You need to remind yourself that it's OK to feel this way, especially with everything that has been going on. The pandemic situation we are all experiencing is something we've never faced before. We need to let our minds adjust to everything and give ourselves time to process all the new information we've been receiving lately.

You're not the only one feeling this way as we try to adapt to this "new normal way of living".

Being unable to spend time with our loved ones, have meaningful conversations with our friends, or even a boring talk at the office - has stripped us away from our ability to engage, the ability to spend time and focus on one thing. This has been detrimental to our mental health.

This is why it is essential to remind ourselves that the person that needs our attention the most is YOU.

I hope the following points explained in this blog, will serve as a guideline to find the easiest way to stay focused, in today's stressful world.

A person has more than six thousand thoughts per day, and if we're not careful, most of them can become harmful and have a significant impact on the way we see life.

Negative thoughts and emotions are a normal response to stressful events or trauma of any kind, but holding onto them for too long can excessively damage our health. Extended stressful situations can slow your digestion and hurt your immune system, making it vulnerable to any kind of inflammation and making us feel sick all the time.

A vital step to get rid of those thoughts and turn them into something useful is to observe them; be aware of what your mind is filled with and realize that most of what you think during the day is useless information.

Most likely filled with negativity that burdens our emotional state.

You need to nourish yourself with positive thoughts and practice it every day. More concretely if you see yourself that you have negative thoughts, you need to respond to it with at least three positive affirmations and practice it every day.

Once you let out all of the useless and harmful thoughts, you will see immediate results on your focus and attention.

You will notice your behavior and approaches to life change and know that you can change your destiny by changing the way you look at your thoughts.

As much as we love to dwell in our bed and eat junk food whenever something wrong happens, this only makes our mental health worse.

You NEED to change your routine, wake up early in the morning, go for a walk in the park, connect with yourself and nature, try making your own food, experiment with it to find healthier eating habits, and don't forget - start exercising.

Physical activity helps reduce insulin resistance, inflammation, stimulates chemicals in the brain that help grow new blood vessels, and boosts the brain's dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin levels which has a significant effect on focus and attention.

When you wake up in the morning, start having cold showers called water therapy (hydrotherapy). Which helps you increase your clarity and energy also release endorphin levels (that is also known as the happiness hormone).

Practice helps everything and raises the possibilities to get the health benefits we want to achieve. If you take cold showers two to three times a week, you will immediately feel your body's changes that stimulate attention and focus.

A Harvard University study shows that we spend 47% of our time lost in thought, so we need to navigate change by welcoming new ways and practice mindfulness.

What does mindfulness mean?

We are constantly aware of our surroundings and different events in our life influence our focus and attention so this technique is based on being aware of each breath that you take and every passing moment. Being fully present with our feelings, thoughts, and surrounding environment and whilst focusing on our breath we observe as our thoughts and everything else just drifts away and you find yourself at total peace. We are not focusing on anything anymore, neither dwelling on our past or worrying about the future. For this moment we are fully present, fully OURSELVES.

Give yourself some YOU time and rehearse this every day. Become at one with your breathing and any thought that comes up, just let it go. By practicing mindfulness for 5 minutes every day you will begin to see major improvements in your attention and focus.

I hope the tips have helped you on experiencing stress and negative thoughts with greater balance. We will continue to share some more blogs about balancing our mind and body. Stay tuned.