How to trick your brain into doing what you need it to do

The power of the mind to convince your body that you can – or can’t – do something is absolutely real. Motivating yourself to focus, lose weight or just relax is sometimes a necessity when your brain isn’t really helping you do the things you need to do. You need some go-to tricks to get your brain on board.

Cut down on multitasking to stay more focused

Between the demands on our time and the gadgets at our fingertips, we are losing our ability to focus on a single task. Think of what your computer screen looks like. Chances are good that you have email, messenger, a browser with a couple of different tabs open, in addition to the projects you’re working on. Get in the habit of keeping only one window open at a time in order to focus on the task at hand.

Use aromatherapy to feel less hungry

One of the biggest challenges when trying to lose weight is hunger. For many people, when they exercise, it increases their appetite. Some research indicates that overloading your sense of smell may help decrease your appetite. Why does it work? There’s an area inside the hypothalamus called the satiety center that controls your feelings of hunger. Trigger it and it will tell you that you’re full. The key is to do it for more than five minutes, otherwise you might actually increase your feelings of hunger. Grapefruit oils, peppermint oils, and herbal oils have helped people curb their hunger.

Clear your mind with a breathing exercise

For many people, it’s nearly impossible to get the brain to shut down. How many times have you gone to bed only to have everything you’ve done during the day come back to haunt your thoughts. Short of full meditation, sometimes the act of breathing is enough to slow down our thoughts. The key is to focus on breathing. Think only of your diaphragm moving, your lungs inflating and deflating. If your brain throws some random thoughts at you, let them go and focus on the breathing.