You can improve your life tremendously by turning off mood-lowering, energy-zapping, and mind-draining irritations and tuning in to the things you are passionate about. This may seem obvious to you, but the irritations I am discussing and their impact may not.
Irritations
What I am calling irritations are the news programs, advertisements, and “violent” television shows, movies, and sports that we spend a large portion of our lives watching. None of these things serves us in any positive way. They only serve the individuals and companies who produce them in the form of huge profits.
Mood Altering
How do you feel after watching the news, dozens of commercials, violent television shows, movies, or sporting events (e.g., cage fighting)? Are you angry, anxious, fearful, deprived, sad, depressed, frustrated, overwhelmed, or disgusted?
Do you ever feel uplifted, enriched, or inspired after watching this stuff? If so, it is probably infrequent.
The same goes for a lot of material on the internet. The in-your-face advertising practices are particularly annoying. Moreover, the “anonymous commenting” that the internet has enabled often brings out the worst in people, especially from those ignorant, angry individuals filled with hate. It’s a waste.
Body Changing
Some television and internet programming affects our mind and emotions, but it can also negatively impact our bodies in these ways.
- Increase blood pressure
- Change chemistry to alarm state
- Lower disease resistance
- Cause biological depression
- Damage body health
Break
After you have taken a break from the news, commercials, violent programs, and negative internet material for a while, you’ll see how utterly absurd they are. You’ll also see how harmful and time-consuming they are.
Prescription
My prescription for keeping your mood, energy, and intellect high is to turn off the crap and tune in to your passions. Restrict your viewing, listening, and reading to uplifting material that aligns with your values, interests, and goals.