Mental Fitness – Guayusa, RedBull or Coffee?

M ental fitness is not just the ability to stay awake longer, it is the ability to be more focused, more focused, more creative and work longer on a challenge. It enables you to deal with stressful situations in a relaxed manner and to make the best decision rationally from this relaxed feeling. In any case, rational should always mean being able to see the facts clearly and at the same time not ignoring your gut feeling, because after all, the gastrointestinal tract has more nerve cells than our brain!

This ability can be learned, improved and strengthened. In this article we would like to show you the best exercises to increase your mental fitness. You will also learn the differences between the most well-known pick-me-ups, coffee and ReBull, compared to Guayusa, because being awake is not the same as being awake!

After this article, you will be able to master challenges better without putting yourself under pressure or destroying your body in the long term with unhealthy boosters.

EXERCISES TO INCREASE YOUR MENTAL FITNESS

In any case, the basic prerequisite for improving your mental fitness is your personal motivation and the associated willpower. Your "why" must be big enough, because without effort and discipline, no development can take place.

MEDITATION FOR A CLEAR MIND

For many people, even today, meditation is still something that only monks or some guru nutcases do. But the fact is, meditation creates balance and once you open yourself to it, you will understand why this practice is so effective. Our mind is like a monkey that hops from branch to branch and never lingers on a tree for more than 30 seconds.
This has nothing to do with focus!
Meditation teaches you or your mind to focus. There are also apps for this that you can use to get started if you are completely new to meditation. The 10 beginner courses, each lasting 7-10 minutes, are completely sufficient and are free in every app. Meditation usually doesn't need any guidance, just a few basic pillars and that's exactly what we want to give you here.

Pillar #1 Maintain stillness. retire to a quiet room or a little-frequented spot in the park.

Pillar #2 Remain absolutely still during meditation. If you're itchy, let it itch, if your butt hurts from sitting, let it hurt, and if you need to go to the bathroom, you've probably been sitting for well over 10 minutes and already know all of these basics.

Pillar #3 Let your thoughts wander without paying attention to them. Don't pay any attention to them, don't judge them, don't try to suppress them, just let them be without participating in them.

Pillar #4 Watch your breath as it goes in and out of your nose (you can start at any time). Cold air flows in, warm air flows out. The more you meditate, the deeper your observation will go. Until you can feel into individual limbs through breathing, from the limbs into individual muscles to individual tendons. By the time you get to this point, your meditation is deeply rooted.

Pillar No. 5 There is no goal. So don't be tense and don't be disappointed if your mind jumps from one thought to another like crazy throughout the meditation. Meditation is a building block that is underestimated in our society and completely missing in education and development. Nobody demands perfection here!

SPORT & EXERCISE

Sport and exercise in general is not only important so that our cells are supplied with plenty of oxygen, but also so that our body has a balance to all the mental exertion. Movement ensures that our body stays fit and that we don't get back and shoulder problems from sitting all the time. So movement is a secondary support, you might think. The fact is, however, that our brain vibrates in a different wavelength range when doing sports than, for example, when working on tasks on the PC. Our brain vibrates increasingly in the range of alpha waves.
All hocus pocus? no way!
Our brains are very focused when we exercise and rarely wander off. The reason for this is sometimes the fact that there is an increased risk of injury during sport and we automatically switch to a survival mode, albeit a small one. We can also maintain this focus for some time after exercise or after meditation.

LEARN NEW SKILLS

Just learn, learn, learn. Everyone should know that our brain is able to form and strengthen new synapses up to old age and to think quickly and creatively accordingly. Provided we continue to educate ourselves into old age and not just sit in front of the television. Everyone should integrate the ability to acquire new things into their everyday life, as well as the ability to analyze and understand the thought patterns of others.
In this way we learn critical and questioning thinking.

Reading non-fiction offers a great opportunity to deal with new perspectives and new knowledge and to question your own thoughts on a topic.

POWER NAP FOR A BRAIN MEMORY REBOOT

Big companies like Apple and Google have rest areas for all their employees for a reason. Everyone has the opportunity to close their eyes for a few minutes.

A power nap is one of the most effective techniques for regeneration. Within 20 minutes, the entire body descends completely and just before we fall asleep, the alarm clock rings. 20 minutes - a maximum of 30 minutes, a power nap should not last longer. The reason for this is a process that takes place in the body. When we really fall asleep, our body begins to produce melatonin, a sleep hormone. If the alarm clock goes off after 40 minutes, we already have this hormone in our bodies and wake up like a hangover. Of course that's not the point!
If, on the other hand, you keep the nap short, a kind of reboot of the system takes place. Your brain empties the memory once. All thoughts that used to jump around like wild monkeys and did not lead to a structured working atmosphere have been swept away.
Instead of an alarm clock, you can also pick up your bunch of keys and let your arm hang off the bed during the nap. With this trick you wake up exactly at the moment when you would fall asleep, no alarm clock can time this point so perfectly.

BIGGEST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DIFFERENT WICKERS

In previous articles we have already discussed the differences between coffee and guayusa. In this last part on the subject of mental fitness, it should therefore be less about ingredients and more about the question of which waking state brings us closer to our goal. How does coffee wake you up? How does RedBull wake you up? How does Guayusa wake you up?

GROWING FROM COFFEE

Coffee is the fuel of many people. Rightly so, because coffee pushes you quickly and strongly. Anyone who wakes up in the morning with crumpled eyes and drinks a cup of coffee on the way to work, or at the latest there, will quickly have open eyes.

For about one to a maximum of two hours, coffee ensures a stronger pumping heart and a reduction in tiredness, as well as an increase in the ability to think. So, being awake from coffee can, and in most cases it is, lead to a feeling of racing heart and jitteriness. Many people report some sort of shortness of breath, which is due to shallow breathing. The increased ability to think is usually associated with a so-called monkey mind, which means that you are able to absorb many things, but not think them through clearly. Your mind jumps from one thought to another without any structure.

REDBULL WAKE UP

In order not to attack a brand directly at this point, we will rather go into conventional energy drinks, just like you can find them in retail everywhere.
Energy drinks usually work even faster than coffee, which has less to do with the caffeine content than with the dozens of different sugars. Glucose-fructose syrup, invert sugar, refined sugar, fructose, glucose.
These sugars are highly refined, so extremely concentrated and separated from all vitamins, fiber etc. They go quickly into the blood and into the brain. Slightly offset with the sugar wax, the caffeine is used, which is in extracted form and, like coffee, works for about two hours.
After these two hours, both the blood sugar and the circulation plummet, since this sudden and enormous push turns around just as suddenly and cannot be cushioned by our body. At this point, the body needs to rest or get a new kick.

Increased concentration through energy drinks is definitely present, but here too the question arises as to whether this result is compatible with the long-term consequences and whether the result is efficient enough at all? Because it is certainly effective because it pushes you, but efficient means that as many parameters as possible are met on the way to your goal.

It is best to read our article on effectiveness vs. efficiency.

WAKE OF GUAYUSA

Both coffee and conventional energy drinks are effective because they work in a direction that initially seems helpful.
But what if this wakefulness can still get a significant update? Being awake with more focus, being awake with more creativity, being awake with evenly increased blood flow and oxygen uptake, being awake with relaxation... Would you do without it? Probably not!
Guayusa is unique in this respect, as the natural active ingredient complex stimulates both the cardiovascular system and, above all, the central nervous system. This puts you in a state of relaxed alertness in which you can be much more targeted and organized. For example, read our articles on nootropics. Here and here or join our FB group.
The waking state lasts up to 8 hours, does not result in any circulatory collapse and has almost no habituation effect. In addition, your senses will be noticeably sharpened and your mood will improve.

CONCLUSION

It's not about the short-term push, it's about the long-term effect. Mental fitness doesn't just happen, it has to be learned and trained. Now a tool like Guayusa can bring additional efficiency and support you in your everyday challenges.