How to train for mental toughness?

The problem in the modern world is the quantity of the information from all types of media. We get to know about everything that happen near and very far from us as  it happen . In average we are bombarded with 60 thousands ads a day that shows more what is happening all over the world, or how important is to be successful and why we should buy the latest car, mobile or laptop. All these create a state of anxiety and lack of something in our part.

We have a lot to gain from cultivating mental tough ness and peace of mind to thrive and be happy.

Steps recommended by a Seal to help us in that.

1. Learn to control your response. 

Is not what happens to us but how we react that cause the stress to the bod.
How the seals act to control the physiological arousal of fight/flight/freeze is through practicing deep breathing . When the body is in stress the hormones are up like cortisol, adrenaline and epinephrine that create a limited vision to the perceived threat, there is access to logical thinking and the action is rushed, some people called amygdala hijack . By deep breathing feeling the tummy inflate with the breath the parasympathetic system get triggered that control the heart rate, improve oxygenation of the brain.

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2 control your attention. 

I am a fan of this as he reports that are self-talk is very important factor of the quality of our life. We should pay attention to our thoughts and redirect them from negative to positive ones. he recommend the we sit down and write our thoughts , good and bad and it will make you realise that you are not your thoughts and you can change them to positive ones to have a inner peace in you.
This remind me of philosophical meditation that suggest the same but in a more detailed approach.

 what am I currently upset about?
what am I currently curious or excited about?
 http://www.thebookoflife.org/philosophical-meditation/
3. Develop emotional resilience. 
There are nowadays many studies into why and how we can harness and be emotionally intelligent and how to switch from a negative emotion to a positive emotion in a short time. The simplest , free tool exist but needs practice, because what is easy to do is easy not to do, that is VISUALISATION.

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Sit down in quit place and with your mind go to fearful/ annoying/ angry moment in your life , experience the moment, your feeling, the smell, the place , the noise , what you touched and than switch to a calm place, to the environment, smell, noise, feelings, relief you felt. If this is done everyday for 10-30min in the end of the period your can rewire the brain to be aware of its body sensation and go quickly into calmness. 
I said is easy but not simple. The longer the sessions the greater the benefits.

what am I currently anxious about?

These steps and many, many more are taken from the book " The way of the seal"- Mark Divine. a great read and highly recommended.

Be happy 

Bruna