Spending time at beach can transform your mental health and brain – Scientifically explained

Have you ever been through a stressful time in your life, and desired to go on a vacation, away from all the complexities and hectic schedules of life? Have you ever experienced a feeling of rejuvenation, deep relaxation, and contentment after having few days of your life spent at a beach area? This is quite known for most of us that beach indeed gives us a soothing and calming effect, but do you know that beach can have a powerful effect on our wellbeing and on the functioning of our brain.

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Let’s dig into few scientifically endorsed facts on how the beach can have a profound effect on our brain and health.

1.     Spending time in beaches can mellow down your stress hormone cortisol level

The sounds we hear near the beach could be one of the major reasons of the calming effect we feel. A lot of research has made by the scientists who concluded and well-differentiated the type of noise which human find relaxing and pleasant, and the kind of voice which are considered as stress inducing and noxious. The noises that have predictable wave pattern, are soft in volume with harmonic frequencies at regular frequencies are believed to be most relaxing and pleasant sounds. All these boxes tick by the voice of the waves of ocean and beaches. According to Shelley Batts, Ph.D., an auditory neuroscientist at Stanford University and a presenter at the first Blue Mind Summit says, the sound of the ocean may have a deeper emotional effect, may trigger deeper feelings of relaxation and security.

There is a stress hormone called cortisol. Airplane noise, or traffic noise or such other noises often cause this hormone to be released. Releasing of this hormone may give rise to health problems related to heart and can also cause ulcer. While the calming and soothing voice of ocean helps us decrease cortisol level which thus gives a positive effect on our overall health and may also prevent potential health problems.

2.     Negative Ions are generated by ocean waves

Negative Ions are tasteless, odorless and invisible molecules that we inhale in abundance in a certain environment. The negative Ions accelerate our bodies’ ability to absorb oxygen. They also balance our level or serotonin, which is a chemical associated with our mood and stress. The ocean waves produce these negative Ions. This is one of the major reasons why scientist believes that spending some time near beach gives us a sense of health and positive well–being.

3.     The sound of ocean waves also activates your prefrontal cortex

The prefrontal cortex is an area of the brain that is associated with self-reflection and emotions. It engages very well when ocean sounds are played.

Ways to shift your mindset

As we move forward in life, we face various changes; we have to let go of some past experience in order to keep moving with a flow of life. Change is certain, we all have to accept it and learn to anticipate it, which often becomes a major cause of depression and sorrow for many of us.

But we all endowed with an amazing power of our brain, we can indeed train our mind to handle change with an ease through few simple exercises.

Let’s dig into few amazing ways to force a mindset shift.

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1.       Notice at least 3 changes in a day and anticipate them

Create a practice of noticing at least 3 changes in a day and their positive effects on you and the people around you. By making an effort to observe the positive effect so changes for your personal, professional and social life, you will train your brain to acknowledge and look at the change as an opportunity for growth

2.       Develop a practice of writing

Writing your experiences each day will help you acknowledge changes in more positive ways. Just think about the time you joined the first job, leaving your first job, leaving good colleagues behind might have been painful. But you accepted the change, you went ahead for a new job, and gradually you met more good people in life. When you’ll write each and every experience, you will notice how these changes helped you grow in life.   

3.        Learn to meditate

Another way to strengthen the muscle of your mindset and embrace change in life is to learn and practice meditation. Spending time alone for 10 minutes in a day to observe the things around, analyze the things deeply brings you a deeper sense of acceptance and adds optimist approach in your life. You can also choose apps like headspace app, which helps you develop a stronger practice of meditation as a beginner.

4.       Imagine the inescapable

Almost everything in the world eventually becomes obsolete. Try to imagine how and why the life you are experiencing currently will become outdated; maybe your relationship, you job, your liking or disliking or anything. While discovering the answers, you will get to know and understand that everything in life requires a change in order to do away the drabness. When you’ll imagine the things this way, you eventually will become more innovative and will embrace the changes cheerfully.

5.       Make your personal growth a priority

Working on own development in this hectic and fast moving pace of life is incredibly challenging. But this is the only way to stay positive, embrace change and manage the unwanted stress of everyday life. A spiritual practice, meditation, yoga, or just a self - examining will help you embrace change and take you to the path of your own growth.

6.       Accept that change will happen with or without you

Accept that time is precious as it keeps flowing away, life is short as the number of good or bad experiences we encounter in different stages of life and the number of gifts universe has stored for us at different phases of life are more than the total numbers of years we live. Every beginning of idea has its own life cycle and an expansion. And when the idea expands, change becomes a natural process and a necessary part of the cycle. The change will happen, whether you accept or not, so let’s accept and embrace it.

7.       Learn  to positively accept and love the present

Another way to embrace change is to accept the situations and people you have at present. Holding on means believing that there is a past, while letting go is knowing that there is a beautiful future waiting for us. In order to forget old memories, you need to make new one, and we only create new memories when we are willing to give it a chance. 

8.       Embrace the sense of detachment

We are more likely to get attached to the things, in which more time and effort have been invested, even if we know that walking away is the sounder choice. Don’t let the fear of losing the things you’ve invested in guide your decision making. Learn to keep moving on while keep forging newer paths to experience.

After every darkness comes light

No one can avoid struggle or hardships in life as it’s a part of life. Our day begins with a light and ends with a darkness to introduce us with a fresh and new light, with which we start our new day. In fact, many a time, we face hardships or such situations that even shake us to the core. Any this is how our life flows, and this is how we recall ourselves the true essence of life in its purest form, i.e. challenges bring celebrations and success, the loss brings learnings learning to us, and sorrow brings us a new hope of happiness.

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We indeed forget to realize that these hardships are in fact a gift from life itself. When we face any betrayal or any low point in life; be it illness, hurt, relationship breakdown or financial ruin, we dwell into the phase of darkness. But it’s actually an opportunity for the emergence of soul. These are the situations when your soul speaks to you and make you realize that you are not what you are presently due to such circumstances, but you something or someone far greater.

Every darkness always turns to light; every cry always turns to laughter. It's just a matter of choice how you take that sorrow or darkness in your life and how better you let the new beginnings, a new ray of light and hope enter into your life. Whenever you encounter darkness, always consider it as an opportunity to come out as a more shining star.

Most painful truths which ultimately help us grow in life

Before a thing finally comes to you, you certainly have to go through various life lessons in order to become the most deserved for the thing you desire to achieve in your life path. We learn various lessons in our life path, some of those bring out our true personality and are prerequisite & destined in order to help us grow in life and reach our sole purpose in life.

Let’s dig into few most painful truths of life which become major learnings of our life

1.       You are the only one who create the life you live

You are completely accountable for the life you live because you are only one who chooses the path of your life. Others can only persuade you, but cannot decide for you. They can accompany you in walking on your path, but not in your shoes. So you must make sure that the path you decide to walk aligns with your desires and intuitions, and don’t be afraid to switch the path or choose a new one when it aligns with your intuition, desire and makes sense.

Always be patient and remember that positive attitude can do wonders while you working hard for what you want to achieve or what you believe in. even when life teaches you the toughest lesson you are not ready for, let it be. If you have no idea where you’re going to land, at least be brave enough to take a step even towards an unknown path and listen to your inner voice, you heart.

2.      Our final destination is death and life span always seems short

We all are very well aware of the fact that death will eventually happen to all of us, still we get surprised, feel bad and cry when it happens to someone who is known to us. You wish to find one more day for yourself or a moment to balance yourself to do what you couldn’t while you had the chance to live.

So, knowing and accepting the fact, live your life to the fullest. Live your life as this might be the last moment for you to live. Don’t ignore death but don’t either afraid of it. Take actions, do what you love the most because the greatest loss in life is what dies inside you when you’re still alive.

3.       Some failures are most requisite before you achieve success

Mistakes are never a problem; the problem is when you don’t take learnings from those mistakes. Don’t be afraid to give it a shot, and don’t be afraid of failure. The difference between a successful achiever and a beginner is the successful achiever has tasted failures more times than the beginners have even tried. Behind every extraordinary success, there are thousands of failed attempts, but these attempts are simply intangible to us and we only acknowledge the success and cog nominate it as “luck”.

4.       Forgiveness doesn’t always require an apology

In order to move further in life and explore ample of opportunities & surprises life has stored for you, you must let the past grudges, regrets, miseries fall by the wayside. Life becomes way easier when we don’t wait for an apology to forgive someone. Be thankful for all positive and negative experiences, negative experience helps you learn and grow wiser. Practice forgiveness, forgive yourself, forgive the people, take positive learnings and move on with open arms and open heart to give and receive love, happiness, smile, peacefulness and unlock newer dimensions of life. Forgiveness is like freeing yourself from the burden of eternal victim.

5.       Loving yourself is most important in order to be loved by others

Before expecting from the world to love you, and before expecting from yourself to be nicer with the world, be nice to yourself and love yourself. Everyone is born unique in this world, and so are you. Always be thankful to God for making you the way you are, keep your worth even if the people don’t. Let someone love you the way you are, rather trying to be someone which other wants you to be. Despite being unattractive, not too beautiful, despite having ample of flaws, let someone love you the way you are, and begin with yourself, you have to be that someone and eventually the world will start loving you for the way you are.

6.     Things change, People change, Time change

You had a yesterday, you have today and you’ll surely have tomorrow. Accept it, time changes and life keeps moving on and so we are. Embrace changes because changes occur for a reason. You might not realize the reason initially, but at the end, you’ll realize that it is worth it. Sometimes even the smallest change in our life can change the entire direction of our lives. We all have been revolving and flipping upside down, sometimes for better, sometimes for the worse on the strength of an erratic event. However whatever the situation is good or bad, will eventually change; may be for long term betterment. So live every moment, do something good every second of your life and always live with a positive approach. Even a negative change will give you a long term positive result, so just hold on and accept what is out of your hands, because it’s in hands of God then.

Conquer your innermost fears

How many times have you turned away from a relationship or a great opportunity because you were afraid to take up the challenge and go for it? And how many times have you seen the other person taking the same opportunity and doing wonders? It’s not that you couldn’t do better by taking up that opportunity, but someone else is doing better today because he/she did not let the fear overpower his (her) self-belief, confidence and willingness. The stealers of our dreams are always around us who give a rise to our fears. As a kid, do we fear to fall when we start walking? We just enjoy the moment, but as we age; through our social circle, our parents, we start analyzing the good or bad, danger or smooth, etc. Although this is very much required to an extent, but fear somehow sometimes convene us that we can never accomplish our dreams, when people around us start discouraging us by saying it’s too difficult and you cannot do this. Everyone talk what they have experienced. Because someone failed in a relationship because of arguments, he/he would suggest you to keep quiet in an argument, and you begin to keep quiet to save your relationship and keep the grudges inside because you fear to lose the one you love. Because someone failed to crack IAS Exam, he/she would suggest you to not go to for that, it’s waste of time, it’s not that easy and somewhere you get convinced and fail to give your 100% out of fear and lack of belief. And you wake up when you see other people getting success in the same field or saving their relationship by talking or by arguing.

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Fear is not bad. Fear often gives us an early warning signal to protect us. But there is a huge difference between a fear that protects us from falling from a cliff and a constant fear that keeps us away from living a fulfilled life. Here are few steps that help conquer such fears and keeps you all set to take up the challenges and win the battles. Supportive companions, relaxation techniques, positive mindset, ability to face the fears, spiritual enhancement are some of the practical ways through which one can easily win the war of life while enjoying the struggles and challenges.

Positive social connection: We either tend to resist admitting our fear because we afraid that the other person will laugh, will not understand, think less of us, or we choose the wrong person to share our problems. Our mental stress turns into fears when we share with a person who has a negative approach towards life. So always find a good companion who supports you or encourage you for your dreams; could be a trusted friend brother or sister or supportive parents. They may show you a new light covered by your fears.

Spiritual enhancement: Have faith in the power of positive visualization, law of attraction, universe and God. Be truthful to yourself, ask yourself if you can do it or not, rather letting your fear suppress it, listen to the answer coming deep inside your soul that you can do it. Positive visualization will amazingly take your fears away. 

Relaxation techniques: Fear not only keeps us away from living a fulfilled life but often becomes a cause of many health problems. Hence, you must add some healthy exercise, meditation techniques in your daily schedule to keep the fear and unnecessary stress away and live with a more positive approach. Sitting for 30 minutes in the morning in silence with closed eyes, focusing on your breath and understanding your thoughts keeps your day stress-free and positive. When you are positive from inside, negative surrounding cannot harm you.

Face your challenges and fears: One must be wise enough to understand that fears are healthy in some situations and we should keep our safety on our top priority always. But if the threat is more to your mental status than physical, taking up the challenge is the best thing you can do to conquer that mental threat, otherwise, that fear will keep threatening you throughout. Start facing your fears in steps, supposedly you have a fear of public speaking, start it with addressing few people in a small room; may be with your family, colleague or any other people who are known to you, then gradually consider leading your departmental or group meetings to gain more confidence and slowly take a step ahead towards your ultimate purpose.

Love yourself

Be gentle with yourself, you are a child of Universe, nowhere less than any stars in the sky. In such noisy confusion of life, where everything and everyone have their own set priorities, do not ever forget to love yourself and do what is right for you. Universe demands us not to harm any other living soul, but never denies to think for one own self and be good to yourself. As long as you do what you love and love what you do, the rest will fall into place gradually.

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How to embrace forgiveness and prosper in life

Forgiving someone after a betrayal, hurt or abandoned is undoubtedly a very challenging task, but in order to get an access into healthy wellbeing and to attain inner peace, forgiveness is essential.  Although forgiveness never comes instant and it requires a lot of patience, positive empowerment, and self-examination. We only empower ourselves when we accept, examine and then gently release.

We cannot choose what happens to us, but we can definitely choose how to react to a situation. Your reaction during the hours of turmoil and miseries determines how long those situations stay with you until you grab your achievement once again. By keeping grudges in mind, the person whom we harm the most is our own self.

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In order to embrace forgiveness and let go the moment of betrayal, miseries or sorrows, one has to understand that everyone has free will. Everyone has right to choose and decide when to enter or exit from our lives, we cannot hold neither the person nor those negative or betrayed emotions. Yes, you cannot stay calm and feel glad after you gone through a break-up, you have to let those negative emotions and anger come out, and this is very natural. It’s like cleaning out our soul; you have to get it out in order to make progress.

Let’s dig into few tips for embracing forgiveness and cleanse your inner being:

Set a goal

Sometimes we have to be strong and make a stronger decision that we have to let go of the past emotions and embrace forgiveness. Make a conscious choice that you don’t have to look back now and just be open to receive what universe has to offer ahead.

Forgive yourself

There is a friend of mine who lost his wife in a car accident and he is still unable to forgive himself for not spending enough time with her and for not being present at that moment to save her. As long as you will not learn to forgive yourself, you will never learn to forgive the people around you and end up keeping grudges, sorrows, and miseries in your heart forever. You cannot project something onto others what you have not done to yourself.

Start with small

Forgiveness is a process. You cannot get over the hurt right away; it even takes years in many situations or cases. But one can always start the process with willingness and an ability to tolerate those intense emotions that make us want to run away from the situation. Do not run away, rather face it; let your anger, your deeper emotions flow out. Most of the people not even begin the initial process, as they think if they let go the situation, the person they are upset with will be proved right. Forgiveness is letting go of everything, no matter if the other person proves to be right or wrong.

Look at these losses as a learning experience and an opportunity for self-growth

Life has no guarantee; anything can happen at any moment. The miseries you face due to the people around you are because life wanted to put you in such situations to help you become wiser and experienced. You have to see the positive learning on the other side of the coin. Most of us only focus on one side; the accident which happened, but we never take it as an incident. The accident happened, put you in miserable situations, but it is also an incident on which you’ll look back later on and learn from.