Why You Should Never Practice Hungry: Snack Tips for Better Focus & Memory (BKI 42)

Hi, this is Diana. Bright knowledge instants give you one thing you can do today to move your creativity ahead. And throughout January, we've been working on decluttering both our space and our mind. So now I'd like to switch gears and talk about energy management. How to have our energy flow in such a way that it really supports our creativity for the long term. And here's a rather odd finding that I've come across, and that is, if we come to our practice hungry or with low blood sugar, we get vastly diminished results compared to coming to practice feeling good.

The state that we're in makes a massive impact on our memory, on our creativity and our resilience. So when we've had a little snack and I'll talk about some options in just a minute, when we've had a little snack before our practice, whatever our form may be, we can concentrate better, meaning that we learn better and that we retain better. I've found that if I practice with low blood sugar, I'm hungry the next day I come back and I barely remember what I did.

It's almost like a lost practice. And our first port of call is often to blame ourselves and say, I have a bad memory. But it tends to be that we actually came to our practice with low blood sugar, that we were hungry. So it affects our learning, our memory, our concentration, it affects our creativity. We don't think as well. We're not making as many connections and we're not as available to all the juicy creative forces that are allied around us.

We are not in a state to receive that energy. So the muse doesn't come and our creativity suffers. And then finally, when we're hungry and even if we don't kind of realize how hungry we are, our resilience is down and we're kind of grumpy and grouchy. It's hard to feel motivated. And our grit, they call it, is greatly diminished. So our practice session will probably be shorter and we'll have a negative association with it and we won't want to come back the next day.

So the knock on effects are tremendous for this. So what are some options for a snack? Well, I definitely recommend a small snack. You don't want to have a big meal, otherwise you'll feel sleepy. And I tend to have these little bars around, so this is a chicken bar if you're a vegetarian, obviously this won't work for you, but this is just a little bar that I keep in my purse usually so that I don't dip below the blood sugar.

That I want a little piece of chocolate. If that works within your diet, preferably dark chocolate can be a wonderful boost. I would say this snack would be probably 20 minutes before you start your practice so that your body has a chance to digest it. Our old friend the banana. This one needs to be eaten soon. I think. An apple. What about also a drink? So staying hydrated, just a little bit of water and 20 minutes before your practice.

There you go. Oh, I also brought out an avocado. Avocados I love, they have a lot of fat in them and that's very, very good for our brains. So I will sometimes eat half an avocado. So whatever works with your diet and the things that you like to eat. 20 minutes before practice, have a little snack and see what effects this has on your creativity in terms of your learning, concentration, motivation, creativity, and then your memory the next day and your desire to come back to practice because you had a good time during your creative actions.

Let me know how this works for you. Bye.