Confidence is one of the things that many students lack, so they don’t feel they can make a good decision. And so much of life is just negative. That negativity plays out in our decision-making capabilities, in how we communicate literally, and even how our brain functions. Stress plays a very active role in our brain development. It is a necessary thing, but too much stress can actually shut a brain down. So does that mean you should let your kids play video games all day long so they can claim they’re not stressed? That is absolutely not at all what I’m saying.

What it does mean is that we need to be able to help our brain work optimally. We need to provide all of the tools and resources that are available. So that means getting a good night’s sleep and getting exercise. Exercise is a huge important factor. People don’t realize, and it’s so frustrating when the schools cut that out of their programs. There’s a lot of energy going through young people and in our systems, and exercising gets that energy out and moves iat out of our system. It also creates endorphins which chemically triggers things in our brains as well. Those happy mood stabilizers come from endorphins and only get released when you exercise.

So it’s important that you do exercise of some kind. Now, what kind and how much and all of that, that’s all up for debate. You have to learn what is best for your own body. Sometimes just simply going for a walk every day on your lunch hour or as soon as you get home or taking the dog for a 15-30 minute walk. We’re not saying that you have to go to the gym every single day for 10 hours.
Okay, so something else about second guessing is all the negativity, right? When everything around us is so negative, everything impacts us through that negative filter. We don’t want that negative filter to affect our decision-making so you have to offset it with positive. That means probably turning off the talk radio, not having the news on first thing in the morning and first thing at night, because all that negativity is invading your thought processes.

So just turn it off. Maybe limit yourself to no more than ten minutes of news a day. It’s all over social media now too, so be aware so negativity doesn’t come in. You’ve seen it many times, especially in young people. Our daughter doesn’t like hearing anything positive; she only wants to hear that negative spin. So she has completely cut us off social media; we’re not allowed to see anything that’s on her page because she’s unfriended us. In her mind, she thinks she’s reducing the negativity because she’s viewing positive things as negative, right? They are calling good evil and evil good. Sound familiar?