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Dubai: Do not reach for your phone first thing in the morning, warns renowned brain performance expert

'You’re the pilot of your mind, and not the passenger', explained Jim Kwik as he spoke to attendees at a summit in the emirate

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Do not reach out for your phone first thing in the morning, a brain performance expert said on Sunday.

“When you wake up you’re in a magical state of creation. You’re wiring your brain for distraction and reaction when you go on the phone in the morning,” said Jim Kwik, a world-renowned expert in brain performance, speed reading and memory improvement, as he spoke to attendees at Mindvalley Live in Dubai summit. The brain, he said, is limitless. “You’re the pilot of your mind and not the passenger,” he said.

He told attendees that his day starts with a 30-minute connection to the four elements. In his morning routine, he connects to ‘earth’ by getting grounded in nature, ‘fire’ by getting 10 to 15 minutes of sunlight, ‘water’ by hydrating and taking cold showers and ‘air’ by doing breathing exercises.

According to Jim, this routine is beneficial for the brain. “Sleep is very important for good brain function, and spending time in sunlight every day helps improve the quality of sleep. Cold showers help reduce inflammation, and gives one dopamine and adrenaline,” he said.

He shared with the audience some mental exercises and strategies to help improve brain performance. “I imagine that someone is asking me, 'How was your day?' and I say, 'it's great.' Then I think about what I need to do throughout the day to get [to] that answer,” he said, adding that he then thinks of three professional and three personal answers to that question.

He said that there are things that help in the learning process, such as the emotional state. “All learning is state-dependent. Information combined with emotions become long-term memories,” he said. Another thing that helps learning is teaching. “When you learn with the intention of teaching, you learn better, because you think: how do I teach this to another person?”

Creating with what one has learned also helps solidify learning, he said, adding that learning is not a ‘spectator sport’. “Where your focus goes, your energy flows. The problem is not retention, but attention. You can miss a lot in life because of lack of attention,” he said.

Scheduling time in a calendar, which is a productivity performance tool, is essential for learning, he notes. “How do I use the information I learned and when? For every hour you spend learning something, you have to put in an hour putting it into action,” explained Jim.

To progress in any area of one’s life, the mindset is very important, said Jim. “If you fight for your limits, you get to keep them. All behaviours are belief-driven, so to get a result, you need a new behaviour, and so you need a new belief to make that behaviour possible,” said Jim. An example is that if someone says they don’t remember the names of people, they will forget the name of the next person they meet, he concludes.

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