The Healthy Mind Platter

Last weekend I attended an incredible TEDx conference on teaching compassion. It was an incredible day with 25 speakers, workshops, and many incredible attendees. A blog about the event will be coming soon but in the meantime I thought I would share one tidbit with you.

Playing off the USDA's recent launch of the new My Plate campaign for healthy eating (think new and improved food pyramid) one of the speakers - Dan Siegel - came up with the healthy mind platter.

In order to have a healthy mind every one of us needs some of each of the following every day:

-Sleep -
-physical time -
-focus time -
-play time -
-down time -
-time in (personal reflection into how you are feeling) -
and
- connecting time (time connecting to other people) -

Since our minds are who are it makes sense to make sure they remain healthy - so be sure to get your servings of all of the above. I know it can seem pretty basic but with our busy lives and constant connection to media many of us are certainly missing out on some of these things. If you have kids, make sure they are stay have a balance brain diet! These days few of them are actually getting all these things everyday!

OF course when you eat you should also eat for your brain (omega 3, antioxidants, amino acids...), but now we are starting to sound like my middle school science class so I will stop.