4 Tips To Nourish Your Mind and Soul
Nourishment isn’t just what you eat.
Nourishment refers to all the things you consume in your daily life that provide sustenance necessary for your growth, your health, and your overall well-being. While nourishing your body with healthy, nutritious foods is important, it’s also equally important to consider how you’re nourishing your mind and your soul.
Your Mind:
How do you nourish your mind? Do you feed it with educational, positive, inspiring information that makes you smarter, happier, and more fulfilled? Or do you feed your mind with the brain’s equivalent of junk food? Notice how the information, social media, and entertainment you consume affects your energy. Your mind is affected greatly by what you consume.
Your Soul:
Nourishing your soul means recharging your batteries. When you nourish your soul, you fill your own cup by doing the things that help you grow, make you feel connected to your purpose, and build your self-love. Nourishing your soul raises the quality of your life by increasing your connectedness to yourself, your greater purpose, to other people you interact with, and to the world around you.
4 Tips To Nourish Your Mind and Soul:
Notice how social media affects your energy. Think about what it’s like when you sit down to scroll on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. Your energy might be up when you first pick up your phone, but as you continue mindlessly scrolling, an hour will go by without you even noticing, and you’re glued to the couch with no intention of getting up. Stop scrolling mindlessly! Instead, feed your mind with content that is uplifting, educational, positive, or truly entertaining. Rather than participating in the doom-scrolling on social media, choose to listen to an educational podcast or an audiobook with a captivating story. Make a conscious decision to avoid the mental exhaustion that comes from social media, and instead nourish your mind.
Pay attention to the news you consume. Approximately 90% of all U.S. media is negative. In fact, in journalism school, students are taught, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Stories you see in the news are sensationalized. They are meant to elicit a reaction from their audience. If you’re watching the news every day, you will inevitably consume negative information. Am I telling you to stop watching the news and to be ignorantly blissful? No. But here’s what you can do to limit the negativity coming into your mind: set limits to the amount of time you watch the news each day. Rather than trying to get your information from many sources, limit the news you watch to two outlets. Consider subscribing to a daily email newsletter that will send you snippets of the top news stories from throughout the day. Avoid the news before bedtime. Being aware of the news you consume can help you monitor how you’re feeding your mind.
Be picky with the “authority figures” you listen to. When I say “authority figures,” this could mean authors, celebrities, Instagram influencers, friends, or anyone else you consider an authority. Are you choosing to listen to people who contribute to your mind and soul’s nourishment? Or are you left feeling negative or drained after listening to them? Consider clearing your Instagram of people who leave you feeling bad about yourself, put down, or feeling negatively, rather than nourishing you. Be picky with who you choose to listen to!
Adopt habits that feed your soul. There’s not a silver bullet when it comes to self-care and self-nourishment. You have to choose the right cocktail of habits and activities that work for you. For some people it’s exercise, for others it’s journaling. For some people it’s quiet time alone, for others it’s spending time with friends and family. What are 2-3 habits or actions that, if you did them consistently throughout your week (4-5 times weekly), would dramatically improve your overall sense of connection and purpose? It could be meditation, time in nature, listening to music, running, reading a good book, napping, breathwork, dancing, gratitude practice, or anything else that feeds your soul. Make these habits into routines that become automatic.
As you practice nourishing your mind and soul– because trust me, it’s a practice– your sense of self-love and self-confidence will increase. Self-nourishment means you consciously dedicate time to filling your own cup and prioritizing YOU. You will start to respect and trust yourself more, overcome obstacles with grace and ease, and simply feel more joyful and fulfilled.
