Each person has their own genetically predetermined metabolic set rate. A set point is a level of weight each person’s body seeks to maintain. For example, if a person’s set point is 200 pounds and they lose 20 pounds by dieting, the body’s metabolism will seek to regain that 20 pounds. Sleeping also affects your metabolic set point. Those sleeping less than 4 hours a night are 73% more likely to be obese. Sleep deprivation lowers leptin (fat) levels and raises gherlin (a hormone that stimulates appetite) levels. When we don’t get enough sleep our bodies increase the level of fat storage and increase our appetites.  Researchers have concluded, therefore, that the only way to maintain sustained weight loss and permanently lower your body’s set point is through a lifelong process of eating less fat and aerobic exercise, coupled with a good night’s sleep (7-8 hours for adults).

A brain cell is also known as a neuron. The average adult has 23 billion neurons. Each neuron is made up of one axon and multiple dendrites. Each axon and dendrite have multiple branches, just like trees. When neurons talk to each other, this is known as a synapse. Axons receive communications from another neuron through each one of its branches and dendrites send communications to other axons on other neurons through each one of its branches. The synaptic gap is an indentation on each dendrite that an axon branch sends its signals through. Think of each axon branch as a plug and each dendrite indentation as an outlet. The axon branch plugs into each dendrite outlet and viola, we have a connection.

20 – 30 minutes of aerobic exercise every day has been proven to stimulate the growth of axon branches on each neuron. The number of axon branches you have is directly related to how intelligent you are. So aerobic exercise makes you more intelligent. Aerobic exercise becomes more important as we age because, as we age, we lose neurons if we do not use them. The average adult loses about 10% of its neurons during a lifetime from lack of use. Aerobic exercise helps keep existing neurons firing with other neurons and keeps them alive and healthy. Thus, the more we activate our neurons as we age, the higher the performance level of neurons and the greater the number of synaptic activity.

By making aerobic exercise a daily habit, you are keeping your brain alive and healthy.

There are two two types of worrying:

1. Short-Term Worrying – Worrying that leads to problem solving. Example: My back hurts I better go to the doctor to see what’s wrong.
2. Long-Term Worrying – Worrying that morphs into thoughts of morbidity or failure. Example: My back hurts, I may have kidney disease, I may lose my kidneys, I may die. What will happen to my family, how will they survive etc.

Worrying is a stress trigger. When stress is triggered, the hypothalamus kicks into action setting off a domino effect of all sorts of neurochemicals which turn on specific bodily processes.  If the worrying continues, the stress trigger remains in the on position and a gene on the 10th chromosome is activated, converting cholesterol to cortisol. A negative side effect of cortisol is a reduction in the production of white blood cells and, thus, a suppression in the immune system opening the door to all sorts of diseases like cancer.

How you worry, therefore, can negatively affect your health.

The more we use our brains, as we get older, the greater the density of our brain. Contrary to what you may have been led to believe, being dense is good. Brain density is measured by the number of synapses (connections between neurons) and the myelin sheath (the coating of the neural fiber). When we engage in daily learning and daily aerobic exercise, we increase the production of Nerve Growth Factor (NFG) in our brains. NFG is a protein that helps grow and maintain neurons. Increasing the production of NFG is important when you consider that the average person loses 10% of their brain weight in a lifetime, with more of that brain loss occurring at age 60 and beyond. Learning and aerobic exercise also help increase the number of glial cells inside the brain. Glial cells protect neurons and the myelin sheath. Albert Einstein’s brain, at the time of his death (age 75), had an above average number of glial cells. Einstein was still working on his unified field theory almost up to the time of his death.

The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is part of our old brain (brain stem, aka subconscious) physiology. It is like a toggle switch in the brain. When turned off, the new brain (neocortex, aka conscious) is in charge. When the RAS is turned on, the new brain is placed in temporary hibernation and the old brain takes over. We are placed in autopilot where fight or flight instincts replace higher brain functions. Another primary function of the RAS is as a sensory filter. It blocks out almost all sensory input. If it didn’t, our brains would be overwhelmed and we would go insane. When we set a big goal, pursue a major purpose or follow a life dream, our RAS becomes tuned in to sensory data that will help us achieve the goal, purpose or dream. Opportunities we did not see previously, become obvious. The law of attraction is actually the RAS system at work. You are not actually attracting opportunities but rather becoming aware of them thanks to the RAS. This is why those who set big goals or pursue a major purpose or dream in life are so much more successful than everyone else. Their RAS is working for them, allowing them to achieve great things in life.

40% of all of our daily activities are habits. Habits are unconscious behaviors that we engage in every day. Many habits are good, like showering every day, brushing your teeth, brushing your hair etc. But many are also bad like drinking to much alcohol, overeating, watching too much T.V. Bad habits hold us back from living a successful life and good habits help move us forward to a successful life. Due to our habits, we are either unconsciously moving towards success and a happy life or unconsciously moving towards failure and a miserable life.

The first step in changing your habits and your life, is to self-assess. For one week write down every bad habit habit you have which is holding you back in having an ideal, successful life. Be brutally honest with yourself. Until you know which bad behaviors are responsible for the life you have, you cannot possibly hope to change that life.

Your habitual thinking can make you healthy or unhealthy. Positive thinking has the effect of reducing stress. Negative thinking has the effect of increasing stress. Stress sets all sorts of neurochemicals in motion and also turns on certain genes that suppress our immune system. If you want to increase your immune system’s ability to fight diseases, germs, viruses and parasites you need to engage in Rich Thinking. Here are some tools that will do that:

• 5 to 20 minutes a day of mediation
• Read your list of positive daily affirmations
• Make it a habit of associating with other positive, upbeat, happy people
• Avoid associating with other negative, depressed, unhappy people
• Read something inspirational when you feel the onset of stress
• Listen to relaxing, soothing music when you feel the onset of stress
• Google some jokes to read when you feel the onset of stress
• Aerobic exercise will produce hormones that help reduce stress
• Daydream about your ideal, perfect life

A positive, optimistic mindset is a common thread amongst most wealthy people. A negative, pessimistic mindset is a common thread amongst most poor people. Gratitude is one of the most important variables in shifting your thinking from negative to positive.  When you make gratitude a daily habit it reprograms your brain from negative to positive. It helps put you on the path to prosperity. It’s very much like a computer app that says to your brain: “I want to attract more good things into my life”.

The practice of gratitude can take many forms. One such form involves random acts of kindness. It could be anything, big or small, that helps improve the life of another person: buying a meal for a poor person, putting change in a parking meter, returning a stray garbage can, helping someone with their shopping bags etc.

The Daily Five strategy is a simple tool to help you make gratitude a daily habit. Each workday commit to performing just one act of random kindness. It will force your brain to shift from negative to positive by making you become conscious of opportunities to be kind to others.

The Daily Five strategy is a great tool to help you achieve a major goal in life. It’s a simple strategy. Each day do five small things that will help move you forward to achieving your major goal. These five things should take no more than an hour each day to accomplish. If done every day, they are like snowflakes on a mountainside; accumulating benefits every day until one day when you experience an avalanche of success event. This avalanche of success is always some unintended positive consequence. Achieving a goal is not a linear process. It involves detours, obstacles, and challenges that can never be anticipated. The Daily Five turns you into a human guided missile, enabling you to navigate those detours, obstacles and challenges.

One of the common threads amongst all the wealthy in my study of the daily habits of the rich was obsession. The rich were single-mindedly obsessed with achieving a long-term goal or in pursuing a major purpose or dream. Pursuing a long-term goal, dream or purpose infuses you with a passion that allows you to focus and persist. Obsession, by definition, is an unrelenting focus backed by persistence. You can’t force obsession. You either have it or you don’t. It is the byproduct of setting a long-term goal or in pursuing a major purpose or dream. Human beings are goal-seeking mechanisms. We function at an optimum level only when we are obsessed with achieving something big in life. Goals, purposes and dreams are catalysts for great achievement in life. They lead you down a path towards your new life.