In the field of personal and professional development, there has been increasing buzz around mental fitness.
If you’re not familiar, mental fitness refers to the state of your mental and emotional well-being, including your ability to manage stress, maintain resilience, and sustain a positive mindset when facing life’s challenges.
Imagine Sarah, a 30-something marketing manager at a tech startup. During a crucial pitch meeting, her boss criticizes her team’s proposal. Instead of focusing on constructive feedback, Sarah’s negative emotions flare up. She starts doubting her abilities, feeling like she doesn’t belong and that everyone else is more competent. This Imposter Syndrome makes her retreat inward, causing her to clam-up and withdraw from the discussion.
Her lack of engagement leaves a negative impression. Her team feels unsupported, her boss perceives her as disengaged, and the stress spirals further as she realizes the repercussions of her inaction.
Sarah would greatly benefit from building her mental fitness. Unmanaged negative emotions sabotaged her performance and relationships at work.
Negative emotions are not bad. They are a normal part of being human and serve as an alert that something needs your attention.
Where we run into problems is that our brains are wired to look for negative information in the environment. We are built to respond faster and focus more intensely on negative emotions like fear and anger than on positive emotions such as peace and joy. Neuroscientists call this our “Negativity Bias”.
In ancient times, this helped humans survive against potential threats like a poisonous snake or a saber-toothed tiger. This ability to quickly respond to strong negative emotions and take action—meant life or death.
Even though we live in a far safer society, our brains don’t know the difference. Human minds are still prone to overreact and fixate on negative things more so than positive ones.
On top of that, our minds typically run on autopilot most of the time, and we are often unaware of the tens of thousands of thoughts that pop into our heads daily, which influence our feelings and behavior.
This is where mental fitness can be extremely helpful. Just as the body requires exercise to build muscle, the mind needs stimulation to strengthen its “mental muscles”.
Neuroscientists discovered that the brain has neuroplasticity and is capable of growth throughout adulthood.
This means we have the ability to rewire our brains and make changes to transform our lives by building our mental fitness. However, building your mental fitness isn’t a quick-fix solution. Like physical health which requires establishing healthy habits and routines to optimize wellness, mental fitness requires developing greater self-command of the mind and consistent practice.
Studies have shown that people experience many benefits from building their mental fitness, such as improvements in their performance, well-being, and relationships.
Mental fitness is crucial for handling life’s complexities with resilience, making wise decisions, and fostering healthy relationships.
