4 Mind 4 Life: Mental Health Tips

Researchers discover why schizophrenia symptoms vary depending on the individual

A relatively new study offers hope towards learning how certain individuals behave during an episode of psychosis. The study, which appeared in the June 18th issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, discussed the brain activity of healthy individuals compared with participants who ingested the drug “ketamine.” The club drug, and old anesthesia drug, ketamine, is known to induce symptoms of psychosis that mimic psychosis episodes and schizophrenia. The findings in this “ketamine study” help us explain why the symptoms of schizophrenia are completely unique depending on the individual. The results will also help make treatments of psychosis and schizophrenia more personal and uniquely formatted to fit the specific individual needs.

In psychosis, researchers often wonder why one individual may suffer from only odd perceptions, while others are haunted by paranoid-type beliefs that they are being hunted down by the C.I.A., and in other cases, there appears to be only severe disorganization of thoughts. Because of the wide-variety of symptoms, Paul Fletcher, a licensed M.D. at Cambridge University decided to study it.

Paul Fletcher and researchers hypothesized that different symptoms have specific biological links: each of which may disrupt normal cognition and brain function. The researchers were drawn to the fact that individual differences in normal brain activity could determine which cognitive processes are most at risk of being affected by psychosis, schizophrenia, or a drug-induced state.

Schizophrenia is a disease with symptoms that include what are referred to as negative symptoms and positive symptoms. Negative symptoms include: the loss of normal behaviors, reductions in speech, and social withdrawal. Positive symptoms include: hallucinations (auditory, visual), delusions, and disordered thought. Because everyone is unique, each person suffering from the devastating disease of schizophrenia or psychosis could have significantly different symptoms than another person with the disease.

Ketamine, also called “Special K,” is an often-abused analgesic that is able to induce both positive and negative symptoms in individuals. Like psychosis, the side-effects of ketamine vary from individual to individual and are unpredictable. Ketamine is a drug that works by blocking certain receptors in the brain that regulate the neurotransmitter glutamate – also implicated in schizophrenia.

How the study worked

Using MRI imaging, researchers made profiles of individuals either exposed to ketamine or a placebo while the participants did a wide-variety of cognitive tests. The researchers proceeded to evaluate the behaviors of the participants by using medically accepted psychiatric scales. Exactly one month after the evaluation, participants returned to repeat the testing in the opposite condition. Basically, each participant had an M.R.I. taken and was observed after exposure to both ketamine and the placebo. (To clear up any misunderstanding: Each person that had ketamine the first time had the placebo the second time… Each person that had the placebo the first time had ketamine the second time. M.R.I.’s were taken of every participant – both rounds of the study)…

The results of the study: brain activity linked to symptoms

The team of researchers discovered that increased brain activity during some tests with the placebo condition predicted the behaviors when in the psychosis-like ketamine condition. What the researchers found was very interesting! Participants who displayed more frontal and temporal brain activity while “imagining the sounds of voices” in the placebo condition, were very likely to experience strange perceptions during the ketamine condition.

The others, who showed increased activity in the frontal and temporal sections of the brain while trying to complete simple sentences, were much more likely to have disordered thinking while exposed to the ketamine. The brain’s frontal lobe is involved in executive functions such as: planning, making decisions, advanced thinking, and analyzing our environment, while the brain’s temporal lobe is primarily involved in memory, hearing, and speech.

In contrast experiencing positive symptoms, participants who displayed an increased frontal lobe response to a test involving attention while taking a placebo, were increasingly vulnerable to experiencing negative symptoms while observed under the drug ketamine. Also, participants that displayed increased response in a combination of the frontal lobe, thalamus region, and caudate region – (linked brain circuitry that allow us to carry out motor and executive functions — an area often impaired in psychosis and schizophrenia–) – had a tendency to display negative symptoms while under the effects of ketamine.

Groundbreaking research? Maybe not, but it’s a step in the right direction!

This research is a huge step towards heightening our understanding of the mysterious diseases of schizophrenia and psychosis (2 fairly interchangeable terms, with slightly different diagnoses). Now, at least researchers have some form of biological link towards determining and demystifying the unique set of symptoms that are experienced. The researchers also noted the fact that the participants that were under exposure to ketamine were not at risk towards developing any sort of mental disorder. The participants also provided us with further understanding of how certain drugs and certain diseases can induce different states of consciousness in different people.

This study provides us with insight that may allow us to successfully predict psychotic symptoms induced by drugs and disease. A study author, Fletcher said, “This perhaps raises the prospect of early intervention strategies targeted toward schizophrenia patients’ individual patterns of symptom vulnerability.” I completely agree here, this study appears to be slightly groundbreaking, although I feel that researchers are only at the tip of the iceberg. There is a lot of work that still needs to be done in the area of the largely misunderstood psychosis / schizophrenia, but scientists are giving those that suffer a boosted morale and a sense of hope.

Note: The research was supported by the Medical Research Council, The Wellcome Trust, and the Bernard Wolfe Health Neuroscience Fund.

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As you may already know, there are many things that kill brain cells. I have always been wary of any statements made about marijuana affecting the brain in a positive way. Smoking marijuana has been known to do slight forms of (sometimes permanent) damage to the brain depending on the amount smoked or ingested. Anyways, recent research has shown that “smoking cannabis while pregnant” will harm the developing fetal brain of your baby.

Smoking cannabis has a detrimental affect on developing babies’ brains

A group of researchers at the University of Aberdeen (Scotland, UK) discovered that smoking marijuana while pregnant will likely do damage to the fetal brain. They also discovered that taking certain prescription drugs could also have an negative impact in the womb. Their research focused on the importance of healthy molecules and molecular structure in the brain. They studied how certain nerve cells connected and formed networks with each other. Any substance (cannabis, illicit drugs, and even prescription drugs) have potential to disrupt this “networking process” can do damage to the brain. Smoking marijuana while pregnant happens to be just one of many ways to disrupt this naturally occurring molecular-binding process.

Brain molecules given the title endocannabinoids, function in a similar way to T.H.C. (tetrahydrocannabinol) which is found in cannabis. When marijuana is smoked or ingested, its T.H.C. targets the same receptors as the endocannabinoids and disrupt the natural formation of key signaling systems in the fetal brain. Scientists and researchers say that the endocannabinoid signaling process should be “naturally occurring” in order for the brain structure to properly and healthily develop. These findings show that the signaling system in our brain’s should be properly maintained if we hope to develop healthy, powerful brains.

Complex neural-networking in the brain

Jan Mulder, first author of the study and head of the Alzheimer’s disease Research Trust at the University of Aberdeen’s Institute of Medical Sciences stated: “Our initial findings showed the importance of these naturally occurring molecules in guiding the growth and connections of nerve cells in the developing brain.” Based on these research findings, we can allude to the fact that the endocannabinoid signaling can aid in higher cognitive functions such as: thinking, problem-solving, and memorizing. When this signaling is disrupted by something like T.H.C., our the higher cognitive functions in our brain do not develop normally.

Unfortunately, marijuana is one of the most widely used drugs by women at reproductive ages. If you happen know anyone who is a frequent user of marijuana and is pregnant, tell them the facts about harming their fetal brain and get them psychological help. It will ultimately save the brain of their developing child!

On a side note: past research dealing with pregnant mothers has shown that: babies with mothers who ingested marijuana while pregnant, experienced problems with physical activity (showed a lack of exercise) early in life.

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Note: If you enjoy this article, consider reading 5 Ways Of Enhancing Brain Power [Part 1].

No matter how high your current I.Q. or level of education, there are still tons of great things that you can do to boost your brain power!  Boosting your brain power doesn’t always deal with reading books or hanging out with scientists on a daily basis!  There are many great methods that you can use to improve your brain’s overall level of cognition.  The following 5 methods included in this article will definitely help you flex your neural connections a bit and allow you to build a better brain!  In follow-up to the first part of this series (posted above), are 5 more great ways of enhancing your brain power!

1. Take Control Of Your Thoughts (Neurofeedback)

Taking control of your thought-patterns is much easier than most people imagine!

Though the concept of Neurofeedback sounds slightly New-Agey, there is a method of thought-control that you can use to actually boost your brain power! Most people that use it don’t have any idea as to how it works, but definitely are able to testify that it is highly-effective. It is not exactly a method of relaxation or meditation, though you can use it to help yourself relax! What is it? It’s called neurofeedback, and it is slowly gaining credibility in the field of psychology and scientific community.

Neurofeedback stemmed from the practice of Biofeedback and the terms are often used synonymously. Neurofeedback works by showing people (giving them feedback) of real-time measures of things like: brainwaves, heart rate, skin temperature, etc. and encourages them to take conscious control over it. The amazing part of this practice is that though people don’t think it will work initially, walk away with astonishing results proving that they were able to do it!

Neurofeedback has recently gained popularity in neuroscience and psychology to help patients boost their brain power and recover from diseases and disorders like anxiety or ADHD. The very first attempts of neurofeedback were done to increase the amount of alpha brainwaves (associated with a calm, relaxing mental state) displayed in an individual’s E.E.G. So far, researchers and neurofeedback practitioners have had much success with treating things like ADD and ADHD. They have also found plenty of scientific evidence that proves its effectiveness! It also has been effective in treating certain cases of depression, anxiety, stroke, brain injuries, and epilepsy.

Some experimenters have even used brain scanners that allow individuals to see and control brainwave activity in specific parts of their brain! This is an amazing advancement, in my opinion! What about for people that don’t have a brainwave problem? Can neurofeedback be effective for boosting the brain power of an ordinary, average guy? Definitely. Neurofeedback has been proven to improve memory and levels of calmness before exams in many average people.

It has also been effective at improving technique in dancers and musicians. With this said, virtually anyone can benefit from the practice. There is also evidence that the practice of neurofeedback can boost our confidence, levels of creativity, enhance our sexual performance, lift depression, balance brain activity, improve relaxation, and change personality traits. All of this improvement just through the act of controlling out thoughts!

2. Pay Closer Attention (Cut Distractions)

No matter your level of genius, creativity, or common sense, none of it matters unless your mind paying attention!

Paying attention is a fairly complex brain function that allows us to focus on details or see the “big picture.” Though there is no single best way to improve concentration, there are many things you can do to improve it! The first way to enhance your concentration is to increase your level of arousal. When you are in a highly-focused, beta brainwave state, your level of arousal is much higher than usual. The brain’s concentration-state of mind is controlled largely by the production of the neurotransmitters: dopamine and noradrenalin. Dopamine induces a “goal-oriented,” pleasurable, yet highly productive state of mind. Noradrenalin induces an vigilant, slightly paranoid state of mind. It is not shocking that doing activities to raise dopamine levels boost our ability to pay attention.

One way to boost our ability to pay attention is by taking drugs like amphetamines (Ritalin, Adderall, etc.) – drugs that treat ADHD. Caffeine also works well to boost our levels of concentration. I personally prefer a drug-free approach due to safety concerns associated with taking drugs. I know (from experience) that these drugs are not the way to go: they are a short term solution to a problem that needs a long term approach.

Another great way to boost your ability to pay attention is to get a good night’s sleep, eat brain foods, and get plenty of exercise! Meditation is also a great practice to incorporate into your lifestyle. Studies have proven meditation’s effectiveness at increasing our ability to pay attention. After you have chosen one of the methods mentioned above to improve your focus, you need to begin cutting distractions. Studies conducted at the workplace discovered that it takes at least 10 minutes to regain a quality state of focus after becoming distracted.

Psychologists highly recommend that you avoid doing work near noisy, annoying, distracting appliances like the dishwasher, fridge, or T.V. It is best to drown out background noise while working by finding a quiet place to work, using earmuffs or earplugs (if necessary), or even listening to music to kill the other noise. There are plenty of tactics you can use to help you keep paying attention. Pick one method you like best and stick with it!

3. Can You Learn From The Nuns?

If you don’t want to develop senility throughout your old age, you should consider asking a Nun what to do!?

A convent in Mankato, Minnesota may seem like an abnormal place to run a brain experiment… But, a study of 75 to 107 year old nuns has revealed great insight into keeping the brain healthy and powerful moreso than most other experiments to this date! This “Nun study” was done with over 600 total Catholic Nuns and an expert of Alzheimer’s disease and aging.

The nun’s high-levels of longevity is largely attributed to their lifestyle. They do not drink or smoke, they live quietly and socialize, they are calm, deeply spiritual, and have a healthy diet. All of these small differences in lifestyle appeared to make huge differences in brain power and aging later in life. A relatively low percentage of the nuns suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, but many have avoided dementia and senility that most individuals develop. Many of the nun’s brains revealed no signs of excessive aging.

The overall study revealed a few common factors that helped the nuns’ brain power: having the correct amount of vitamin folate, verbal ability early in life, and having positive emotions early in life. Also, activities such as: sewing, doing crossword puzzles, and exercising helped prevent senility. Spirituality and the positive emotions resulting from it, also had significant benefits. Individual differences also matter: irregular metabolism, strokes, and head injuries, all increase your susceptibility towards developing Alzheimer’s disease.

You definitely don’t need to become a nun to stay mentally fit, though! We can all work towards brain power improvements! With that said, this study can provide us with a plethora of great advice to take from the lives of some nuns and apply it to our own lives!

4. Physical Exercise Vs. Mental Exercise

Staying active through physical exercise can not only make you stronger physically, it will boost your brain power!

Are you the type of person who hates studying? Well, according to researchers, exercising for just 30 minutes a day up to 3 times per week can significantly improve your ability to concentrate, use reasoning, and your overall learning abilities by nearly 20 percent! The brain boosting effects of exercise are even more powerful and easier to observe in old people. Elderly individuals that are able to walk regularly perform much better on memory tests than their non-exercising friends. Even more impressive is the fact that over several years, their overall cognitive performance shows much less decline than those who don’t exercise. Every extra exercise session has significant benefits!

Though elderly individuals display the most noticeable changes in mental performance, they are not the only group of people that benefit from exercise. Children have been studied too: school-kids that exercise 3 to 4 times per week get higher exam scores than those who don’t! Though the effect is most observable in male schoolchildren, females do definitely benefit as well! Research suggests that aerobic exercise boosts cognition by getting extra oxygen to the brain.

There is also another great reason that your brain is so fond of physical exercise: it promotes neurogenesis a.K.a. “the growth of new neurons (brain cells)!” Until recently, scientists figured that we were born with a maximum amount of brain cells and that we could not replenish lost or killed brain cells. New studies, however, have confirmed that exercise definitely produces new brain cell growth (in people of all ages), even in adults!

The brain boosting effects of exercise are most seen in the hippocampus – the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory. This is also the brain region that is easily damaged by cortisol – a brain-cell killing stress hormone. This is why if you are ever feeling stressed, the best thing you can do for your brain is to go for a hard run! Even relaxing, stretching-type exercise like hatha yoga can work wonders for your cognition. Scientific researchers have discovered that bending backwards – as opposed to forward bending and standing – is the best way to get a quick mood lift!

Apparently, not only does a fit body positively affect our brain, our brain can actually produce changes in our body! In 2001, researchers at the “Cleveland Clinic Foundation of Ohio” asked volunteer participants to spend 15 minutes each day thinking about exercising their biceps. After 12 short weeks, their bicep muscles were 13 % stronger than they were before! This is very interesting and a phenomenon that (in my opinion) should be studied more! The effects from this study were amazing, just from spending 15 minutes “thinking” about exercising a certain muscle group!

5. Get A Good Night’s Sleep (Seriously…)

You should never underestimate the power associated with getting a good night’s sleep!

Cheating your brain of sleep is actually very harmful to your brain! Depriving yourself of sleep is one of the many things that kill brain cells! (Yikes!) Your ability to problem solve, plan, learn, and concentrate all are significantly reduced. Intelligence scores are lowered. You become unable to properly function: if you have been awake for twenty-one hours straight, your cognitive abilities are equal to someone who is legally drunk! You should not be on the road… lack of sleep is just as bad for your brain as driving drunk. And, you don’t need to pull an all-nighter to suffer from the dangerous effects: just 2 to 3 (back-to-back) late nights with early mornings have the exact same negative side-effects!
What is also interesting is the fact that if you allow someone who isn’t sleep deprived to get an extra hour of sleep, they perform much better on normal tasks requiring high levels of attention, such as taking a test! These are not the only benefits resulting from a good-night’s sleep either! While you are sleeping, your brain is able to process new learned skills, the formation of memories, and solve problems.

An example is working on an extremely difficult math problem… Instead of working 8 hours straight trying to solve the problem, you would be better off working for a couple hours and taking a cat-nap. Why? Because, while you are asleep your brain refreshes and reactivates the neural circuits that it used when you were working on the problem. It then rehearses your memories as you worked on the problem and converts short-term memories into the long-term storage. The same applies to other skills such as learning a sport, playing an instrument, and driving a car.

There is also plenty of evidence that getting quality sleep helps us produce moments of problem-solving insight. Many people claim that their problems are solved sometimes in their dreams. One famous story and example, is that of the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev. He claimed to suddenly “understand” a problem he was trying to solve with the periodic table in a dream, after he had spent an entire day struggling with the problem! It appears as though sleep allows the brain to juggle new experiences and memories, and provide us with flashes of creativity and ah-ha moments! If you are ever in doubt about a problem or stressed out, snooze on it! You may be surprised at what your brain is able to accomplish!

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Note: If you enjoy this article, consider reading 5 Ways Of Enhancing Brain Power [Part 2].

No matter how much education you’ve had or how high your current I.Q., there are still many things that you can do to boost your brain power. Boosting your brain power isn’t always dealing with reading books or hanging around scientists 24/7! There are tons of great methods that you can use improve your brain’s overall level of functioning. The following methods included within this article should help you flex your neurons a little bit and build yourself a better brain! 5 great ways of enhancing brain power are included within this article!

1. Consider Taking “Smart Drugs”

Should aging automatically cause slow reactions, memory decline, and unfocused thinking?

At around 50 years of age, many people admit to discovering noticeable changes in their mental processing abilities. At this point, individuals are at the beginning of a natural process of decline. In many individuals, this “decline” can quickly turn into the devastating “dementia.” Everyone should be doing everything they can to slow dementia, so scientists have devised a solution to slowing the dementia problem: “smart drugs.”

Several drugs that might help with dementia and enhance cognitive abilities in the brain are already on the market. A ton of these drugs are also ready to hit the market in upcoming years. One such example is: “modafinil,” known to treat narcolepsy. Modafinil is also known to keep a person alert for 90 hours straight without jitteriness or poor concentration like common-day amphetamines.

What is really cool is the fact that with “modafinil,” sleep-deprived individuals can even perform better than their well-rested selves. (Sounds a bit insane to me…) The amount of deprived sleep doesn’t even really need to be made up! (Scary?) Military research has found that people on “modafinil” can stay awake for 40 hours, sleep the normal 8 hours, and then pull a few more all-nighters with no ill effects! It is also well-known that many people who do not even suffer from narcolepsy take modafinil to increase their energy and enhance their cognition.

The pharmaceutical industry has been riddled full of cognitive-boosting compounds. Some drugs have also been specially designed to improve memory. Many of these drugs appear to work well without any major side-effects! Then why isn’t everyone taking cognitive enhancing pills? Because screwing around with our memory may have unwanted effects – we may end up remembering things that we didn’t want to! In disorders such as: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, this can be a big problem!

What looks to be a cognitive enhancer, could have drawbacks. However, the opportunity to increase brain power by popping a pill may be too tempting to pass. The drug acts only in the brain and has a short half-life. Several of these types of drugs, especially the Ampakines class, have been proven to restore complete brain function in sleep deprived humans. By taking these “smart drugs,” you can make an elderly person perform like a younger person. Which elderly person wouldn’t want to boost their brain?

2. Eat “Brain-Foods” (Food Determines Thoughts)

What you eat, directly affects your brain… Then what is the optimal diet for your brain’s functioning?

Your brain is the organ in your body with the most dietary requirements. It isn’t at all surprising that your food choices will directly affect the functioning of your brain! Many people find it hard to believe that simply changing their diet will improve their mental health or mental disorder, but they need to start! What you eat will directly affect the thoughts that you think.

One great way to aid your brain is by simply eating breakfast each and every day. The brain is fueled by a steady supply of nutrients, vitamins, and glucose, which breakfast always supplies. Studies have shown that skipping breakfast reduces cognitive performance in the brain.Another way to improve your diet includes cutting back on sugars and fizz-drinks. According to research published in 2003, children who ate lots of sugar and fizz drinks in their breakfast diet, performed at the same cognitive level of the average 70-year-old attention and memory tests. So what should you eat?

Toast alone is one food that has been proven to boost kids scores on cognitive tests. However, when the tests get tougher, those who had diets with high-protein performed the best. Beans are a great way to get protein and fibre and are actually one food that is recommended to have with your toast at breakfast. Researchers claim that if you aren’t able to eat beans before lunchtime, wholemeal toast with “marmite” makes a phenomenal alternative. Marmite, a yeast extract, is enriched with vitamins that have been known to have a direct effect on boosting the brain.

Junk food has been linked to tons of mental disorders. Great substitutes for junk food at lunch are eating things like omelettes and salads. Eggs are rich in choline, which your body uses to produce the neurotransmitter acetylcholine (which helps improve memory and alertness). A deficient amount of acetylcholine has been linked to a significantly reduced ability to remember words. Lower than average acetylcholine levels are also associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The good news is that studies show that eating a healthy diet may slow age-related memory loss!

A salad packed full of antioxidants, will also help keep an aging brain in peak-performance by helping eliminate damaging “free radicals.” A diet high in antioxidants has been shown in studies to aid in learning and improve cognitive skills! You can top off your lunch with a zesty yogurt dessert. The yogurt will naturally help you produce amino acid tyrosine, needed for the production of the neurotransmitters dopamine and noradrenalin, which lower stress.

In case you like to snack in the afternoon in between lunch and dinner, be sure to avoid junk food! Avoid processed foods like cakes and pastries. These types of foods add fat to your body and have been linked to causing mental disorders due to their higher than average amount of trans-fatty acids. Trans-fatty acids have been linked to dyslexia, A.D.D. / A.D.H.D., and even autistic symptoms. Triglyceride is another cholesterol-like substance that trans-fatty diets bring to the body and brain, which has also been linked to mental disorders.

Since brains are roughly 3/5ths fat, trans-fatty acids can clog up your operating system quickly! In stead of polluting your brain with the unhealthy fat, scientists are recommending a supplement of Omega-3 Fatty Acids (commonly found in Fish Oil – which I have preached about). Therefore Eskimo’s are correct: fish is the single best brain food. Not only do fish feed and support a developing brain, D.H.A. (found in Fish Oil) also seems to ward off dementia!

A great, healthy way to finish off your final meal of the day is to eat blueberries and strawberries. Rodents fed on these fruits showed boosted short-term memory, attention, and coordination abilities. Whether or not they work well on your brain, they still taste great – you’ve got nothing to lose by eating healthy fruits like these!!

For more brain-boosting foods, check out this article: 5 Supercharged Brain Foods!

3. Listen To Mozart Music

Music has been known to boost brain power in certain areas, but you cannot listen to some music and instantly become brilliant!

Listening to Mozart has long been known to improve one’s mathematical and spatial reasoning abilities. Even rats are able to run faster and more accurately when listening to Motzart than other types of noise. This sounds like a great way to help improve your brain, right? Well, according to researchers, it doesn’t work for everyone who listens to Mozart! What is even more interesting is the fact that other researchers believe that music boosts brain power because of its ability to make the listeners “feel better”: more relaxed and aware at the same time. Another crazy thing is the fact that listening to stories have yielded similar performance enhancements.

There is, though, one way in which music has been proven to actually make you smarter: by taking lessons! Studies have shown that children that were given music lessons, improved their I.Q. scores by roughly 3 points compared to others! Scientists have also found that after two years of music lessons, children scored better on spatial reasoning tests than those who took “computer lessons.”

Music lessons seem to build a wide-range of mental skills due to mental coordination of finger movements in combination with various sounds, pitches, and rhythms. Listening to music also has been known to have an emotional impact. So if you want to improve your brain through music, consider taking lessons! It sure would do more good for you than harm!

4. Give Your Brain A Workout

Putting your brain to work can actually repay you with some impressive cognitive results.

It was only until recently that people thought that I.Q., problem solving skills, memory, and verbal reasoning were mostly determined by genetics. Recent research has shown that our “working memory” – the brain’s short-term information storage system – can be utilized to increase our intelligence level and our ability to recall memories.

An example of working memory: each time you do math, working memory allows you to store the intermediate steps to solve the problem. The amount of information that our working memory can store, strongly correlates with our general level of intelligence.

Researchers have studied working memory through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI scans) and have found that individuals who participated in active brain training programs had significant boosts in regions associated with working-memory. Training our working memory is a key part of boosting and increasing our brain power. Children were also researched: those who had completed “mental workouts” had roughly 10% leaps in their I.Q. scores! Though “working-memory” training is in its earliest periods, it could be a key part of enhancing our brain’s cognition. Anyone’s brain can be improved through a well-devised brain-training program!

5. Use Memory Boosting Techniques

Is your memory below par? No need to stress, just use some memory boosting methods…

First of all, a great way to improve your memory is to learn how to use your memory. Tricks like “mnemonic devices” can significantly help boost your ability to memorize. When researchers studied World Memory Champions and compared their brains to normal people, they didn’t find a higher I.Q. in these individuals than an average person. However, while these people memorized something, their brains lit up with above-average activity in certain brain regions.This is due to the fact that these individuals used different strategies of memorization – they visualized what they were memorizing and sometimes incorporated a story within their memorizations! For example if they were memorizing certain names, they would make up a mini-story behind each name that they memorized along with visualization. Many hollywood actors and actresses use a similar method: they attach their emotions to the words that they say. They also area able to link words with movement, which seems to help.

It is known, though, that we always remember emotionally intense moments better than the rest. Besides incorporating emotions, movement, and visuals into your memorization, simple techniques can help too. Things like: putting your car keys in the same place, writing things down to remember, and even making a conscious effort to pay attention can make a huge difference in how much you remember.

For more great memory-boosting tips, check out this article: Tips To Improve Your Memory!

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According to British research, the act of simply “chewing gum,” could make us smarter, enhance our memory, and improve the functioning of our brains. A joint study done by the University of Northumbria and the Cognitive Research Unit, Reading, found that “chewing gum” has beneficial effects on our “thinking, memory and other cognitive tasks.” The results of the study were extremely clear and showed that chewing-gum definitely helps to improve brain functioning!

Scientific research of gum-chewing”

The Experiment:

To research how gum-chewing affects the brain, scientists conducted some quality experiments. The experiments involved 75 who were split into several different groups: non-gum-chewers, real gum-chewers, and fake gum-chewers. Prior to undergoing a 25-minute test for cognitive abilities, the two chewing groups (real gum-chewers and fake gum-chewers) spent just 3 minutes working their real or imaginary gum around their mouths. Scientists stated that the cognition-tests included questions relating to: short-term memory (such as recalling words and pictures), and working memory (the ability to retain a person’s telephone number).

The Results:

The gum-chewers’ scores were 24 % higher than the controls’ on tests of immediate word recall, and 36 % higher on tests of delayed word recall. The gum-chewers were also more accurate on tests of spatial working memory. They also found that people who chewed throughout tests of both long-term and short-term memory produced significantly better scores than people who did not. Scientists said that, “the heart rate of the real gum-chewers after the tests was, three beats per minute faster than the non gum-chewers, and even 1.5 beats per minute faster than the fake gum-chewers.”

“The findings are intriguing, although it is clear that questions remain to be addressed,” says Kim Graham of the Medical Research Council’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, UK.

Does the type of gum make a difference?

Peppermint gum, menthol, or spearmint–it makes no difference. This means that you could chew any type of gum that you choose. Even baseball players chewing the sugary Bublicious and Big League Chew type gum can improve their brains by “chewing gum.” Though it may be best to kill 2 birds with one stone by fighting bad-breath to improve the scent of your mouth and your brain, you will still benefit from chewing any type of gum!

So how exactly does chewing gum help boost brain power?

There are three main potential explanations, say scientists. In March 2000, Japanese researchers showed that brain activity in the hippocampus, an area important for memory, increases while people chew – but it remains unclear as to why activity increases.

Recent research has also found that insulin receptors in the hippocampus (the part of the brain that is important for learning and memory), play a role. “Insulin mops up glucose in the bloodstream and chewing causes the release of insulin, because the body is expecting food. If insulin receptors in the brain are involved in memory, we may have an insulin-mediated mechanism explaining our findings – but that is very, very speculative,” scientist Andrew Scholey says.

But there could be a simpler answer, though. “One interesting thing we saw in our study was that chewing increased heart rate. Anything that improves delivery of things like oxygen in the brain, such as an increased heart rate, is a potential cognitive enhancer to some degree,” Scholey said.

They further stated that, “the mild increase in heart rate may improve the delivery of oxygen and glucose to the brain, enough to improve cognitive function.” Many scientists also believe that chewing gum releases a surge of insulin due to the mouth watering in anticipation of a meal, thus resulting in a better brain. It is known that there are insulin receptors in areas of the brain which are important for learning and memory, so this could explain part of why gum-chewing actually boosts the brain!

Future research of gum-chewing

It is apparent that scientists need to do some more research in this field. There is too much information that scientists cannot seem to figure out about the brain boosting process. Though chewing gum definitely boosts brain power, science has not figured out how it does this. Scientists have explained, though, that the research of gum-chewing in relation to brain power is only in its early stages. Hopefully, they start making some more progress because everyone seems to agree that the brain boosting potential of “gum chewing” is amazing and that any future advancements / discoveries could be ground-breaking!

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Learning to juggle and the brain changes

Scientists have found that by learning to juggle you can produce significant, powerful changes within your brain. Scientists have studied the brains of many individuals who frequently practice juggling. The scientists compared the brains of habitual jugglers to individuals that don’t practice juggling. What the scientists discovered were significant changes in the size of the brains of the individuals that frequently juggled. All of the brains of individuals who practiced juggling were bigger than average.

Increased grey-matter

Compared to those who didn’t juggle, or weren’t able to juggle, individuals that juggled had significantly boosted the amount of grey matter in their brains’. The change in amount of grey matter was heavily noted in two key areas of the brain: the mid-temporal area and the left posterior intraparietal sulcus. Both of these brain areas are involved in the processing of visual and motor information.

How scientists determined the grey matter increase:

In order to study the brains of those who juggled, scientists used voxel-based morphometry: a technique that directly measures concentrations of brain tissue. This allowed them to determine to compare the grey matter of jugglers’ and non-jugglers’ brains.

Brain changes from juggling: healthy, but not permanent

Though juggling is an activity that promotes positive change and growth of the brain, it unfortunately is not known to have a permanent affect on boosting brain power. Scientists have discovered that stopping a juggling routine slowly reverts the boosted grey matter and brain functioning to the same size as it was previous to starting a juggling routine.

With that said, implementing juggling into your daily routine may prove to be a unique activity to experiment. Who knows, you may even consciously notice (or feel) brain changes as a result of juggling!  I may give juggling a 30 day trial to see how I react and post my analysis and evaluation on 4 mind 4 life. It seems as though the brain areas that grow and are activated by juggling, will at least [temporarily] give you a cognitive boost. Why the brain changes completely back to normal after a juggling routine is stopped, scientists do not exactly know. Some scientists propose that the brain changes were due to: increased cell production and communication between cells.

Some more food for thought

What is very interesting is the fact that Dr. Vanessa Sluming, has studied the brains of musicians and found that at some point, they are able to retain more brain cells than those who aren’t musically inclined. She thought that the research involved with brain power and juggling was very interesting because it showed brain boosting improvements in not only children, but elderly adults!

Though juggling only produces a temporary increase in brain power, it would be interesting to know the point at which our brains retain the extra grey matter. This would allow scientists to make potentially many more breakthroughs in the area of cognition. Does this mean that you will never fully retain permanent side-effects from creating a certain change in your life? Well, as far as juggling research is concerned, yes. However, I’d be willing to bet that many other brain boosting activities can create permanent neural changes if practiced for an extended period of time.

Dr. Vanessa Sluming further went on to say: “It shows that what we do in everyday life might have an impact not just on how our brains function but on the structure at a macroscopic level.” I found this interesting and absolutely believe that this is true. The actions you take today shape your consciousness and brain for the future. Whether you create permanent changes in brain functioning, I don’t know. However, I think that the best time to start changing your brain is as soon as possible! Especially for children, their brains seem to have an ability to adapt and mold to however they react to their reality.

Final thoughts on juggling

If you already enjoy the act of juggling, keeping it at a daily routine or doing it every-other day may prove to yield brain boosting benefits. Realize that juggling is a “use it or lose it,” type of activity. The more you use juggling, the more you activate growth in the brain. When you stop juggling for awhile, your brain activity will shift back to normal – the way it was before you began juggling. Juggling and it’s effects on our brain is definitely a very interesting concept for scientists to study. I will be looking forward to reading more about this topic!

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Below is a compilation of the Raising Your Consciousness: 10 X 10 Series with a brief outline of each article. To read the full article, simply click the link of the article that you wish to read. I truly believe that you will enjoy this series, so take your time to read each article. I’ve provided you with as much value and knowledge as possible. If you have any questions about a certain article or message, feel free to use my contact form.

If you’d like to view all of the ways combined into one single article, check out my article: 100 Ways To Become More Conscious. It is written in a slightly different format that you may prefer. I slimmed up each of the 100 main points and provided quick descriptions in an easy-to-read format.

I. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 1)

1. Connect with nature
2. Get your body moving
3. Simple meditation
4. Spending time with true friends
5. Have the intention to “raise your consciousness”
6. Tell the truth
7. Find and live your purpose
8. Take conscious control of your decisions
9. Always be open-minded
10. Pursue higher intelligence

II. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 2)

1. Treat yourself with respect
2. Practice forgiveness
3. Cultivate a high-performance mind
4. Connect through prayer
5. Challenge your belief system
6. Befriend like-minded individuals
7. Pursue a path of spirituality
8. Express gratitude
9. Make yourself happy
10. Act on your desires

III. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 3)

1. Boost your brain power and functioning
2. Take full control of your lifestyle
3. Choose empowering beliefs
4. Avoid physical fighting and abuse
5. Be aware and accepting of your emotions
6. Speak compassionately
7. Think positive, act positive, be positive
8. Have intimate sex
   
9. Identify with your soul
10. See perceived faults as a mirror image
    

IV. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 4)

1. Expand your horizons
2. Face your deepest fears
3. Use powerful incantations
4. Practice positive affirmations
5. Be aware of your state of consciousness
6. Set a positive example for others
7. Guide others interested in raising their consciousness
8. Share your unique insight and wisdom
9. Gain wisdom from others
10. Keep your ego in check

V. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 5)

1. Practice personal development
2. Shift your conscious focus
3. Be energetic
4. Make healthy dietary changes
5. Accept others for who they are
6. Accept and love yourself for who are
7. Understand your own thought process
8. Bless everything that happens
9. Take time for internal reflection
10. Focus on advancing consciously

VI. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 6)

1. Be aware of your breathing
2. Spend more time with yourself
3. Listen more often than you speak
4. Muster up some courage
5. Always act with compassion
6. Improve your mental focus
7. Think rationally and logically
8. Purify your body
9. Start a personal journal
10. Make others laugh

VII. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 7)

1. Practice a religion
2. Respect the beliefs of others
3. Ask questions about your life
4. Understand that everything changes
5. Realize that you are not alone
6. Push your personal limits
7. Invest in yourself
8. Be open to exploring consciousness
9. Develop a deep relationship
10. Call upon your spirit guides

VIII. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 8)

1. Clear emotional blocks
2. Clear out subconscious “cobwebs”
3. Turn off the T.V. already
4. Read a good book
5. Expand your creativity
6. Develop strong people-skills
7. Allow yourself to be inspired
8. Be courteous towards others
9. Attend a spiritual retreat
10. Form a mastermind group

IX. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 9)

1. Be a mediator
2. Build an accurate model of reality
3. Be a leader
4. Travel the world
5. Be empathetic
6. Set goals
7. Try brainwave entrainment
8. Try self-hypnosis
9. Develop your chakras
10. Release Kundalini energy

X. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 10)

1. Appreciate your surroundings
2. Bring new life to Earth
3. Lead a flexible life
4. Learn from consciously advanced individuals
5. Live a well-balanced life
6. Consider taking healthy supplements
7. Celebrate your accomplishments
8. Always have positive intentions
9. Read and recommend 4 Mind 4 Life dot com to others
10. [This space is intentionally left blank for you to fill in]

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1. Connect with nature – Go for a walk in the forest, jungle, field of daisies, or wherever you feel like getting a connection with nature. It is possible to feel at deep sense of peace and oneness when you attempt to connect with nature. As you learn to connect and appreciate nature, you allow your consciousness to rise up.

2. Get your body moving – Exercise and dancing will raise your consciousness by promoting healthy brainwave patterns, healthy neurotransmitter levels, and great circulation throughout your nervous system. Help yourself rise up and break the pattern of not exercising by going for a friendly walk with one of your friends or even going to the club to dance. Both examples are: easy, fun, and empowering.

3. Simple meditation - Whether you are an advanced meditator or a beginner, the benefits are tremendous and will allow you to tap into your highest state of conscious functioning if you stick around long enough. It is an act that will definitely raise your conscious awareness and allow you to attain greater focus, discipline, and develop a deeper joyous connection to life.

4. Spending time with true friends - Find only friends that align with who you are, your beliefs, and your values – they will make you more conscious. These are your true friends, and though they can be tough to find, they should definitely be cherished. Give some of your true friends a call and make it a habit to spend more time with them.

5. Have the intention to “raise your consciousness” – If you have the intention to raise your consciousness and state of awareness, you are on the right track. Having the intention alone will make you more focused on finding ways to raise your consciousness.

6. Tell the truth - Anytime you tell the truth, you raise your level of consciousness. Why do people tell lies? To protect themselves in lower states of consciousness. People in higher states of consciousness don’t lie because they want to be true to themselves, others, and make relationships in humanity more conscious.

7. Find and live your purpose - Searching for a purpose will help you find your true purpose here on Earth. When you find your purpose and are able to share it with the rest of the world, you will continue to raise your level of consciousness.

8. Take conscious control of your decisions - When you take conscious control of all your decisions, you are actually activating certain neural pathways in your brain that help promote self-control, calmness, and inner peace. Every time you allow others to dictate your decisions or you don’t take full conscious responsibility for your decisions, you become slightly conditioned to be less conscious when making choices.

9. Always be open-minded - Being open-minded is a key aspect in the process of becoming a more conscious individual. When you haven’t accepted the diversity that our planet has to offer: ranging from different cultures, religions, wildlife, and beliefs, you will stay in your same state of consciousness or drop to a lower state. Being open-minded doesn’t only need to be for beliefs either. It can be having an open-mind to try something new such as: a new exercise routine, spiritual practice, or trying a new food.

10. Pursue higher intelligence - There are many ways to become more intelligent. Not everyone is intelligent in every area of their life. Some people are more emotionally intelligent, some have a higher I.Q., while some are more spiritually intelligent. All forms of intelligence increases and enhancements will help you on your journey towards expanding your awareness and becoming a more conscious human being.

11. Treat yourself with respect - Having respect for yourself and your actions will ultimately boost the amount of love that you express towards yourself and others. Make wise, respectful decisions that reflect your values and have strong respect for your personal beliefs. Treating others with respect will help you become a more conscious human being too, but before you can respect others properly, you must first learn to show the utmost respect towards yourself.

12. Practice forgiveness - Forgiving yourself can be very difficult sometimes: especially if you are operating in a lower state of consciousness. Realize that in order to rise up, advance, and become a more conscious person, you must be compassionate and forgiving towards yourself. Any hateful thoughts or pent up negative emotions that you may be holding towards yourself need to be released. Negative thoughts and emotions can easily lower our level of consciousness if we do not practice compassion and forgiveness.

13. Cultivate a “high-performance mind” - Cultivating a high-performance mind is a very fun, invigorating process that involves consciously accessing the brainwave state that you consciously choose, whenever you feel it is appropriate for a certain situation. Since their is no single best brainwave state to live life in, it helps to train our mind to consciously be able to “switch” states upon command. For those who want to understand more about developing a high-performance mind, I recommend that you go check out the book The High Performance Mind by Anna Wise.

14. Connect through prayer – The act of simply closing your eyes, folding your hands and saying a prayer will raise your level of consciousness. There are many different ways to practice prayer and there are many different practices, that when combined with prayer, enhance the power of your conscious message. Overall, prayer is a great experience that has potential to aid in your conscious awareness.

15. Challenge your belief system - This one can be difficult for many individuals due to the influence of imprinted beliefs by their parents or guardians during childhood. Some examples of beliefs that you could change include: dietary (changing to a vegetarian), spiritual (from Christianity to Atheism – or vice versa), emotional (from sadness to happiness), etc. By changing your belief system and experimenting with new beliefs, you make yourself more conscious of life’s endless possibilities.

16. Befriend like-minded individuals - On your journey towards becoming a more conscious individual, befriending like-minded people can be extremely helpful. If you are going through many spiritual, emotional, and mental changes without the company of others, the process can be much more difficult and confusing than when you have a guide, guru, or some friends that are traveling at a similar pace to you. Not only is being around like-minded individuals healthy, and optimal for your consciousness, it will ultimately give you more joy in life!

17. Pursue a path of spirituality - Pursuing a path of spirituality and becoming more spiritual will aid you considerably in the process of becoming a more conscious human being. Never be afraid to add a new spiritual practice to your arsenal – you never know what may be most effective or a life changing experience.

18. Express gratitude - Expressing gratitude on a daily basis is a very positive, fulfilling exercise to practice. Ways to express gratitude on a daily basis include: giving thanks for your food, expressing gratitude for yourself and others through prayer (as discussed earlier), complimenting others, and letting another person know that you are thankful for having them in your life. By sharing and expressing gratitude, you feel extremely satisfied and will become more consciously aware of the things that you truly appreciate in life.

19. Make yourself happy - What sort of things make you happy? The answer is usually different for everyone. You can do yourself a favor right now by making a long list of everything that makes you happy in life and acting on your listed items. Feeling and experiencing happiness in your life also will give you the powerful drive that it takes to make yourself more conscious.

20. Act on your desires - Simply having any form of desire will raise your consciousness. Desire encourages us to take action to advance consciously. The state of apathy, or not caring about your consciousness, will naturally lower your consciousness. Desire is a powerful way to raise your consciousness.

21. Boost your brain power and functioning - There are many helpful exercises that you can do to boost your brain power and overall level of functioning. One of my most popular articles, 50 Ways To Boost Your Brain Power, should get you on the right track if you are currently confused about the topic. Raising your level of consciousness will naturally boost your overall brain power, and boosting your brain power will raise your level of consciousness; both affect each other in equal proportion.

22. Take full control of your lifestyle - Are you living the lifestyle that you feel is most beneficial for your mental and physical wellbeing? Maybe there are certain bad habits that you need to get rid of or certain good habits that you’d like to implement in your daily routine. Don’t be afraid to act now and make necessary positive changes in your lifestyle to help you take full conscious control.

23. Choose empowering beliefs - In the process of changing beliefs, choose beliefs that are empowering to your soul. A good way to know what belief will be empowering is to simply ask yourself how you feel about adding the new belief. If you feel a strong connection with a new belief, such as feelings of excitement, it will probably be a very good choice of a belief to implement. Make a conscious effort to purge all beliefs that are less than satisfying. Understand also that as you become a more conscious human being, changing your beliefs will become a much easier, more natural process.

24. Avoid physical fighting and abuse - Physical fighting stems from emotional misunderstandings, hatred, and negative emotional expressions. Fighting can be described as the opposite of peace. Physical fighting and other forms of abuse can really do a great job at distracting us from becoming more conscious human beings. Anything that you can do to stop physical fighting and abuse will ultimately make you and the individuals involved more consciously aware.

25. Be aware and accepting of your emotions - No matter your current emotions, you will profoundly help yourself if you are accepting of them. Going through life resisting your emotions and trapping them inside yourself makes life much more difficult. Trying to escape from our emotions lowers our awareness. When you accept what you feel and consciously understand why you feel a certain emotion, your level of consciousness rises.

26. Speak compassionately - When having conversation with others, do you choose your words wisely? Or are you the type of person who could care less what you say? The truth is, people who choose their words wisely and consciously think during conversation are the ones who show greater respect for themselves and more compassion for others. Make a conscious effort to speak compassionately and positive results will follow.

27. Think positive, act positive, be positive - Being a positive influence sets a good example for others and for yourself. Positivity and states of being positive are direct effects of raising your consciousness. I highly recommend trying to be a more positive person in all areas of life; you will notice and feel the beneficial changes in your awareness.

28. Have sex with your partner - Having sexual intercourse is a great way to spread and share your love with another person. The best way to have sexual intercourse is with another positive, healthy, person in which you fully love and trust. Having sexual intercourse is a loving way of transferring and sharing energy with another person. No matter who you have sexual intercourse with, there can be significant conscious benefits.

29. Identify with your soul - Realize that at your core, you are a spiritual being who is living in a physical body. In lower stages of consciousness, this concept may seem unrealistic and may be very difficult to grasp. As you become better at identifying with your soul, you become better at working your way up the mountain of consciousness.

30. See perceived faults as a “mirror image” - When you look at the faults of others and identify faults in other people, use them as a teaching tool for yourself. The people that are in your life weren’t put there by mistake, they were put there to teach you something about yourself. By being able to take personal responsibility for what is being displayed by others into your conscious focus, you can take the information and make very positive changes.

31. Expand your horizons - Trying something new can pertain to any area of your life. Maybe you want to try to add a new healthy habit to your daily routine, shop at an organic store, or even host a block party for the first time. Having courage raises your consciousness and by constantly trying new things, you boost your cognitive ability to adapt and push through any lower states of fear.

32. Face your deepest fears - Are there any fears that you’re holding inside that are prevent you from making conscious advancement? At certain stages along the ladder of consciousness, it can be extremely difficult to face your fears. With that said, facing your fears will equip your consciousness with more empowerment and energy. Healthy fears include: giving a speech, singing in front of others, or throwing a party; this would be a great list of fears to go out and conquer! The choice to face these will help you considerably in your ability to make conscious advances.

33. Use powerful incantations - Incantations are simply words or phrases repeated over and over with emotional intensity for personal or spiritual benefit. They have commonly been used in religious practices to praise certain Gods or deities, but they have also be used for personal development and in the process of becoming more conscious. No matter what way you choose to use incantations, they can be very helpful and a powerful catalyst for helping you become more conscious.

34. Practice positive affirmations - Affirmations are a bit different than using incantations, though the concepts are very similar. Affirmations are used to change beliefs and thinking patterns. Examples of positive affirmations include: “I am healthy,” “I am positive,” and “I am intelligent.” The primary goal of using affirmations should be to replace unhealthy beliefs and thought patterns with healthier ones; making it easier to scale the mountain of consciousness.

35. Be aware of your state of consciousness - Unfortunately, many people aren’t aware of their current state of consciousness or what even defines consciousness. You may not even be consciously aware of the many diverse possible states of consciousness due to the fact that you may have only experienced one primary state of functioning throughout your lifetime. If you are a person who hasn’t experienced other states or most importantly cannot seem to understand your own state, you are definitely missing out some important aspects and understandings of conscious perception.

36. Set a positive example for others - Setting a positive example for others can pertain to any area of life and is highly encouraged. Setting a healthy, positive example for others to follow spreads a direct positive image into the lives and minds of others. Trying to consciously set a good example for others, will further raise your consciousness. Setting a bad example, or unconscious example, will slow, halt, or reverse your current conscious development.

37. Guide others interested in raising their consciousness - There are many ways to aid others in the process of raising their awareness, especially if you are a more consciously advanced individual. Chances are good that you’ll need to do some personal work with raising your own consciousness before you can put yourself in an effective position to help others raise their consciousness. What you may want to do, though, is encourage others to practice some items in this article or others on 4 Mind 4 Life dot com.

38. Share your unique insight and wisdom - Everyone has a different perspective based on their personal experience, purpose, and personality. Therefore, each individual has a unique form of insight that they can share with others. There are endless ways and opportunities for you to express and share your knowledge with others. All that you need to do is take action towards finding a medium most effective for allowing you to share your insight.

39. Gain wisdom from others - No single person holds all the wisdom of the universe in their brain. For this reason, it is important to study the wisdom of others and try to apply their wisdom to your life. As mentioned earlier, everyone has a unique perspective and knowledge-base to bring to the table. Studying the wisdom of others can be done in many ways. Examples include: meeting face-to-face with a more consciously advanced individual and ask them for life advice, reading positivity and personal development websites from several different sources, or maybe attending different personal development seminars.

40. Keep your ego in check - The more aware you are of your ego, the easier it is to become more conscious. With that said, as your awareness increases, so does your state of consciousness. The reverse also applies: as your consciousness increases, so does your awareness. Letting our ego get out of control and take the driver’s seat in our consciousness has potential to quickly lower our state of functioning. Taking full control and responsibility to keep your ego in check when faced with adversity will allow you to consciously advance in a much healthier manner.

41. Practice personal development - Taking action to better your life through the concept of personal development is an extremely effective way to make yourself a more conscious human being. Think of personal development as the act of upgrading every area of your life to function at the highest possible level: health, finances, relationships, etc. Virtually all aspects of personal development lead to greater conscious development in one way or another.

42. Shift your conscious focus - Being preoccupied with thoughts of past events and of the future has potential to lead your consciousness in the wrong direction. Focusing your attention on this exact moment (commonly referred to as “the now”), however, is a great way to raise your level of awareness. By learning techniques that allow you to shift your awareness to this exact moment, you can work wonders in the process of conscious advancement.

43. Be energetic - Being energetic can be very powerful for advancing your state of consciousness and for inspiring others to become more consciously advanced. Your body can become energized and your brain can become energized. When both are operating in at maximum intensity and energy, you are said to be in a state of peak conscious performance.

44. Make healthy dietary changes - Making healthy dietary changes means searching to find the best possible diet to fit your mental needs, physical needs, spiritual needs; to fit your needs. Are you fully conscious of what you are consuming? In order to boost your own level of consciousness, it is important to be fully aware of the food in which you are consuming in your diet and to be respectful and accepting of the diets of other individuals without making negative judgments.

45. Accept others for who they are - As mentioned above in being conscious of what you eat, it is important to be accepting of the diets that others choose to use. Whether they make a conscious decision to have an unhealthy diet or unconscious decision, accept their actions. Accepting others can apply to every area of life. No matter if you disagree with another person’s actions, disagree with their personality, or disagree with their perception of life, it is important to accept them for who they are and not try to force changes upon them. Settle your disagreements with other individuals by purely accepting them for who they are.

46. Accept and love yourself for who are - Life’s journey becomes much easier and significantly enriched if you can learn to accept yourself for who you are. Depending on your current state of consciousness, it may be difficult to love and accept who you are. Take the time to count your blessings, be accepting of yourself and your level of consciousness. Realize that at this current moment you are doing the best that you know how to do in order to advance consciously.

47. Understand your own thought process - An extremely effective way to become more conscious is to take note of your thought process and understand it to the best of your ability. I’ve seen many people run themselves in mental circles due to an ineffective understanding of their own thought process. Being consciously aware of your thoughts and why you are thinking them is a key step towards creating an accurate understanding of your reality.

48. Bless everything that happens - There are times throughout life when amazing things happen to us and other times when upsetting events take place. Just like accepting who you are is a great habit to get into, you should also learn to bless everything that happens in your life. No matter how bad an event, it has potential to make a positive impact on your life in the long run. Your ability to bless and appreciate, even what may be initially perceived as a worst case scenario, will ultimately provide you great conscious satisfaction.

49. Take time for internal reflection - In my opinion, taking time for internal reflection is the single most effective way to learn more about yourself and your current state of consciousness. Internal reflection will certainly help you better understand your thoughts, emotions, spirituality, and provide clarity in your current life situation. If you don’t currently take time to internally reflect, you could very well start up a 20 minute meditation routine each morning and observe the difference it quickly makes in your state of consciousness.

50. Focus on advancing consciously - In the process of conscious development, it’s important to focus exactly on what you are trying to accomplish: the act of becoming more conscious. During this process, it is important to tune out all unhealthy distractions such as: negative relationships, abuse, fighting, illicit drugs, etc. If you allow yourself to become distracted with unhealthy, unconscious habits, then act of advancing consciously will become a much more difficult or slower process than normal.

51. Be aware of your breathing - Being aware of your breathing means being fully conscious of your breathing pattern. Being aware of how you are breathing is important. Unfortunately, many people are unaware that there is actually a proper way to breathe. A way of breathing that is optimal for your body and brain. Proper breathing involves inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth upon every breath. The process of becoming more aware of my breathing through exercises like meditation and conscious breathing have significantly helped me increase my overall level of focus, emotional stability, and level of consciousness.

52. Spend more time with yourself - In the fast-paced lifestyle of the 21st century, it is very common for people to spend time with others, yet never take personal time to spend with themselves and focus on their own life. If you are an individual who is currently not taking enough time for yourself each day, try starting up a personal routine. Examples of ways that you could spend time with yourself, contributing positively to your own life include: taking time for internal reflection (meditation), letting yourself know how much you love yourself, going on a walk to listen to your own thoughts, giving gratitude for everything that you have in your life, or getting involved in a hobby that inspires you.

53. Listen more often than you speak - In this day in age, it seems as though there is always someone that wants to be the center of attention; conversations easily become viewed as egoistic competitions. While being the center of attention can feel great and can be a rewarding experience, it can become consciously dangerous to your consciousness if it is motivated by your ego. By practicing the act of listening more often than you speak, you can train yourself to be more consciously aware of others, while still holding the conscious ability to politely contribute to a conversation.

54. Muster up some courage - Being highly conscious means doing what you want to do, saying what you want to say, and living how you want to live at every moment. Somewhere along the path towards developing a highly conscious mindset, you will need to be courageous. Developing a sense of courage is an integral step, possibly a phase that may last several years, on your journey to become more conscious.

55. Always act with compassion - Having complete compassion for others is a direct result of becoming more conscious. Unfortunately, there are few people here on Earth that are honestly able to make the claim that they always act with complete compassion for others. Compassion meditation also allows you to learn how to shift your mental focus from any state into a perspective of pure love for others. As you may have already guessed, practicing compassion can be one of the single most powerful exercises for boosting your level of consciousness.

56. Improve your mental focus - Improving our mental focus helps us get a better understanding of reality and provides us with more inner clarity. As we enhance our level of focus and clarity, concepts that had previously seemed very difficult to understand become general knowledge. We get a better sense of understanding within ourselves and of the world around us. As your level of focus increases, so will your level of consciousness.

57. Think rationally and logically - Being able to think rationally and logically allows you to positively interact with your reality much easier than being irrational and illogical. In fact, being irrational and illogical will actually lower your current level of awareness. Rational thinking is a byproduct of a high functioning brain, particularly the high activity within your left-prefrontal cortex. One great way to increase your ability to rationalize is to strengthen your brain’s level of functioning by boosting your brain power.

58. Purify your body - One great way to become more conscious is to purify your body. You can help purify your body by going on a specific diet, by cutting certain substances from your diet, by decreasing stress and learning to deeply relax, by cutting certain substances from your diet, by sitting in a sauna to sweat out toxins, etc. While following a detox routine, be conscious of what you are doing to your body. Be fully aware that you should choose a detox routine that has been researched and proven effective in order to avoid risking bodily damage in the process. With that said, choosing to purify or cleanse your body can really work magic for your current level of consciousness.

59. Start a personal journal - Starting a personal journal or blog is a great time investment that will allow yourself to become more conscious of your: thoughts, feelings, actions, philosophies, beliefs, etc. Writing entries in a daily journal or on a personal blog can be extremely helpful in the process of understanding your current state of awareness. What is nice about keeping tabs on yourself is the fact that you can watch your progress as you undertake a conscious journey. No matter your strategy for keeping a journal, understand that keeping tabs on yourself and events in your life serves as a great way to develop a deeper sense of understanding, knowledge, and conscious awareness.

60. Make others laugh - Being funny and making others laugh is a great way to ease stress and create a more positive outlook in life for yourself and for others. Though you may not be an expert comedian, being able to make others laugh is extremely rewarding and satisfying. Making others laugh and smile shifts all attention away from pain and negative emotions, towards one of pure enjoyment and happiness. Jokes and the ability to laugh can really change your entire perspective from what may seem like a grim, serious situation, to a happier, more positive outlook.

61. Practice a religion - Practicing a religion is a phenomenal way to become a more conscious person. As you raise your current level of awareness, you will discover that there is really no best religion or Utopian religion to practice. What matters most in conscious advancement is getting a feel for what practices actually make you become more consciously aware. You need to personally determine what works best for you. One of the best ways to do this is via experimenting with many different religions.

62. Respect the beliefs of others - At no time is it loving or respectful to criticize the beliefs of others. No matter how consciously advanced another person is or isn’t, it is important to respect their thoughts and actions. When you try to force others to adopt your lifestyle, beliefs, and force them to become a more conscious human-being, you are indirectly expressing negative emotion towards that individual; you are getting your ego heavily involved. Forcing others to consciously change is not truly accepting them for who they are. If you feel like you should force others to raise their awareness, perhaps you need to raise your awareness some more! It is important to realize that everyone will have their time to advance consciously and will eventually reach the “top of the mountain” on their journey to their higher consciousness.

63. Ask questions about your life - Attempting to learn more about life each day is a great way to increase your overall knowledge base and a great way to become a more conscious person. Nobody “knows-it-all” in life, that’s why asking questions about life and about certain situations in life, will really help you out on your journey. The idea here is to learn as much about life as possible. This will allow you to make your lifestyle more conscious, your choices more conscious, your actions more conscious, and yourself a more knowledgeable person. If you don’t feel like asking others questions, a great way to learn more about life is to ask yourself internal questions. Often times we don’t realize that within ourselves, we hold the answer to every question about our life. Meditation is highly recommended as an exercise for learning more about our inner-self.

64. Understand that everything changes - Whether you realize it or not, everything and everyone is in a constant state of change. Change is undeniable and is happening to yourself and others as you are reading this. There is no way to prevent change, but there is a way to consciously control your change. Be the change that you want to see on this Earth and please: make it a positive, conscious one!

65. Realize that you are not alone - On your journey towards becoming a more conscious human being, it is important to realize that you are never alone in the process. Someone, somewhere is going through the same process and many have already gone through the process. There are likely many individuals that are more consciously advanced than you are: which is a good thing. Look to these individuals for guidance along the way. We can always look to more conscious individuals for personal guidance and advice in life.

66. Push your personal limits - Pushing your personal limits to become the best person that you can be is something that everyone should strive for. Pushing your personal limits is something that you can do in every area of your life: relationships, exercise, consciousness, spirituality, finances, etc. Pushing your personal limits in the areas that you feel most soulfully-connected with are the areas that you should probably put the most work into in order to feel the greatest sense of fulfillment.

67. Invest in yourself - When you make money, do you invest it in stocks? Have you ever thought of investing it in yourself – your purpose, vision, values, and goals? Besides money, we can also invest time in ourselves. In my opinion, investing time in yourself is one of the most effective ways to become more conscious. Investing time in yourself will allow you to discover your true purpose and become a more conscious human being.

68. Be open to exploring consciousness - There are many ways to be open to exploring your consciousness. Several methods to explore your consciousness include: brainwave entrainment, meditation, raising your consciousness, trying new activities, exploring spirituality, exploring different social groups, changing your environment (by traveling), trying neurofeedback, etc. If you don’t know of any healthy ways to expand your consciousness, start with the ones that I’ve listed. No need to unnecessarily kill your brain cells and lower your consciousness by using illicit drugs to “expand your mind…”

69. Develop a deep relationship - Developing deep, trustworthy relationships with other people are not only great for helping you to become more conscious, they are a great way to share love and joy with others. If you haven’t already done so, develop a deep, personal relationship with at least one individual. It could be a good friend, spouse, boyfriend / girlfriend, it could be a good therapist, it could be anyone that you feel is on-the-same-page as you in life, or at the same level of consciousness. Having another person to discuss your personal inner-thoughts with and share your turmoil, joy, and all other emotions with, will actually make you a happier, more conscious person.

70. Call upon your spirit guides - Everyone has spirit guides – whether they believe in them and want to communicate with them or not. Before we are born, we are assigned spirit guides to do just what their name implies: guide our spirit. They can often provide us with valuable advice and some forms of intuitive connection that most of us never imagined was possible. The best way to connect with them is to learn proper meditation. The job of spirit guides are to help guide your spirit in the right direction and they really want to connect with you to help you raise your consciousness. So consider learning ways to connect with them on a personal level, or finding an advanced spiritual seeker / psychic that knows about spirit guides and how to connect with them. It seems as though Erin Pavlina has gotten great reviews discussing her ability to help you connect with your guides. Though her readings are somewhat expensive, getting one could prove to be a great investment in order to accelerate your personal growth and conscious development.

71. Clear emotional blocks - Nearly everyone has some form of subconscious emotional blocks that they have suppressed within their subconscious. Emotional blocks can develop in childhood and can be forgotten by the time a person reaches adulthood. They can drain your conscious control over life if you don’t learn to properly release them. It is not advised to attempt to deal with very powerful emotional blocks or repressed traumatic memories by yourself. Consult a trained therapist or psychologist to help you work through your past powerful emotion. Realize that when you are able to work through your past emotional blocks, you naturally allow yourself to reach a higher state of consciousness.

72. Clear out subconscious “cobwebs” - What exactly are subconscious “cobwebs?” I refer to subconscious cobwebs as any unfulfilling: beliefs and emotions that have been carried around in your subconscious mind for too long. Many times, our subconscious mind is carrying around extra negative emotional baggage and limiting beliefs that need to be released or replaced. If you want to clear out your subconscious “cobwebs” and take conscious control of your subconscious mind, consider trying meditation. Meditation takes your consciousness to a deeper level and makes reprogramming your mind a much easier process.

73. Turn off the T.V. - Depending on your current level of consciousness, watching T.V. may actually be a good thing. For those individuals operating at an extremely low level of functioning, watching T.V. gives them hope, satisfaction, and a boost in consciousness. With that said, to permanently elevate your consciousness, it is recommended to refrain from watching T.V. If you think about the act of watching T.V., it doesn’t reflect your life’s purpose nor allow you to be fully productive. The time that you currently spend watching T.V. could be put to better use by allowing you to accomplish a personal goal, providing you with extra time for exercise, or even giving you time to boost your brain power!

74. Read a good book - Whether you enjoy reading fiction or non-fiction books (or both), reading books is a phenomenal way to help you boost your conscious brain power. Reading books provides you with knowledge, creativity, and allows you to fully expand your intellect. Reading books will also help you become a smarter person, with a mind that is full of new thoughts and ideas. The more credible information that you are able to read, the more information and knowledge your consciousness has to consciously create with.

75. Expand your creativity - There are many ways for us to expand our creativity and abilities to creatively think. Developing ways to creatively think not only boosts brain power, it boosts your consciousness. The use of brainstorming, creative visualization, Zen koans, and meditation have all been known to increase creative thinking skills. Creativity is an important trait to develop when dealing with your reality. Having creativity allows your mind to easily solve even the most difficult of problems. If your creative-side is currently lacking, think of ways to step-it-up a notch to reap the conscious benefits!

76. Develop strong people-skills - Developing strong people-skills will allow you to become more conscious in many different ways. Having strong people skills allows you to be comfortable expressing who you really are in any social situation. Without developing strong people skills, you may be stuck in a state of fear around others in social settings or even worse, you may feel completely uncomfortable expressing your true beliefs, values, and discussing your lifestyle in front of others. Cultivating a strong set of people-skills will allow you to become a more conscious individual and will allow you to share your love with others.

77. Allow yourself to be inspired - Allowing yourself to be inspired helps you to take passionate action. In order for us to be inspired, we usually need to have some sort of emotional connection. Maybe you are deeply inspired by a song that you recently heard on the radio, maybe you are inspired by Barack Obama, maybe you are inspired by Hilary Clinton, maybe you find Pablo Picasso’s artwork inspiring. Everyone is different and everyone is uniquely inspired by different things here on Earth. Inspiration can really work magic in your life if you let it. Taking actions based off of positive inspiration will ultimately guide your consciousness to a higher level of functioning.

78. Be courteous towards others - Being courteous to others is a great way to share love, positivity, and a great way to set a good example for others. Each time that you set an example, you have some influence onto others. Each time that you practice a healthy habit or put courteous actions on display for others to see, they will be much more inclined to follow suit. When you are able to be courteous to everyone that you meet, you are raising your consciousness through compassion.

79. Attend a spiritual retreat - There are many spiritual retreats and spiritual opportunities that can quickly boost your state of consciousness. Meditation retreats and gatherings with your religious group are two of many ways to raise your consciousness. The act of going to church is yet another form of attending a spiritual gathering. Going to an event like a Holosync retreat may also be a great way to connect with a fun, positive group of individuals that could prove to be lifelong friends. You will never truly know nor understand the possibilities of conscious transformation that a retreat has to offer until you actually make it a point to attend.

80. Form a mastermind group - Forming a mastermind group is a great way to help you become more conscious and complete your goals. To participate in a mastermind group, you must first gather up some trustworthy friends. Next, schedule times that your entire group will meet to discuss personal challenges, goals, accomplishments, etc. Meet with each other and discuss your goals. Be as positive and encouraging towards one another as possible. Offer suggestions and serve as a motivation for the rest of your group. Mastermind groups are a form of conscious, positive support that allows you to accomplish your goals much easier. And, social support (i.e. a positive group of friends) is always great to have when working to become more conscious. Do whatever you want with your group, have fun, be positive, and realize that you are raising your consciousness in the process!

81. Be a mediator - There are many situations that arise from negativity in this world. One way to break up these situations in a peaceful manner is to be a mediator. A mediator is a person that is able to resolve conflict between two parties and think of a peaceful solution to a problem that both conflicting parties agree upon. In the end, the best part about a mediation process is the satisfaction that you can derive from helping bring peace to the world. Helping others is a great way to create a true sense of happiness in your life. Anytime that you bring peace, the collective consciousness of humanity takes a step in a positive direction.

82. Build an accurate model of reality - Building an accurate model of reality is a great way to explore the endless possibilities that life has to offer. Gaining conscious control of your thoughts will aid you in the process of creating your reality. When you are able to take control of your focus, building an accurate model of reality becomes an easier task.

83. Be a leader – Being a positive leader is an awesome way to raise your level of consciousness and that of others. If you are able to become a leader who is able to influence large groups of people in a positive manner, you will naturally develop a lot of conscious power. Each person that supports your message, adds to your ability to share your purpose. If you haven’t thought about stepping up and becoming a leader in some way, now is the best time to start thinking about it!

84. Travel the world - Traveling the world most definitely has potential to change and expand your state of awareness. As you travel to different places, you are able to learn about unique: ways of life, ways of thinking, religions, customs, values, etc. This is why it is extremely common for huge changes in perception to occur. Traveling to many different parts of the world is one way of exploration that allows you to experience life on a larger scale.

85. Be empathetic - Advanced empathetic abilities can be cultivated by accessing the lower brainwave states: both the theta and delta brainwaves. Making a conscious effort to become a more empathetic person means trying to understand and relate to others and their emotions in as an effective method as possible. Being empathetic is a great way to spread love and compassion in the world. And spreading love and compassion are great ways to help you become a more conscious person!

86. Set goals and accomplish them - Setting positive goals and working to accomplish them is one of the single most effective ways to advance consciously, without even having the intention to advance consciously. For example: you may set the goal to exercise everyday for one month in order to improve your health. By setting and completing a goal like this, your main focus is improving your health, however, you are also indirectly improving your consciousness.

87. Try brainwave entrainment - Though brainwave entrainment seems like a new-agey, experimental technique, it is a great tool for advancing consciously that actually works. Not only does brainwave entrainment work well, it is an extremely effective way to develop a powerful brain and advanced state of consciousness. By practicing brainwave entrainment, your brain becomes more flexible in the process of shifting to various brainwave states. You can always give brainwave entrainment a trial and evaluate how effective it is at helping you advance consciously! Check out the software featured in my recommended products section and give one of those a trial run.

88. Try self-hypnosis - What many people do not realize is that the act of self-hypnosis is very helpful for achieving states of complete, controlled relaxation. During self-hypnosis you develop full, complete control of the beliefs that are implanted in your subconscious mind. Self-hypnosis relaxes your body and takes you into a state of highly-focused, deep relaxation. No matter whether you enjoy self-hypnosis or meditation more, they are both exercises that will allow you to elevate your consciousness. Give self-hypnosis a shot if you haven’t already – it is a perfectly safe, exercise that will benefit your consciousness greatly!

89. Develop your chakras - Learning to clear and cleanse your chakras could prove to be one of the single best investments that you’ve ever made for yourself. Chakras hold the key allowing you to tap into your higher-self and connect with energy from the Universe. Working directly with your chakras will help you become a more conscious person, making you more aware of your body’s energy centers and how they can affect your entire life.

90. Release your Kundalini energy - My definition of Kundalini: a (usually latent) energy force that is coiled at the base of our spine. We’ve all felt Kundalini from time to time during extremely emotional moments, when a certain song plays, or when we have a powerful experience. What does Kundalini feel like? Kundalini the energy that makes our spine tingle. We get goosebumps throughout our body and our entire spine tingles with emotional energy. Kundalini is a completely healthy and powerful method to advance consciously. It is not recommended to go into a Kundalini experience blindly, though. Do some research on “Kundalini energy” and consider working with a guru or a person who has been through the entire process if you hope to release your Kundalini energy.

91. Appreciate your surroundings - To further allow yourself to develop consciously, it is important to be appreciative and thankful for everything in your environment. Each day and every day, the little things that we may be taking for granted are often some of the most amazing forms of beauty. Simple things like the sunset, a field of flowers, or the face of our neighbors are all beautiful expressions that we may not be taking the time to appreciate. When we are able to realize that everything is connected and that we were truly meant to love and appreciate one-another, we naturally become inherently grateful for our surroundings and what the Earth has to offer – and thus, more conscious.

92. Bring new life to Earth - Each time that you are able to make a contribution to life here on Earth, you bring forth another brilliant expression of our universe. Each time that you bring human life, plant life, animal life, etc. here on Earth, it is something to be truly proud of. Ways that you could contribute to bringing life to this planet include: raising children, adopting a child, planting a flower, or raising an animal. The inner feelings that you may feel as a result of bringing forth new life are perfect for finding true happiness and taking yourself to the next conscious level.

93. Lead a flexible life - Flexibility is a key part of gymnastics… it also is a key part of life and the process of becoming more conscious as a human being. Leading an overly-structured life often becomes overwhelming and unpleasurable. You need to take time to appreciate the moments of spontaneity and spur-of-the-moment type events. Being flexible is a great attribute to cultivate in your life. Though learning to be flexible is just a small habit that will make you more conscious (by opening up your life to new opportunities), it is a highly important principle to implement into your life and reality.

94. Learn from “consciously advanced” individuals - More consciously advanced people have a lot to offer those who are less consciously advanced. They often provide us with great discoveries, insights, and guide our lives in a positive direction. If you happen to know someone that is at a higher cognitive level of functioning than yourself, spend some time with that individual. Ask them questions about their life, questions about your life, or any questions about life in general. See how these individuals feel about raising consciousness and how they can help you work to increase your conscious awareness.

95. Live a well-balanced life - Keeping a balanced life can be very difficult at times. However, keeping activities in proper balance is a great way to become more aware and involved in many areas of life. Make a conscious effort to focus your energy towards what inspires you most, but don’t forget to be flexible and take time for important people and activities like: friends, family, expression, and exercise. Being well-balanced with activities in life provides us with greater conscious satisfaction.

96. Consider taking health supplements - Supplements have long been known to help aid in mental processing and boost physical functioning. I personally have taken a multivitamin in combination with 3.6 grams of fish oil on a daily basis for almost 2 years straight. Overall, I feel that the combination has worked phenomenal for helping my physical functioning and mental processing. Always be open minded: consider taking supplements if you aren’t already. Do a personal experiment to see what supplements work best for you and how various supplements affect your consciousness. In the end, you may decide that all supplements are ineffective and that they were nothing more than placebos.

97. Celebrate your accomplishments - Celebrating your accomplishments is a form of self-praise and self-respect. When you value yourself and appreciate yourself, you are likely to celebrate your accomplishments – and actually have accomplishments to celebrate! Celebrating is a fun and rewarding activity to do to make yourself happier. It increases your levels of overall self-love and respect: both of which are key factors in the process of raising your consciousness.

98. Always have positive intentions - Positive intentions often arise from having a positive mindset. Having a positive mindset and forming the habit of holding good intentions is a great way to boost your level of conscious awareness. When you intend for positive events to happen in your life and always have positive expectations – your life will naturally attract positive people and will result in happiness.

99. Read and recommend 4 Mind 4 Life dot com to others - Remind yourself of ways to become more conscious by re-reading this series and other articles here at 4 Mind 4 Life dot com. I always try to provide you with the most valuable advice to help you boost your level of consciousness. Though the main focus of this website is boosting brain power, your level of consciousness goes hand-in-hand with how powerful your brain is; the more powerful your brain, the easier time in raising your consciousness you will have. I can only promote my message to a certain extent. Each time that you help me by recommending my website or this series to another person, you will be helping guide others towards positive change. I send blessings to everyone who reads this series, recommends this series, recommends this website, or applies advice from this website to better themselves.

100. [This space is intentionally left blank for you to fill in] - Nobody knows and understands what works best to help your consciousness better than you! Be creative, fill in the last blank already! Choose an activity that you enjoy that renews your sense of wellbeing and resonates congruently with your soul. Blessings to everyone that made it this far down the list!

~This marks the last number of the last post in the Raising Your Consciousness: 10X10 Series. I sincerely hope that you all enjoyed it and personally feel that it will serve as a great reference to every visitor in the table of contents section. Feel free to print out your favorite chapter from this series (or all of them). Keep them to yourself or share them with others. Feel free to link to this series from your website if you feel like blogging about it. My goal when writing this series was to motivate others to raise their consciousness and start a movement towards becoming more conscious individuals here on Earth. Are you ready to become more conscious?

For a thorough, more in-depth version of this 100 Ways To Become More Conscious article, I have divided the 100 ways into 10 sections of 10 methods. In each of these sections, I cover each listed number more in-depth than was discussed in this article. For a thorough explanation certain items on the list, click on the corresponding article:

1. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 1) #1 – 10
   
2. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 2) #11 – 20
3. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 3) #21 – 30
4. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 4) #31 – 40
   
5. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 5) #41 – 50
   
6. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 6) #51 – 60
7. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 7) #61 – 70
   
8. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 8) #71 – 80
   
9. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 9) #81 – 90
10. 10X10 Ways To Become More Conscious (Part 10) #91 – 100
    

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1. Appreciate your surroundings (i.e. their natural beauty)

To further allow yourself to develop consciously, it is important to be appreciative and thankful for everything in your environment. Each day and every day, the little things that we may be taking for granted are often some of the most amazing forms of beauty. Simple things like the sunset, a field of flowers, or the face of our neighbors are all beautiful expressions that we may not be taking the time to appreciate. When we are able to realize that everything is connected and that we were truly meant to love and appreciate one-another, we naturally become inherently grateful for our surroundings and what the Earth has to offer.

There are so many amazing expressions of the Universe that – if you are able to appreciate and look at them from a loving perspective – you will actually be able to significantly progress in conscious development. Things like: weather patterns – (sunny days, stormy nights, winter snow, etc.), various forms of wildlife – (plants, animals, trees, etc.), and our family members – (brothers, sisters, grandparents, parents, etc.) all should be appreciated for who they are and the beauty that they bring to life. So many times we get caught up in a rat-race that we lose sight of the beauty that’s already surrounding ourselves!
In order to become more conscious of ourselves, we must also learn to become more conscious of others, and the expression of everything in our reality. When stuck in a vibration of lower consciousness, we often aren’t able to develop the perception that allows us to see the little things in life as expressions of beauty. Making it a habit to focus your attention and love towards things that are already in your life will work wonders for your state of being and will make you more aware of the divine expression that this Earth has to offer.

2. Bring new life to Earth

Each time that you are able to make a contribution to life here on Earth, you bring forth another brilliant expression of our universe. Each time that you bring human life, plant life, animal life, etc. here on Earth, it is something to be truly proud of. There are many ways to bring life to the planet to share the beauty of humanity. Several ways that you could contribute to bringing life to this planet include: settling down with your partner and raising a family of children, having one child, adopting a child, planting a flower, raising an animal, etc. – you get the idea.

Not only does the process of bringing life to Earth feel great deep down, it affects our planet in a positive manner. Each new birth is an expression of our grace – each person and thing has a beautiful message to contribute. Do what you can to help bring new life to our planet. It is a great activity that goes hand-in-hand with boosting your level of conscious awareness. The inner feelings that you may feel as a result from bringing forth new life may be just what you need to find true happiness and take you to the next level consciously.

3. Lead a flexible life

Flexibility is a key part of gymnastics… it also is a key part of life and the process of becoming more conscious as a human being. Leading an overly-structured life often becomes overwhelming and unpleasurable. You need to take time to appreciate the moments of spontaneity and spur-of-the-moment type events. Being flexible is a great attribute to cultivate in your life. Flexibility leads to contentment and happiness with ourselves.

Setting a schedule to plan out your events is often times a great, smart thing to do. However, you do not need to stick to a rigid / permanent schedule at all times. Don’t allow the things that you’ve scheduled to be set in stone! When positive opportunities arise that interfere with your schedule – (whether it be a little or a lot) – should be taken and your schedule should be ditched! Let’s say you have a scheduled work-out routine for an example. Let’s further say that one of your friends from out-of-town stops in your town to visit their family. While in town, this friend gives you a call and wants to spend time with you on Saturday from 9:00 A.M. until 11:00 A.M. Let’s also say that every Saturday from 9:00 to 11:00 A.M. you usually hit the gym to do your workout routine.

Here is a prime example of a situation where flexibility should be utilized. Tell your friend that you will hang out with him or her. Plan to workout from 6:00 to 8:00 A.M. or from 11:30 to 1:30 P.M. instead of your old time. Accommodating time to spend with your friend could prove to be one of the best times that you have ever had. Don’t allow your rigid scheduling to ever takeover your ability to be flexible. You never know what opportunities that you may miss out on if you keep a rigid schedule. Though learning to be flexible is just a small habit that will make you more conscious (by opening up your life to new opportunities), it is a highly important principle to implement into your life and reality.

4. Learn from consciously advanced individuals

More consciously advanced people have a lot to offer those who are less consciously advanced. They often provide us with great discoveries, insights, and guide our lives in a positive direction. If you happen to know someone that is at a higher cognitive level of functioning than yourself, spend some time with that individual. Ask them questions about their life, questions about your life, or any questions about life in general. See how they feel about raising consciousness and what methods they find most effective.

In many cases, advanced meditators, counselors, therapists, healers, psychics, yogic gurus, and spiritual masters are all at higher levels of consciousness than the average person. Most of these individuals hold great gifts that allow them to teach others to advance consciously and help others to tap their unique personal power and live their purpose. If you currently don’t know anyone that is at a higher level of conscious functioning than yourself, go out an meet some people! Go to a meditation retreat, yoga studio, etc. There are certain healthy activities like meditation that people at a high-level of conscious functioning enjoy practicing and are attracted to! Often times they practice these activities on a daily basis.

If you are still stuck for finding others to connect with for face-to-face discussion, you can always search online. Give Google a nice run through and search for others who are interested in conscious advancement, enlightenment, etc. Often times you will stumble across a forum or website that has a high amount of friendly interaction. Most times people involved with forums are happy to share their wisdom and advice. One forum with tons of great advice is Steve Pavlina’s forum. Though you must register to participate, the registration process is simple and 100% worth your small investment of time. I have connected with some highly-conscious individuals who have provided me with tons of knowledge to build off of. This is a great place for you to start if you are currently stuck.

When receiving advice from others, always look for some way to apply it to your life. If you don’t apply their advice, it is useless. After you’ve applied their advice and teachings to your life, evaluate the results. Also realize that just because someone tells you something works, doesn’t mean it will necessarily be as effective for you as it is for them. Everyone is different and just because a certain technique works for another person, doesn’t mean it will be effective in your life. This is why it is important to always learn from yourself. Personally evaluating the effectiveness of certain conscious-practices is all part of becoming more conscious. Though others can provide you with great insight and wisdom – it will greatly help if you learn from a personal evaluation after you’ve applied it.

5. Live a well-balanced life

Keeping a balanced life can be very difficult at times. However, keeping activities in proper balance is a great way to become more aware and involved in many areas of life. Spending too much time getting involved with just one activity is draining and unenlightening. For example, let’s say that you only worked on your blog for an extended period of time. During that period, your relationships would probably definitely suffer, your physical health would slowly deteriorate, and your life would probably not feel complete. Why? Because you are not keeping your blogging habit in balance with the rest of your life.

Often times, there are a large number of hobbies and activities that capture our interest. It is important to find those activities and keep them all in a proper state of balance with each other. Be flexible with your life – don’t allow one area to dominate the rest. I used the example of spending too much time blogging, but the same principle applies for any area of your life. Spending too much time with others doesn’t give you any time for yourself or your personal interests and goals. Therefore, if you hang out with your friends all-the-time instead of doing things like: getting a job, expressing your emotions, and working towards your life’s goals, your life’s balance will get severely thrown out of place.

This is why it’s important to always attempt to keep your life in balance; do what you need to do to to make your life work best. You may need to change up your schedule to be flexible for certain events (i.e. you may need to limit your time blogging so that you don’t get caught up spending too much time online) – but the most important thing is that you are doing what works best. Make a conscious effort to focus your energy towards what inspires you most, but don’t forget to take time for key things like: friends, family, expression, and exercise. Oh yeah, by the way, keeping things in balance doesn’t mean you need to form a rigid, structured schedule… You can be flexible and still lead a well-balanced life.

6. Consider taking healthy supplements

Supplements have long been known to help aid in mental processing and boost physical functioning. I personally have taken a multivitamin in combination with 3.6 grams of fish oil on a daily basis for almost 2 years straight. Overall, I feel that the combination has worked phenomenal for helping my physical functioning and mental processing – especially the fish oil. At certain times throughout the 2 year period, I mixed and matched (experimented with) different supplements like Zinc, chelated Magnesium, etc. and evaluated how I was affected.

I found that I was definitely affected differently by certain supplements and supplement combinations. Some supplements that I took just served as a placebo, while others made me tired. As I took fish oil, I could literally feel a difference in my relaxation and in my outlook on life. Fish oil has greatly helped me to become a more conscious human being. Not only that, there is so much well-documented research associated with positive changes and fish oil, that I have found no need to stop my daily dose of 3.6 grams. As far as my multivitamin supplement goes – I take it to ensure that my body is getting an optimal amount of vital nutrients at all times. I often exercise a lot and burn off a lot of potentially useful vitamins. Taking a multivitamin replenishes my body’s need for essential vitamins.

If you haven’t yet considered taking supplements, I highly recommend that you at least give one a test run. I know that they can be slightly expensive if you are in a financial bind, but they could significantly boost your mental and physical functioning. I have heard great things about flaxseed oil, fish oil, multivitamins, ginkgo biloba, and even vitamin B12 in certain cases. Do a personal experiment to see what works best for you. In the end, you may decide that all supplements are ineffective and that they don’t help your consciousness. For most people though, I’d be willing to bet that fish oil gives them at least a cognitive boost… scientific research has proven that fish oil increases I.Q. and emotional stability. So always be open minded and consider taking supplements if you aren’t already. One last thing: fish oil sometimes takes 2 + months to fully kick-in. For me it took nearly 2 months for me to feel it’s effects. I didn’t notice overnight changes, but over a period of 2 years, I have noticed significant changes in my thought-patterns and entire life.

A side-note: just because a supplement is all natural doesn’t mean that it is effective or healthy. Always do some research before experimenting with various supplements! If you are currently on medication, talk to your doctor to see how the supplement you are taking may react.

7. Celebrate your accomplishments

Celebrating your accomplishments is a form of self-praise and self-respect. When you value yourself and appreciate yourself, you are likely to celebrate your accomplishments, and most importantly, have accomplishments to celebrate! When reaching a milestone in your career, exercise routine, or even your spiritual life, it is important to celebrate your achievements. Celebrating what you have achieved serves as positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement will make you even more likely to accomplish your future goals; it is a concept that has been psychologically proven to be healthy and encourages positive behavior.

Whether you feel that throwing a big party is necessary, or treating yourself to an expensive restaurant with some friends is best, there are many ways to celebrate personal achievements. You could go to the store and buy yourself a new outfit, take the day off of work to celebrate, go to a movie, invite friends over, etc. There are many way to be creative with how you celebrate too. One way of celebration (and conscious advancement) could be treating yourself to a meditation retreat. Whichever form of celebration that you feel will provide you with optimal satisfaction is probably the best way to celebrate! Celebrating is fun, rewarding, and a great way to make yourself happier. It will also enhance your levels of overall self-love and respect – both of which are integral ingredients in the process of raising your consciousness.

8. Always have positive intentions

Positive intentions often arise from having a positive mindset. Having a positive mindset and forming the habit of holding good intentions is a great way to boost your level of conscious awareness. When you intend for positive events to happen in your life and always have positive expectations – your life will naturally attract positive people and will yield happiness. Holding bad or negative intentions will usually result in the manifestation of negative events in your life.

The quickest way to change your mindset from a negative one to a more positive one in order to help you form good intentions is to change your focus. Exercises for learning to shift your focus include: meditation, self-hypnosis, brainwave entrainment, and neurofeedback. See more helpful suggestions provided in this article: 26 Ways To Create Your Reality. As soon as you can shift your focus from negativity to the positives in life, you will be able to shift your mindset. When you understand how to change your mindset through the act of changing your focus, you can learn to always have positive intentions. Each and every time that you intend to advance consciously, you are holding a positive intention! Each time that you hold the intention “to hold a positive intention” when in a negative mindset, you are holding a positive intention (a little more complicated concept).

Learning to always hold positive intentions gives us hope when faced with even the darkest, gloomiest of situations. Positive intentions and thoughts are what allow and inspire individuals to consciously advance. When you hold no intentions at all, you are allowing your life to be run on autopilot – whether that is a good thing or not, I don’t know… I do know, though, that when you form your own positive intentions – you become more in control of your consciousness.

9. Read and recommend 4 Mind 4 Life dot com to others

Remind yourself of ways to become more conscious by re-reading this series and other articles here at 4 Mind 4 Life dot com. I always try to provide you with the most valuable advice to help you boost your level of consciousness. Though the main focus of this website is boosting brain power, your level of consciousness goes hand-in-hand with how powerful your brain is; the more powerful your brain, the easier time in raising your consciousness you will have.

If you know anyone that is interested in raising their current state of consciousness to a higher level, feel free to recommend them to this series. Point them to my table of contents section and feel free to print out any articles that you find helpful. Recommending 4 Mind 4 Life to others will help give others an idea of what it takes to guide their consciousness to a higher level of functioning. Realize that for every person that this series impacts, the quicker that humanity advances as a whole towards a state of peace and love.

I can only promote my message to a certain extent. Each time that you help me by recommending my website or this series to another person, you will be helping guide others towards positive change. Hopefully we all will one day be able to live in a state of harmonious peace and love here on Earth. I send my blessings to: everyone who reads this series, recommends this series, recommends this website, or applies advice from this website to better their own consciousness!

10. [This space is intentionally left blank for you to fill in]

Nobody knows and understands what works best to help your consciousness better than you! Be creative, fill in the last blank already! Choose an activity that you enjoy that renews your sense of wellbeing and resonates with your soul. By choosing an activity to use that is intrinsically motivating to you, you will be able to easily carry through with the process of raising your consciousness by just practicing this certain activity. By letting you choose an activity to use to make you more conscious, you are much more likely to succeed on your quest to advance in your state of consciousness.

This marks the last number of the last post in the Raising Your Consciousness: 10X10 Series. I sincerely hope that you all enjoyed it and personally feel that it will serve as a great reference to every visitor in the table of contents section. Feel free to print out your favorite chapter from this series (or all of them). Keep them to yourself or share them with others. Feel free to link to this series from your website if you feel like blogging about it. My goal when writing this series was to motivate others to raise their consciousness and start a movement towards becoming more conscious individuals here on Earth. For now, soak in this series, and let it saturate in your mind for awhile. Are you ready to become more conscious?

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1. Be a mediator; bring peace to the world

There are many situations that arise from negativity in this world. One way to break up these situations in a peaceful manner is to be a mediator. A mediator is a person that is able to resolve conflict between two parties and think of a peaceful solution to a conflict that both parties agree upon. There are many training courses and a lot of information online that will help you build mediation skills if you are interested. Being a successful mediator requires practice, love, and compassion for others.

Back in grade school, I was fortunate to be trained in the art of mediation. I was a “peer mediator” at my school and learned to mediate by helping other kids resolve their conflicts peacefully. I went through a one-week training course and really learned a lot. I am now able to successfully, and consciously help others solve problems in a quick and effective way. The great thing about becoming a mediator is that you have the ability to train others, and bring peace to this Earth.

Being able to bring peace instead of fuel-for-a-fiery-argument is a great way to help raise consciousness on a global scale. Each time that you are able to bring peace and act as a mediator, you bring more peace to the world that we live in. You also set a great example for others. When they see that you are able to resolve relatively large conflicts in an easy, simple, and effective manner, they will be much more likely to respect your mediation skills. In fact, you will be able to further help the world by training anyone that is interested in learning mediation.

Another great thing about mediation is that it allows you to empathize with others. To hold a successful mediation session, you must first listen to the conflicting points of view. Next, you hold an active discussion involving the conflicting groups and figure out a solution to solve the problem in a peaceful manner. You may offer suggestions and tweak the suggestions to successfully accommodate the needs of both parties. After you’ve finished the mediation process, you can make both parties sign an official document of peace so that the stick to the agreement. In the end, the best part about the entire mediation process is the satisfaction that you can derive from being the individual to help others solve their problems. The satisfaction that helping others brings will also help you discover true happiness in your life; you will notice that your ability to help has helped raise the collective consciousness of humanity here on Earth.

2. Build an accurate model of reality

Building an accurate model of reality is a great way to explore the endless possibilities that life has to offer. In my personal building and shaping of my reality, I have used meditation to help me create. Meditation allows you to gain full conscious control of your thoughts. Your thoughts happen to be what will help you in the process of creating your reality. Building an accurate model of reality simply means: taking control of your thoughts and focus. When you are able to take control of your focus, building reality in a manner that allows you to share love with others, live your purpose, and become as conscious of a person as possible, becomes an easier task.

At the lowest states of mental functioning, building an accurate model of reality may seem somewhat difficult. In lower states, thoughts are more randomized, thinking is unfocused, and therefore your reality becomes unfocused. What you physically manifest is random when you have randomized thinking. Until you hold the desire to work towards becoming more conscious or building an accurate model of reality that reflects your true purpose, you won’t move forward much in conscious advancement.

To build an accurate model of reality, experimentation plays a big role. Experimentation with belief systems, spiritual practices, customs, values, etc. will all change your reality. To build an accurate model of reality, it is important to keep an open-mind and learn to experience as many different states of consciousness as possible. When we are constantly tweaking our mind and consciousness, we will develop a greater understanding in the process of building an accurate model of reality. I talk about meditation a lot – (in case you haven’t noticed) – and feel that it helps the most with building an accurate model of reality. If you are working to develop your consciousness and build an accurate model of reality, meditation is the recommended aid of choice.

3. Be a leader; influence as many people as possible

Being a positive leader is an awesome way to raise your level of consciousness. Leaders often are able to influence large groups of people and develop a lot of conscious power. Each person that a leader influences builds power for that leader’s message. Now, power shouldn’t be thought of from an egotistical point of view – this is a view of lower states of consciousness. There are some people that look to build power through greed, hate, fear, etc. This is not the type of power that you want to strive to build.

The type of power that you should hope to develop should come from your ability to positively influence as many people as possible. Whether it be through your interaction, your blog, your speeches, your music, etc. – expressing positivity as a leader sets a great example for others. When you become a great leader, you have the ability to inspire others to make more positive change here in this world. Your goal as a leader should be to emotionally touch and inspire as many individuals as possible. This will help raise consciousness as an entirety here on Earth.

Becoming a leader has potential to make many people become more conscious. If you look at how many people an internet blogger like Steve Pavlina has inspired simply through his online website, it’s incredible… The guy gets millions of readers a month and is able to share his positive message to others and influence many people. His message has inspired me writing this Raising Your Consciousness: 10X10 Series and certain decisions that I’ve made in my life. You can tell that Steve is a leader who expresses his purpose in a manner that has made a big, potentially life-changing, impact in the lives of millions. And Steve is just one of many positive examples out there in the world.

4. Travel the world; learn new cultures

Traveling the world most definitely has potential to change and expand your state of awareness. As you travel to different places, you are able to learn about unique: ways of life, ways of thinking, religions, customs, values, etc. There are new weather patterns, there is new scenery, there are different faces, and new consciousness-expanding experiences happen. Traveling to many different parts of the world is one of the things that I hope to one day do in order to experience life on a bigger scale.

Traveling has so much potential to alter your consciousness, it’s literally insane. Here is just one of many crazy examples: You could flock the country and go to France, learn French, meet the love of your life, have kids in Paris, start a successful French business and have a huge influence over the country of France. You really never know what traveling can bring to the surface of your life or inspire you to do. There are so many new opportunities that arise when traveling that you may have been previously unaware of. Traveling also presents the opportunity to relate to many different, diverse social groups, ethnic groups, religious groups, etc. It also allows you to gain the opportunity of experiencing different ways of life and experience different living-conditions.

There so much potential for boosting your level of consciousness that I personally highly recommend traveling whenever you get the chance. Staying in the same environment for too long gets yourself into the habit of not wanting to change. Not wanting to change leads to stagnation… So if you happen to be a person who enjoys traveling and participating in new life-experiences, you will also become a more conscious person in the process!

5. Be empathetic; feel others emotions

Being empathetic is a great way to spread love and compassion in the world. Spreading love and compassion are great ways to help you become a more conscious person. Advanced empathetic abilities can be cultivated when accessing the lower brainwave states: both the theta and delta brainwaves. Delta brainwaves have been strongly linked to literally feeling the emotions of others. Sometimes feeling emotional baggage of others actually can become distressing, but it can usually be used to your conscious advantage: especially in relationships.
Making a conscious effort to become a more empathetic person means trying to understand and relate to others and their emotions in as an effective method as possible. Helping others work through difficult emotions and being around for the emotional support of others will help you quickly boost your awareness level. Developing a High-Performance Mind, will also help you learn to tap into empathetic states of mind when you need to access them, and shift out of them so you don’t pack on too much emotional baggage at all times. Too much empathy forces you to focus your attention away from your own emotions and more on feeling the emotions of others.

I think that being empathetic involves being compassionate to others and a natural wanting to help others improve their quality of life. Good friends are often empathetic towards each others needs. They often develop strong emotional bonds through spending time together and having experiences together. These emotional bonds and ability to read each others emotions aids in the process of learning to become more empathetic. Whether you are currently overly empathetic or your empathy is lacking, knowing when to be empathetic around others will work wonders for your state of consciousness.

6. Set goals; work to achieve them

Setting goals to advance in life is a great way to improve the quality of your life and consciousness. Setting positive goals and working to accomplish them is one of the single most effective ways to advance consciously, without even having the intention to advance consciously. For example: you may set the goal to exercise everyday for one month to improve your health. By setting and completing a goal like this, your main focus is improving your health, however, you are indirectly improving your consciousness too.

If you aren’t currently setting goals in life, make a list of everything that you hope to accomplish. For now, choose one item that’s most important to you off of your list. Then devise a plan to work towards its achievement. You may even want to form a mastermind group – as was mentioned as #10 in the Raising Your Consciousness: Part 8 article. Mastermind groups act as a group of positive individuals to motivate you to achieve your goal and help you with the process. I highly recommend that you build one if you haven’t.

Your first goal could be working to raise your consciousness to a certain level. After all, raising your consciousness to a higher level will make it much easier for you to accomplish your goals! Personally, raising my level of consciousness has become such a daily routine, that I am able to work towards a completely separate goal at the same time. When setting goals, use the S-M-A-R-T process: S – specific; M – measurable; A – attainable; R – realistic; T – timely. Setting S.M.A.R.T. goals significantly helps you to set highly-effective goals that you will be able to easily accomplish. Know that setting goals is a great way to implement healthy habits and become more conscious.

7. Try brainwave entrainment

Though brainwave entrainment seems like a new-agey, experimental technique, it is a great tool for advancing consciously that actually works. Not only does brainwave entrainment work well, it is an extremely effective way to develop a powerful brain and advanced state of consciousness. By practicing brainwave entrainment, your brain becomes more flexible in the process of shifting to various brainwave states.

Brainwave entrainment is different than neurofeedback due to the fact that: brainwave entrainment will not teach you to consciously access (or shift to) various brainwave states. What it will do, though, is make your brain more flexible throughout the day when faced with various tasks. Here’s a great example of a person who is an avid practicer of brainwave entrainment. Example: Let’s name the person for the example Troy. Let’s say that Troy has practiced all basic frequencies of brainwave entrainment over the period of one year. Troy’s brain has become much more flexible than average throughout the day. When talking to a stranger or working on his blog, his brain may tap into a state of high-beta brainwaves that he had previously entrained.

He does not consciously access the high-beta brainwave state, but his brain automatically jumps (or shifts) to the beta-brainwave connection that was established through entrainment. His brain automatically is able to tap specific brainwave states that are optimal for certain tasks. Let’s then say that shortly after a long day at work, Troy goes to lay down and relax. Because of his entrainment, Troy’s brain is able to automatically shift to the alpha brainwave much more quickly than average – he will relax with ease because his brain knows the alpha frequency. Moving on… Let’s say that Troy is ready to go to bed. Right before falling asleep, Troy’s brain will have the flexibility to tap into the alpha-theta range that he had previously entrained. This will allow him to fall asleep with ease. As Troy sleeps, his brain may even shift to the lowest theta-delta range that he had previously entrained. Each task throughout your day has optimal brainwave patterns for the given task. Beta brainwaves are great for conversation and focus, while alpha are great for winding down. Since Troy has practiced brainwave entrainment, his brain naturally sorts out all of the entrained brainwaves and chooses one that is optimal for each of his tasks.

An average person without brainwave entrainment may have difficulty in the process of shifting to other brainwave states. He or she may have difficulty tapping into high-beta brainwaves for conversation or reading. He or she may also have difficulty winding down to relax – or even falling asleep at night. He or she may have difficulty accessing the lower brainwave states required to fall asleep quickly or be highly-creative. This is why brainwave entrainment can have such a huge conscious impact on making life easier and the expansion of consciousness easier. You give the featured brainwave software featured in my recommended products section a test-run if you are interested. In my opinion, brainwave entrainment is very powerful method of personal transformation that is wise to use. It also has been proven to boosting brain power by allowing you to develop more neural connections. Give brainwave entrainment a test-run and evaluate how effective it is at helping you advance consciously.

8. Try self-hypnosis; as powerful as meditation

What many people do not realize is that the act of self-hypnosis is very helpful for achieving states of complete, controlled relaxation. During self-hypnosis you develop full, complete control of the beliefs that are implanted in your subconscious mind. Self-hypnosis relaxes your body and takes you into a state of highly-focused, deep relaxation. There are many great tapes and samples that you can get online. I’ve downloaded around 10 great full self-hypnosis sessions online.

Self-hypnosis is not an automatic belief-changer though. Like anything, it takes many sessions and conscious implantation of new beliefs for it to be effective at changing beliefs. It also depends on your current level of consciousness and understanding of self-hypnosis. If you decide that you want to give self-hypnosis a shot, do some research on it so that you will know what to expect and so that you are able to debunk any myths or unrealistic expectations.
What I’ve found to be cool is the fact that during self-hypnosis, brainwaves shift to patterns of high-synchronization that have been observed in deep meditation. I don’t think that either self-hypnosis or meditation is more effective than one another. What I do think though, is that some people will show a definite preference to meditate over self-hypnosis and others may prefer to practice self-hypnosis over meditation. No matter whether you enjoy self-hypnosis or meditation more, they are both exercises that will allow you to elevate your consciousness. Give self-hypnosis a shot if you haven’t already – it is a perfectly safe, exercise that will benefit your consciousness greatly.

9. Develop your chakras

What is a chakra?

Wikipedia’s definition: “chakras are thought to vitalise the physical body and to be associated with interactions of a physical, emotional and mental nature. They are considered loci of life energy, or prana, (also called shakti, or chi), which is thought to flow among them along pathways called nadis. The function of the chakras is to spin and draw in this Universal Life Force Energy to keep the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical health of the body in balance.”

My definition of chakras: key energy centers located in our body.

I am by no means a guru on the topic of chakras and am still in the learning process. So, if you are further interested in developing and cleansing your chakras I recommend reading literature on the topic or doing research on the internet to see what you find. I found this website discussing them to be very interesting. It seems to be a fairly reliable source to learn more about the topic, so here’s a link to ChakraEnergy.com. At this website, you can learn about the basic functions of each of your chakras and can even take a test to see how active your chakras are.

Learning to clear and cleanse your chakras could prove to be one of the single best investments that you’ve ever made for yourself. Chakras hold the key allowing you to tap into your higher-self and connect with energy from the Universe. Like Wikipedia, I also believe that working with your chakras can allow you to keep an optimal: spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical balance. Working directly with your chakras will help you become a more conscious person, making you more aware of your body’s energy centers and how they can affect your entire life.

A sidenote: chakra is pronounced “shock-ruh.”

10. Build Kundalini energy

What is Kundalini?

Wikipedia’s definition: “‘coiled’ energy. In Indian yoga, a “corporeal energy”- an unconscious, instinctive or libidinal force or Shakti, envisioned either as a goddess or else as a sleeping serpent coiled at the base of the spine, hence a number of English renderings of the term such as ‘serpent power’. Kundalini is considered a part of the subtle body along with chakras (energy centres) and nadis (channels). The overall conception has many points in common with Chinese theories of acupuncture.”

My definition of Kundalini: a (usually latent) energy force that is coiled at the base of our spine. We’ve all felt Kundalini from time to time during extremely emotional moments, when a certain song plays, or when we have a powerful experience. What does Kundalini feel like? Kundalini the energy that makes our spine tingle. We get goosebumps throughout our body and our entire spine tingles with emotional energy. Kundalini is a large amount of energy that can poke it’s head at random times. It can also be fully released and harnessed. The jolts that most of us feel are only minute amounts of Kundalini.

There are exercises and training that a person can go through which allow them to tap and harness their full Kundalini energy. The release of full Kundalini energy, also known as a Kundalini awakening, is a powerful experience that makes a person highly conscious of themselves, their surroundings, the universe, and fills a person with tons of energy. Kundalini is not the same thing as developing an awakened mind brainwave pattern, however, it can be a side-effect in selective cases. Sometimes through intense meditation, Kundalini energy gets accidentally released too.

Kundalini is a completely healthy, natural and powerful method to advance consciously. It is not recommended to go into a Kundalini experience blindly, though. Do some research on Kundalini and consider working with a guru or person who has been through the entire process if you hope to release yours. This way, you will know what to expect and you won’t break into an accidental Kundalini awakening where you don’t know how to harness or deal with the energy. Breaking into a Kundalini awakening on accident could really throw you’re consciousness for an emotional loop filled with confusion and stress. Successfully harnessing your Kundalini energy through an awakening process, will naturally make you a highly conscious human being!

One last reminder: awakening your Kundalini energy should be done properly, under supervision or communication with a highly conscious individual who has already been through the process OR who has been trained in the process!

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1. Clear emotional blocks

Nearly everyone has some form of subconscious emotional blocks that they’ve suppressed for most of their lives. Emotional blocks can develop in childhood and can be forgotten by the time a person reaches adulthood. Emotional blocks can really take full control over your life if you don’t properly deal with them. Usually, diseases like anxiety, depression, and trauma are all the result of strong built-up emotional blocks. Emotional blocks can be defined as “emotions that haven’t been fully released by your subconscious mind.” This is why, often times when meditating, we recall past experiences and are able to deal with past negative experiences in a healthy manner.

In reaction to negative experiences, our brain wants to naturally block out the pain instead of dealing with it directly. Often times the resulting emotion is anxiety or depression. If you keep letting your pent-up negative emotional energy build, before expressing it, it can potentially become very dangerous to yourself and others. It is important to clear these emotional blocks. Luckily there happen to be many great ways to do so! Before you think about clearing emotional blocks, you must mentally prepare yourself and agree that you are ready to do so. It can be a very powerful (intense) emotional experience that may catch us off guard.

Often times we are operating in a mental state that isn’t currently aware of any personal emotional blocks. To shift our awareness to a deeper level, we must access the deeper brainwave states – increasing the production of alpha and theta brainwaves. In the alpha and theta brainwave states, past memories and emotions become easy to recall and are able to be released. If you think that you’ve let emotional blockages build up for awhile now, they may be fairly severe. Emotional blockages often manifest as extreme forms of stress, anxiety, unfocused thinking, and depression.

Ways that emotional blocks can be successfully dealt with are: through meditation, by working with a trained therapist, through E.M.D.R., neurofeedback, brainwave entrainment, and sometimes just through deep relaxation in supplement to talk therapy. It is important to allow your trapped, negative memories to resurface and your emotional blocks to clear. When emotional blocks are cleared, you will have a much easier time expressing who you truly are and how you feel. Your consciousness will feel elevated, and you will have free-flowing emotions through your entire body.

It is not advised to try to deal with very powerful emotional blocks or repressed traumatic memories by yourself. Consult a trained, certified therapist or psychologist to help you work through your past powerful emotion. Recognize that when you are able to work through your past emotional blocks, you will allow yourself to reach a higher state of consciousness and functioning. Looking to clear your emotional blocks will ultimately benefit all areas of your life, allow you to tap into deeper levels of awareness, and will aid in the process of intention-manifestation.

2. Clear out subconscious “cobwebs”

What exactly are subconscious “cobwebs?” I refer to subconscious cobwebs as any unfulfilling: beliefs and emotions that have been carried around in your subconscious mind for too long. Many times, our subconscious mind is carrying around extra negative emotional baggage and limiting beliefs that need to be released or replaced. In my opinion, the best and easiest way to clear subconscious “cobwebs” is through meditation.

In order for you to clear out your subconscious “cobwebs” and replace them with a clean, focused, and organized subconscious mind, I recommend that you try a few relaxation exercises such as: meditation, self-hypnosis, and internal reflection. Meditation is an obvious exercise of choice: it gives you freedom to develop inner focus inside your subconscious mind. As you begin a meditation routine, you may begin to notice that you begin to remember past events that were unfulfilling or past emotions that were painful. During this process, it is important to accept your negative experiences and think of yourself as being fully healed from each experience when your meditation time is up.

Here is a personal example: I go into deep meditation. Next, I tap into my slower alpha and theta brainwaves and thus into my subconscious mind. While I have access to my subconscious, I may ask it to send me a past memory, belief, or “cobweb” that I’ve been reluctant to deal with. Then, it may send me a picture or live footage of a real event that happened in my life that really hurt me emotionally. I then, sort-of, re-live the event in my mind, and fully accept its validity. As I come out of my meditation, I consciously implant the belief that re-living this event has fully healed and revitalized my subconscious mind.

Eventually, you will reach a state beyond present and past and be mentally 100% focused in “the now” or present moment. But from all of the literature that I’ve found, this can only be achieved through practicing meditation for an extended period of time. So if you want to clear out your subconscious “cobwebs” and take full control of your subconscious mind and the rest of your life, consider trying meditation to connect with your deeper self. It will raise your level of consciousness by allowing you to bring unsatisfying beliefs and memories to the surface.

3. Turn off the T.V. already

Depending on your current level of consciousness, watching T.V. may actually be a good thing. For those individuals operating at an extremely low level of functioning, watching T.V. gives them hope, satisfaction, and a boost in consciousness. With that said, to permanently elevate your consciousness, it is recommended to refrain from watching T.V. If you think about the act of watching T.V., it doesn’t reflect your life’s purpose nor allow you to be fully productive. The time that you currently spend watching T.V. could be put to better use by allowing you to accomplish a personal goal, allowing you to exercise your body, allowing you to boost your brain power, etc.

There are many reasons that you should not watch T.V. One of them is: you will be able to raise your consciousness much more quickly if you refrain from watching T.V. All of the negative views and conditioning that a person derives from watching T.V. can be a negative influence on your life. When you are operating at a higher-level of functioning and are watching people talk on T.V. at a lower level of functioning, it certainly will not help you raise your consciousness by watching T.V. If you feel that it’s necessary to cancel cable or shut of your T.V. for a week to give it a test run, by all means: try it! Turning off the tube will not only make you become a more conscious person, it will allow you to be much more productive. All T.V. serves as is an escape from higher levels of consciousness.

4. Read a good book; knowledge is power

Whether you enjoy reading fiction or non-fiction books (or both), reading books is a phenomenal way to help you boost your conscious brain power. Reading books provides you with knowledge, creativity, and allows you to fully expand your intellect. Don’t limit yourself to reading books either: blogs are fine (especially 4 Mind 4 Life), magazines are fine, newspapers are usually fine, etc. Reading a good book allows your consciousness to be taken on a journey through a world of information, or through a world of complete fantasy.

To get yourself on the right track of becoming a more conscious person, there are many great books that you can read that will help guide your consciousness in the right direction. One such book, that I’ve previously recommended is: The High-Performance Mind by Anna Wise. This book teaches you how to consciously control your mental brainwave state, go into deep meditation, and how to advance consciously by targeting selective brainwave patterns. Go to Amazon.com and search the books section for: consciousness (I gave you the perfect link)… Most of these books are aiming to increase your knowledge and provide you with methods to help you become a more conscious person.

Reading books will also help you become a smarter person, with a mind that is full of new thoughts and ideas. The more credible information that you are able to read, the more information and knowledge your consciousness has to play with. After all, knowledge allows you to cultivate power and become more aware of what was previously unknown. I know you’ve probably heard this before, but: turn off your T.V. and start reading instead! Reading is a great alternative to T.V. watching.

5. Expand your creativity

There are many ways for us to expand our creativity and abilities to creatively think. Developing ways to creatively think not only boosts brain power, it boosts your consciousness. The use of brainstorming, creative visualization, Zen koans, and meditation have all been known to increase creative thinking skills. Creativity is an important trait to develop when dealing with your reality. Having creativity allows your mind to easily solve even the most difficult of problems. Creativity is a great tool that can make your life much easier.

When you become more conscious, your creative abilities become stronger. Work to think of creative solutions to problems in your life. Some great ways to increase creativity are: brainstorming – making lists / webs, listening to music, draw a picture, or practice visualization. No matter how creative you are at this moment, you can always strive to enhance it for conscious benefit. The ability to be creative and think-outside-the-box usually occurs in the lower frequency brainwave states of alpha and theta. Accessing these states through creativity allows you to bypass the conscious-thought process of your left-hemisphere’s beta brainwaves and think of a creative solution to any given problem.

Becoming more creative is a side-effect that comes with being more conscious. As your overall brain power and cognitive functioning increases, you will develop much stronger levels of creativity. Being creative and practicing conscious creative thinking is a great exercise that allows you to raise your level of awareness. If your creative-side is currently lacking, think of ways to step-it-up a notch!

6. Develop strong people-skills

Developing strong people-skills will allow you to become more conscious in many different ways. Having strong people skills allows you to be comfortable expressing who you really are in any given social situation. Without developing strong people skills, you may be stuck in a state of fear around others in social settings. You may be completely uncomfortable with expressing your true beliefs, values, and discussing your lifestyle in front of others. Developing strong people-skills takes courage and being a highly-conscious person.

Communication to express your feelings, thoughts, and beliefs is necessary for others to know who you truly are. Being socially connected with others allows you to express your emotions in a healthy manner and also helps you be more empathetic and tuned in to loving others. There are currently many ways for a person to develop his or her people skills. In my opinion, the best way for you to develop your people skills to the maximum level is to force yourself to be around others constantly.

Though you may not thoroughly enjoy being around everyone at all times, you can learn to consciously accept others for who they are and how they act. Developing people skills allows you to successfully convey your point of view and share your purpose with others. You can spread love through social interaction and learn to communicate to help you get what you want out in life. Cultivating a strong set of people-skills will allow you to become a more conscious individual and will allow you to share your love with others.

7. Allow yourself to be inspired; who are you inspired by?

Allowing yourself to be inspired helps you to take passionate action. In order for us to be inspired, we usually need to have some sort of emotional connection. Maybe you are deeply inspired by a song that you recently heard on the radio, maybe you are inspired by Barack Obama, maybe you are inspired by Hilary Clinton, maybe you find Pablo Picasso’s artwork inspiring. Everyone is different and everyone is inspired by different things here on Earth.

The key to successfully using inspiration to help you advance consciously is to find out what single thing inspires you more than anything. Chances are that what inspires you most, is in some way connected with your purpose here on Earth. And, as mentioned earlier in the Raising Your Consciousness: 10X10 Series, knowing and living your purpose is a great way to advance consciously. To find out who or what you are most inspired by, make a list. Begin by brainstorming and writing down every single thing that you find inspiring. After 10 minutes or so of brainstorming, reflect on your list and the items that you think really stand-out from the rest.

After you’ve found the activities or people that are most inspiring in your life, take some sort of action to implement their inspiration in your life. The implementation process may involve listening to that artist’s music, buying a Picasso painting to put up in your room, writing a song of your own, etc. When you take action based off of true inspiration, you allow yourself to consciously connect with your higher-self and get on the right path towards discovering your true purpose. Inspiration can really work magic in your life if you let it. Taking actions based on positive inspiration will guide your consciousness to a higher level with very little effort.

8. Be courteous towards others

Being courteous to others is a great way to share love, positivity, and a great way to set a good example for others. Each time that you set an example, you have some influence onto others. Being kind and respectful to others is an awesome way to spread positivity and motivate others to become more conscious individuals. Each time that you practice a healthy habit or put kind actions on display for others to see, they will be much more inclined to follow suit. Each person has the power to influence others and our consciousness as a whole.

When one person acts negatively for others to see, witnesses of this action may then think it’s appropriate to act negatively in their lives. When one person acts positively for others to see, witnesses of this action may start to become more positive and set a better example for others. Being courteous means being polite, sharing your knowledge, helping others in need, and respecting others’ belief systems. Practice being courteous to everyone that you meet. Being courteous involves being compassionate. When you are able to be courteous to everyone that you meet, you are raising your awareness through compassion.

9. Attend a spiritual retreat / gathering

There are many spiritual retreats and spiritual opportunities that can quickly boost your state of consciousness. Meditation retreats and gatherings with your religious group are two of many ways to raise your consciousness. The act of going to church is yet another form of attending a spiritual gathering. While you’re at church, you may feel extremely welcome, connected with others, and be surrounded by many friendly, positive people. You may also learn something about yourself and your life.

The people that come to spiritual events and gatherings often are working to raise their level of consciousness in life (you will have something positive in common). Going to an event like a Holosync retreat may also be a great way to connect with a fun, positive group of individuals that could prove to be lifelong friends. You will never truly know and understand the possibilities of conscious transformation until you actually attend a gathering or retreat. In my opinion, attending a great meditation retreat may be one of the single most effective and quickest ways to advance consciously and transform your life. You’ll learn a lot about yourself, others, and meet a lot of great people.

10. Form a mastermind group

Forming a mastermind group is a great way to help you become more conscious and complete your goals. To participate in a mastermind group, you must first gather up some trustworthy friends. If you gather up non-trustworthy friends or people with negative influence, it won’t work well. Be sure to ask positive individuals to join your group. Next, schedule times that your entire group will meet to discuss personal challenges, goals, accomplishments, etc. Your group’s schedule can be to meet every 2 weeks, 3 weeks, month, every week, etc. You need to make the best decision. As you meet with your group of friends, make it known that you all will be as encouraging, helpful, empathetic, and positive towards each other and their goals. You serve as motivation for your friends in your mastermind group, and they serve as positive motivation for you.

Next, discuss one goal that you hope to work towards or accomplish before the next meeting. Develop a plan with your group and allow every person to share as much positive energy with each other as possible. Realize that when you work with other people, it is much easier to make your dreams come true. You aren’t a loner on your quest and feel strong because you happen to have full support from a positive group of individuals. As you meet, you help each other develop plans to accomplish their goals and serve as motivation for each other to carry through.

If you have similar goals, you can network with another person too. For example: Let’s say that both my friend Seth and Josh wanted to start a blog. They could each work with each other to help with ideas, put each other on their blogrolls, and do research together. Or they could even work separately and give each other phone-calls if they are stuck on a part of blog development or would like an opinion about the looks of their blog. Basically, if you and another person in your mastermind group have the same type of idea, your life just got a whole lot easier because you can work together with that person!

Mastermind groups are wonderful ways to advance consciously. They are a form of conscious, positive support that allows you to accomplish your goals with ease. Social support (i.e. a positive group of friends) is always great to have when working to become more conscious. Heck, your first project at your mastermind group could be to raise your consciousness to a level that allows you to consciously create happiness. Do whatever you want with your group, have fun, be positive, and realize that you are raising your consciousness in the process!

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1. Practice a religion

Practicing a religion is a phenomenal way to become a more conscious person. I personally don’t follow one religion, because I’ve adopted beliefs from many different religions to best serve my life. However, I used to go to church, and be affiliated with the Lutheran religion. Before I was able to raise my consciousness to a higher level, I wasn’t really aware of the fact that you don’t need to follow a religion to find peace, bring happiness to your life, or fix your problems in life.

With all that said, many individuals functioning at a lower level of consciousness actually feel better by following a specific religion and it’s practices. As you raise your level of awareness, you will find that there is really no best religion or Utopian religion that is optimal. You will also find out that religions can be a great way to spread peace and love within your life and the lives of your family, friends, neighbors, etc.

Think of various religious practices like climbing a mountain with many different people that each have different starting points surrounding the base of the mountain. Everyone at the base of the mountain starts at a different point and different place from around the mountain because we are all different. No matter which religious path you choose, you begin to climb closer to the peak of the mountain. Depending on your stage of conscious advancement, you will be at a different place vertically on the mountain towards your peak.

When everyone advances in their religion and consciousness, they will begin to come closer to one another because they will get closer to the peak. When everyone has reach an enlightened state of awareness and spirituality, they meet with one another at the top of the mountain; spreading peace and sharing love. That’s why leaders like the Dalai Lama and the Pope are able to come together and work to create good in this world. Both men coming from completely different backgrounds are aiming to spread peace and love in the world.

Practicing religion doesn’t necessarily make you a more conscious human being. What will make you a more conscious human being is learning to practice your religion in a highly-conscious manner: sharing the peace and love within your religion in the lives of others. Also, incorporating various practices from your religion to better yourself and make yourself a more positive, loving person will help your consciousness. You’ve got to be the judge as to what religion or spiritual practices work best for you. I like to incorporate many different beliefs into my life to fit my personal conscious needs.

Therefore, I meditate, share love, pray, etc. Some of my actions could be analyzed and associated with various religions (i.e. meditation = Buddhism, prayer = Christianity, etc). However, I don’t even think of my beliefs or practices in a religious context. I think of them as personal spiritual practices that will aid in my conscious progression. I think it is more personally fulfilling to think of it that way.

Whatever you choose to do is completely up to you. Maybe you want to experiment with another religion, maybe you want to pick several spiritual practices and apply practices from all of them to your life. Maybe you only want to meditate or only want to pray. I don’t know what works for you. What matters most in conscious advancement is getting a feel for what practices actually make you become more consciously aware. You need to personally determine what works best for you. One of the best ways to do this is via experimenting with many different religions.

2. Respect the beliefs of others; do not force them to change

At no time is it loving or respectful to criticize the beliefs of others. No matter how consciously advanced another person is or isn’t, it is important to respect their thoughts and actions. Many times I see people that are working hard on their own conscious advancement try to lure others into their personal journey. Often it seems like a good idea to help individuals in your life that are struggling to advance consciously, but it’s not healthy to force them to join the journey.

When you try to force others to adopt your lifestyle, beliefs, and force them to become a more conscious human-being, you are indirectly expressing negative emotion towards the person and getting your ego heavily involved. Forcing others to change is not truly accepting them for who they are. If you feel like you should force others to join the consciousness expansion journey: It is important to realize that everyone will have their time to advance consciously and will reach the peak of the mountain in their consciousness eventually. Some people may advance consciously in their first lifetime, others may take several lifetimes, while others may take 1,000 billion light-years… (well maybe not that long), but you get the idea.

If another person wants to work with you to raise their level of consciousness, that is an entirely different story. By all means, help the other person out if he or she wants to become a more conscious individual. You can refer them to my Raising Your Consciousness: 10X10 Series to give them a starting point. You can also work with them directly by meditating together, practicing healthy habits together, forming a mastermind group, etc. In my opinion, it is awesome if you ever have the opportunity to help another person advance consciously because it gives you satisfaction and the other person satisfaction; a true win-win situation. In turn, you will naturally become more conscious through the act of helping another person consciously advance.

3. Ask questions about your life – and life in general

Attempting to learn more about life each day is a great way to increase your overall knowledge base and a great way to become a more conscious person. Nobody “knows-it-all” in life, that’s why asking questions about life and about certain situations in life, will really help you out on your journey. The idea here is to learn as much as possible so you can make your lifestyle more conscious, your choices more conscious, your actions more conscious, and yourself a more knowledgeable, empathetic person. Try to ask individuals that are more consciously advanced than you, questions about life. If you ask questions to people in lower states of functioning, they will probably guide you in the wrong direction.

If you don’t know who to ask questions to, start with knowledgeable people that you know. Ask your parents what they think, ask your friends questions, work with a therapist (ask him or her questions), ask people online what they think, ask me questions in my contact form if you want. Realize that asking the same question to different individuals will usually bring you completely different responses. Not all responses will be highly-conscious ones: you will learn to distinguish more conscious responses from less conscious ones as you keep asking questions.

If you don’t feel like asking others questions, a great way to learn more about life is to ask yourself internal questions. Often times we don’t realize that within ourselves, we hold the answer to every question about our life. To get a deeper look at yourself and discover more about who you really are, meditation is the most popular exercise of choice. There are many benefits that have been associated with meditation and I am an advocate for the practice of meditation. It is a very healthy habit that you should consider adding to your lifestyle if you haven’t already!

4. Understand that everything and everyone changes

Whether you realize it or not, everything and everyone is in a constant state of change. Change is undeniable and is happening to yourself and others as you are reading this. There is no way to prevent change, but there is a way to consciously control your change. First off, we must realize that everything and everyone is constantly changing. Some people are spiraling down to a lower state of consciousness, while others are raising their level of consciousness. Others are moving very slowly in one direction or the other. New animals are born every minute, old animals are dying every minute. You are getting physically older as you are reading this. I think you get the idea: everything is changing. We must all accept the fact that change is happening right now. We must also know that we have the conscious power to influence that change.

Things that lead to negative change on Earth include: killing others, destroying the Earth, greed, hate, negativity, lack of compassion (i.e. littering), stealing, etc. For every person that contributes negatively to our human experience here on Earth, is slowing the conscious growth of humanity as a whole. It is important for us to recognize these negative changes and attempt to stop or reverse them as soon as possible. Be the person to be compassionate, be the person to pick up the litter, be the person who pays for everything that you own. This will allow you to control your personal change for the better.

Creating a positive change on this Earth is easy, but it requires us to raise our level of consciousness. Every time that you pick up litter, bring peace instead of anger, buy instead of steal, you are raising your level of consciousness and setting a positive example for others to follow. The way to drown out our negativity is to be highly-conscious by raising your consciousness. Be the change that you want to see on this Earth and please: make it a positive, conscious one.

5. Realize that you are not alone; others are in the process of becoming more conscious

On your journey towards becoming a more conscious human being, it is important to realize that you are never alone in the process. Someone, somewhere is going through the same thing. You are not the only person that feels raising your consciousness is important. If that were the case, I wouldn’t have even published this series on 4 Mind 4 Life dot com. There are likely many individuals that are more consciously advanced than you are: which is a good thing. Look to these individuals for guidance along the way. We can always look to more conscious individuals for personal guidance and advice in life. A great way to realize that you are not the only person working to raise your consciousness is to attend a meditation retreat, ask a friend (or spouse) to join you in your quest to becoming more conscious, chat with others online in forums about it, etc.

There are people in lower states of awareness who are journeying to higher states of consciousness who may feel that their journey is a solo-path: that they should be alone when working on their process. I recommend being as vocal and as sharing with others as possible about your wanting to raise your awareness. Telling others about your intentions is a very powerful way to influence others to join you in the process. Telling others also serves as a huge motivator for you to carry through with your actions. If you currently feel that you are alone in your process or cannot seem to express yourself vocally, I recommend seeing a therapist or talking with a friend as soon as possible.

Expressing yourself and allowing others to see your positive actions is the only way that you will accept yourself on the path to become a more conscious person. For example: if you are trying to become a vegetarian in order to consciously advance, don’t try to hide it from your family and friends; try to show it! Tell them why you are a vegetarian and explain your entire view on life; they can accept it or reject it if they want. What’s most important here is that you are being conscious of your path and accepting of others’ reactions to it. When the seas of life become overwhelming and you feel as if you are in the process of raising your consciousness alone, take some time to realize that you aren’t; there are many people that would love to help you with your conscious progress.

6. Push your personal limits; be the best that you can be

Pushing your personal limits to become the best person that you can be is something that everyone should strive for. Deep down everyone wants to live their life to the fullest; few people actually tap their full potential. Pushing your personal limits is something that you can do in every area of your life: relationships, exercise, consciousness, spirituality, finances, etc. There are always ways to improve in any given area of your life. Pushing your personal limits in the areas that you feel most soulfully-connected with are the areas that you should probably put the most work into in order to feel the greatest sense of fulfillment.

Since everyone was blessed with a unique set of traits, talents, etc., everyone will not be equally good in any given area of life. When pushing your personal limits, it is important to devise your own limits, not strive to be better than anybody else’s limits. Settling to be as good as someone else is not settling for your best. What can you do to push your personal limits? When you start worrying about pushing your limits to compete with another person, negative emotions will naturally surface.

Try your best to improve your life to fit your needs, not to compete with someone else! Practicing personal development is a great way to push your personal limits and to become the best human being that you can possibly become. Give it a try sometime if you haven’t already. I can personally testify to the fact that it’s addicting and has made my difficult life become incredibly easy for me to live.

7. Invest in yourself; invest in your purpose

When you make money, do you invest it in stocks? Have you ever thought of investing it in yourself? Besides money, we can also invest time in none other than: ourselves. In my opinion, investing time in yourself is one of the most effective ways to become more conscious. I am in no way saying that you need to invest time in yourself by yourself (alone); what I am saying is that you should connect with the activities that you intrinsically enjoy most and pursue them; invest in your purpose if you know it.

Once you have discovered your life’s purpose, investing in yourself turns into a very fulfilling process. Investing time in yourself through the act of: boosting your brain power, practicing personal development, raising your consciousness, expanding your knowledge-base, etc. are great ways to invest in yourself that provide lifelong fulfillment. As you keep investing more (and more) time and money in yourself, you begin to share your life’s purpose with others.

This is when you begin to make a true conscious, quantum leap and meaningful impact in the lives of others. Many advanced healers, psychics, gurus, etc. are all at this purpose-driven, level of consciousness. They understand that sharing their purpose with others is the core part of their life. You too can discover your purpose and become a more conscious human being by constantly investing in yourself.

8. Be open to exploring consciousness

There are many ways to be open to exploring your consciousness. Several methods to explore your consciousness include: brainwave entrainment, meditation, raising your consciousness, trying new activities, exploring spirituality, exploring different social groups, changing your environment (i.e. traveling), neurofeedback, etc. There are many healthy ways to explore consciousness and learn more about who you really are. It is important to distinguish healthy ways to change your consciousness from unhealthy ones.

Unhealthy ways to explore consciousness include: taking illicit drugs, abusing prescription drugs, drinking alcohol, etc. People that try to make the argument that taking illicit drugs is a way to explore consciousness are definitely correct. They are most definitely a way to explore consciousness. With that said, they are by no means a healthy nor conscious way to explore consciousness… In fact, during and after use, most individuals drop to a lower state of conscious functioning or may even be completely unconscious of the experience: they may not remember a thing that happened. During exploring consciousness in an unhealthy way, there is a high risk of danger and permanent brain damage. In some cases, drugs have the ability to cause (induce) schizophrenia or psychosis.

Stick to choosing healthy ways to explore consciousness. If you don’t know of any healthy ways to expand your consciousness, start with the ones that I’ve listed. Many of the methods included within the Raising Your Consciousness: 10X10 Series also happen to be great ways to explore your consciousness. The exploration of consciousness itself leads to a person becoming more conscious. Realize that any way to explore consciousness in a healthy manner is highly recommended. Exploring consciousness allows you to find out more about yourself and how you feel when experiencing a wide-variety of states of awareness.

9. Develop a deep relationship with another person

Developing deep, trustworthy relationships with other people are not only great ways to help you become more conscious, they are a great way to share love and joy with others. If you haven’t already, try to develop a deep, personal relationship with at least one person. It could be a good friend, spouse, boyfriend / girlfriend, it could be a good therapist, it could be anyone that you feel is on-the-same-page as you in life, or at the same level of consciousness. It is important to find the right person before “spilling your guts” though. You want to avoid developing a deep relationship with the wrong candidate for the job.

If you just so happen to tell very personal things to another individual that you aren’t very close with, you may come across as being strange or even too deep for the other person to handle. Be sure to take time to cultivate the relationship for awhile before making it deeper. What makes relationships become deeper and trustworthy is the factor of time. If your relationships can stand the test of time, then it is probably perfectly fine to share your deepest secrets with another person. Having another person to discuss your personal inner-thoughts, turmoil, joy, and all other emotions will actually make you a stronger, more empathetic person.

10. Call upon your spirit guides

Everyone has spirit guides – whether they believe it or not. Before we are born, we are assigned spirit guides to do just what their name implies: guide our spirit. They can often provide us with valuable advice and some forms of psychic connection that most of us never knew were possible. One way to personally connect with them is through meditation. Though I am not at the level of consciousness where I am able to personally connect with them through meditation, I personally know other individuals that are able to connect with them at anytime.

I have connected with my spirit guides when I got what is called a Huna-reading by one of my most trusted friends. She is a highly-conscious spiritual teacher, advanced meditator, and an individual that makes a positive difference in the lives of others on a daily basis. One day when talking with her, she asked me if I would like to try a Huna-reading with her. I said, “sure” and agreed to trying the whole experience. Before the reading, she had me make a list of any questions that I wanted to ask my spirit guides. So of course, I had listed questions like: “What job will I have in 10 years?” -”Do I have a soul-mate?” – Who is my soul-mate?” – “What color is my aura?” “Should I listen to binaural beats?” “What is my life’s purpose?” – etc.

Eventually, the Huna-reading took place. During the process, my friend went into a light trance and was able to allow me to connect with my spirit guides; she served as the medium. While entering the trance, I had to put my hands on-top of her hands in order for her to connect with my energy. As we connected hands, I felt a surge of energy and deep relaxation surround my body. My rapid thoughts quieted and I became fairly still and happy. Eventually, I was able to ask my spirit guides a bunch of questions and they had answers. They didn’t provide me with everything that I asked for, but they gave me a lot of information that I didn’t think was possible.

During the experience, I felt as if my body was overcome by deep relaxation – even though I was fully awake with my eyes wide open. I got fairly unexpected answers such as: “you will be doing educational research as your job” – “yes, you have a soul-mate, it is a black dog” (which kind of disturbed me…) – then I found out “people can have more than 1 soul-mate” – “your aura is blue, your Chakra colors are purple at the crown,” “we like when you listen to the binaural beats (brainwave entrainment),” “you will discover your own life’s purpose,” etc. (I don’t remember them all). Then, at the end of the reading, my friend described imagery that she was receiving from my spirit guides to tell me: so that they could prove to me that the experience was real and that they really do exist.

What came to her mind was a brand new pair of blue shoes. For awhile after the reading, I didn’t know what to think of the experience. I certainly didn’t have a brand new pair of blue shoes, but I decided to take the whole thing with an open-mind and neither deny or accept the truth of the experience. A couple months later, I just so happened to get a new pair of blue and white shoes. A couple days after getting the shoes, I reflected on the blue-shoe imagery from my Huna reading. Sure enough, I did have a new pair of blue shoes, so it must have some validity.

What is also unique about the process is the fact that my friend isn’t able to remember any of the information discussed about anyone’s personal Huna experience. Her mind is cleared of everything that happens during the reading in less than 20 minutes after the process. She explained to me that her only purpose when doing the reading is to serve as a medium, or as a means of connecting to my guides. She also explained that through enough personal meditation and spiritual seeking, I too would be able to connect with my spirit guides. Though I haven’t been too interested in connecting with them, I think it would definitely be a worthwhile experience.

The job of spirit guides are to help guide your spirit in the right direction and they really want to connect with you to help you raise your consciousness. So consider learning ways to connect with them on a personal level, or finding an advanced spiritual seeker / psychic that knows about spirit guides and how to connect with them. It seems as though Erin Pavlina has gotten great reviews discussing her ability to help you connect with your guides. Though it is somewhat expensive, it could prove to be just the advice that you needed to take your personal growth and consciousness to the next level!

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