North Star Mental Fitness Blog

Knowledge! Do You Really Know?

If you can drive a car, you have the ability to have a good self-concept and form satisfying and sensitive relationships!

We automatically goes through many psychological processes effortlessly when it comes to understanding the importance of fuel and reading signals when it comes to driving a car.  It may surprise you how many psychological processes we successfully apply in interpreting what our car's need.

Do You Want to Lose Weight and Become More Fit?

Many people believe that losing weight will make us more fit.  Wrong!

Not so according to a recent study of seniors.  64 sedentary overweight or obese 60 to 75-year-old people were studied for four months.  The results of this study showed weight loss through dieting alone is not the answer for becoming fit.

The researchers studied whether greater fitness would result from dieting, exercising or a combination of dieting and exercising.  This study was reported in Health Habits and entitled Senior Fitness: A Fountain of Youth?

The winner was the exercise and diet group.  The participants who both dieted and exercised for four months were most efficient in the exercise task, did not lose muscle mass and their weight loss was associated with using body-fat as a source of energy.

The diet group showed no improvement in physical fitness.  They lost weight.  However, their weight loss was due to a loss of muscle mass as well as fat.

If you want to lose weight and become more physically fit, then it is necessary to ea less and exercise more.

Remember, We Live within the Bodies Created by Our Choices.

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

You Don't Get Any Better, When....

"When you start taking things personally that is when you don't get better"!

This was University of Michigan football player, Morgan Trent's profound, psychological insight regarding accepting intense, emotional instruction from his coaches.  Sam Webb from Go Blue Wolverine interviewed Morgan Trent regarding the yelling and highly confrontive coaching style of the new coaches.

Morgan Trent went on to say about taking things personally:

"You want to get upset and that never helps you out.  You have to understand and get to a point where you have to realize they are only trying to help you. 

Rich Rod always says that he always wants to take you to a place that you can't take yourself and he does.  It is a difficult painful project but that is his main goal."

Morgan also had a wonderful perception.  Oftentimes, when people take things personally, they feel disrespected.  Morgan Trent realizes that his coaches are not trying to be disrespectful.  He told Sam

"Our coaches are never disrespectful.  I don’t know what you have heard.  They weren’t coming in and acting crazy and cussing everybody out just for fun and trying to break you down.  It wasn’t that.  It is just a different style of coaching.  They still have respect for us and they would never do anything to disrespect us or anything like that.”

In our personal lives we we must learn to not take coaching personal. Sometimes we enroll in classes or activities, where we will be coached.  On other occasions, we and our significant others try to coach each other.

In our personal lives, it is also important to learn how to not feel disrespected, put down, and maintain the perception that our family members are trying to help us instead of attack or demean us.

Too often, our insecurities intrude into our perceptions and as a result we personalize highly emotional reactions from those who want to help us.

Although it is hard, it is emotionally more satisfying to remember that our significant others are respectful, helpful and loving even when their coaching techniques are difficult to accept.  

Remember, We Live within the Environment Created by Our Choices.

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

My next blog will focus on learning how to not personalize in situations where people are not trying to be helpful

When "Yes, I Can" Becomes a Problem

My post about "Yes, I Can" emphasized how difficult is is to make this affirmation and how important this affirmation is for generating succcess.  The post "How Many Success Do You Need Before You Can Conclude Your Are Succcessful" stressed the importance of drawing the conclusion that we are succcessful after we have been succcessful.

Both of these posts extol the importance of having this successful motivation and identity. 

Did you know, "Yes, I Can" isn't always a good mind set?  Here is why. 

"Yes, I Can" has to be used judiciously.  It is very easy the say "Yes, I Can" and find yourself over-whemed with responsibilities, commitments, and obligations. 

How many times have you know better, and still failed to say "No".  Logically, you know you can  do it, so you take on more and more.  Before long your life is no longer yours.  You work and work.  Your quality of life begins to suffer and you feel the symptoms of burn-out. 

The force of "Yes, I Can"  needs to be controlled and limited by the motive and drive "Is This Best for Me".  Sometimes you need to say "No" emphatically to "Yes, I Can" and the relentless requests from others to do more.   Asking the question, "Is This Best for Me" can stop you from over extending yourself by assuming too many responsibilities and eventually living in the neighborhood of perpetual burrn-out.

 Remember, You Live Within the Environment Created by Your Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

Mental Fitness Programming Applied to Overcome Anxiety about Surgery

The Turn Around Choice of the North Star Medal Fitness Program has been designed to reduce anxiety, panic and fear. 

In fact, this Choice can be used to reduce and manage all self-defeating behavior.  Yesterday, I taught a client how to apply the Turn Around Choice to reduce anxiety and fear about flying in an airplane.

At first he was skeptical.  Then he went through a stage of disbelief as he never thought of this approach to reduce his fear of flying.  As he began to understand how he could reduce and manage his fear of flying, he relaxed.  He felt confident.  He exclaimed that the general public should know about this procedure. 

We talked about how this procedure could be applied to solve so many problems like addictions, other fears and problems with poor impulse control. 

As we talked, I began to feel rather foolish.  I had completely forgotten to apply the choice in my own life!

You see, later this morning I will have shoulder surgery.  I had completely forgotten to master my anxiety, fears and indecision regarding the surgery with the Turn Around Choice.  I admitted my oversight to my client.

Immediately, I applied the Turn Around Choice to relax me regarding my surgery.  It worked.  Yesterday and today I have an inner calmness about the surgery.  I also know that I can use the Turn Around Choice, if my fear or panic return.

I also emphasized for my client one more fact.  Even though a person knows the secrets of mental fitness, mental fitness relief will not be experienced unless the Turn Around Choice is consciously made.

Remember, We Live within the Environment Created by Our Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

Why Quitting Smoking Doesn't Work

- Each day, nearly 6,000 children under 18 years of age start smoking
- Nearly 2,000 will become regular smokers.
- Annually 800,000 new smokers join the ranks of the diseased.

Approximately 90 percent of smokers begin smoking before the age of 21. According to the latest smoking statistics in 2001, a national survey of high school students revealed that the overall prevalence of current cigarette use was 28 percent. Nearly 20 percent of 12th graders, 12 percent of 10th graders and 5.5 percent of 8th graders smoke cigarettes daily. These statistics provided by Credible Reviews.

For more statistics on smoking in the text of smoking, I refer you to Smoking Statistics provided by the World Health Organization.

All these statistics indicate the need for people to stop smoking.  The reality is clear.  Smoking is bad for health and the health of others.

Although it is realistically and practically important to stop smoking, motivating yourself to "quit" or "stop" smoking is likely to fail for the following reasons: 

A Review of 6 articles: for Breaking Bad Habits

It is time again to make New Year's resolutions.  At this time of year, we are motivated to Break Bad Habits.  In order to help you make resolutions for breaking bad habits, I have reviewed the following blogs.

Adam Voiland of U.S. News and World Report explained why we make bad choices even when we know better in his article, "Want to Break a Bad Habit?  Try This".  Adam explained that we sometimes make bad choices because we want immediate gratification and do what is easiest.  He wrote the answer is to "build systems into your life that reward healthy choices or make healthy choices more convenient than unhealthy choices". 

Adam encouraged us to not forbid ourselves or others from making bad choices and to not punish ourselves or others for making bad choices.  "We know, in fact, stress and negative emotions often lead to things like binge eating, drug relapse and emotional buying.  Incentives work much better."  I believe Adam's ideas are excellent ways to neutralize the effects of the "innate human defiance,"  which was listed as one of the reasons "Why It's so Hard to Break Bad Habits," which was an article written by Jeanna Bryer for Fox News.com.

Why It Is Hard To Break Bad Habits?

The New Year is coming.  The time for making New Year's Resolutions is rapidly approaching with excitement and trepidation.

We know it's time to Break Bad Habits, but, often times, our confidence and hope have been shattered by past failure and disappointment.

Because of the bad consequences associated with bad habits, we suck in our gut, take a deep breath and commit ourselves to Breaking Bad Habits.

Jeanna Bryer of Fox News.com wrote a very relevant article "Why It's so Hard to Break Bad Habits".

Losing Weight by Thinking

Permanent Weight Loss - If you want to lose weight and maintain your weight loss, than change how you think!

I have begun a successful weight loss program.  The program is is not complicated.  Basically, I'm eating less, eating healthy foods and walking everyday.  These activities are known ingredients for losing and maintaining weight loss. 

A lot of people use these simple ideas. Often times, losing weight successfully and then gaining it back.  After reaching their goals, they stop eating right and exercising.  Why does this happen?

I believe they fail to have permanent weight loss, because they do not change their thinking to live in a body and environment of thinness.

I am very optimistic about losing and keeping off my weight.  I am going to use the same techniques of mind control that I used to live the last 20 years with the benefits from non-smoking.  Now I am going to pursue the benefits of being thin.

How?

Why I Created the North Star Mental Fitness Program

I needed a mental fitness program to help my clients.  In the 1980s, I did not know of a mental fitness program, so I created one.  As a licensed psychologist I wanted to empower my clients as much as possible to take control of their lives.

I believed that traditional, analytical psychotherapy methods were inefficient and not practical; especially when there were very limited sessions authorized by managed-care companies.  Analytical treatment necessitated more treatment sessions than what managed-care companies authorized.

In practice, people were being diagnosed with dual diagnoses.  It was conceptualized that each diagnosis had a different etiology necessitating different treatment strategies.  I questioned the necessity for different treatment strategies.  I began my pursuit to find strategies that could be used for most diagnoses other than psychotic diagnoses, no matter the nature of the different diagnoses.

As I listened to my clients from a new perspective, my thinking and practice shifted.