to avoid the fate of his diabetic father, all the sufferings that high blood pressure and heart attack bring. He swore to stay away from chips and spent more time in his running shoes, he had even joined a support group for extra motivation. In that same afternoon, he walked past a store selling chips and struggled mentally to resist buying any. In the end, he listed a hundred reasons to postpone his diet for the packet of chips. On the very same evening, just before his jog, he saw gray clouds looming overhead and settled with another hundred reasons to skip jogging till tomorrow.

Why did John behave as such? What had caused his initial motivation and faith to waver? He had very compelling logical and emotional reasons to go on the diet. He wanted to live healthier and avoid his father's sufferings. So what is the little devil prompting him behind his ears? As you may know by now, the little monster at work here is the subconscious mind, or an untrained subconscious mind to be more exact.

There will be conflict when your conscious logics and reasoning differ from your subconscious thoughts. In John's case, his subconscious won the conflict with its own arguments. "Why bother to diet and exercise now, you are still young, healthy and light years away from middle-age ailments." Such self-defeating arguments are never born with that much power. It grows every time John agrees with it. That is why it is so hard to change it in one day. It has been 'hard-wired' in his head.

In fact, John's rampant subconscious mind is not a stand-alone case. Everybody will encounter such inner conflict, and probably lost their case. If there were only one reason to account for all the ultimate failures, it would be their untrained subconscious minds. An untrained brain provides the ideal conditions to breed self-defeating beliefs and other negativities which account for failures.

In this 21st century, physical fitness is widely promoted as an essential lifestyle habit to extend lifespan and improve the quality of life. A lack of physical exercise will lead to an unconditioned body. Similarly, if mental training is neglected, it will lead to an unconditioned mind too. A constant lack of mental workout will eventually lead to a stagnant mind.

There is an explanation for why most people who had implemented significant changes to their life fail. It is the subconscious mind which chooses not to abide by the new rules. Stagnation is stronger than the desire to change. Even accomplished people like Henry Ford had felt inner conflicts throughout their life, however, it is those people who can re-program their subconscious mind to align with the conscious mind that will succeed in their endeavors.

So how do you do that? How do you align the subconscious mind to obey the conscious mind? The common way, also known as human-behavior study and psychology, involves studying the subconscious mind and devising explanations and solutions to its patterns.

For example, the subconscious mind often forms its own rule of do's and don'ts by associating certain subjects with either pain or pleasure. In John's scenario, anything that he had disliked, such as 'changing lifestyle, exercise, diet' his subconscious mind associates them with pain. Conversly, he enjoys 'watching TV on sofa', so the subconscious mind will link it to pleasure. It will ask John to perform more of what it considers as pleasure and avoid pain at all costs. According to psychology and human-behavior studies, there are only two way to change, either train the subconscious mind to associate the subject's desired outcome with greater pleasure, or to associate the lack of it with more pain.

There are a few other alternate and less complicated ways, here's a few of them:

1) Learn to meditate like the Tibetan monks. It involves maintaining an immerse concentration until a trance-like state is reached. Scientists have observed theta brainwave emissions during such sessions. Emission of theta waves can be used to indicate level of activities in the subconscious mind. This is the safest, cheapest and possibly longest way to succeed. Then again, it depends on individuals' abilities.

2) Write an affirmation that you believe with your heart and soul, and chant it a hundred times in the morning and another hundred times at night. No special brainwaves observed, but there is a high chance of quitting within a few days when the subconscious mind convinces the individual that it is futile, especially if there are no results to prove effectiveness.

3) Constantly expose yourself to positive stimuli, such as attending mastermind groups and seminars, listening and watching audio and visual aids like CDs and DVDs or reading books. Such exposures are highly effective. Their benefits are time-proven but subjected to individuals' motivations and self-disciplines to maintain constant contact.

4) Listen to brainwave entrainment programs for twenty minutes a day. It has scientific backgrounds and involves exposing the brain to specific frequencies to tune itself to a mental state that favor performance. Increased brainwave activities have been noted after twenty minutes of exposure. It is highly effective due to minimal effort required by the subjects. It can be applied in most situations, which do not demand your concentration, such as traveling, before sleeping or resting. I highly recommend it.

5) Subliminal messages involve delivering instructions, either as visual or audio form, directly to the subconscious mind. There are very few successful cases compared to previous methods.

All these methods are aimed at training your brain to behave itself, to help you reach your goals fast instead of hinder the process. I am sure that more methods exist in this world and some of them may be different in their approach, but they have one thing in common. They need constant practice and exposure to achieve their desired effects. In the end, the best choice will be the one that offers minimal effort and allow easy integration into the routine life.

It is vital to train your brain and tone it up with mental workouts if you want to achieve success fast. By understanding how to align your subconscious mind with your goals and remove subconscious resistance, your success is guaranteed. So if you want to succeed in anything, train your brain first.

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