How To Be More Mentally Tough And Emotionally Strong (Without Burnout)

How To Be More Mentally Tough And Emotionally Strong (Without Burning Yourself Out)

In this video you will learn how to be more mentally tough and emotionally strong. 

In other words we are going to talk about how to build strong mental muscles.

It will also help you if you have anxiety and don’t know how much to face it and it will even help to reset your dopamine system a bit. 

So, make sure to stay with me to the end here. 

How to become more mentally tough and emotionally strong...

Alright, so right from the start let me tell you, this is something I have been thinking a lot about because well, often when you hear YouTubers talk about something, they talk about it simply become it is something they have had to deal with themselves in their life and most likely still do, on some level.

This is true for my channel as well and I often feel a need to tell you guys that; I’m not this super strong guy who has his entire life figured out. No, I very much include myself into the group of people who I’m giving advice to.

Now, there’s a lot of talk about mental toughness out there and that’s good, because a lot of things you can find on it is great advice.

There is often a missing piece in the mental toughness equation...

But there is one part of the mental toughness equation that is almost as important as pushing yourself and is often completely overlooked. 

Again, please stay with me here because what I’m about to say is going to look pretty obvious at first, but later on in the video I’m going to reveal a few tricks that have made such a big difference in my life that you do not want to miss this.

Okay, so, nowadays it’s very popular with videos telling you that pressure is good and that it is by pushing yourself that you actually grow.

And let’s get one thing straight here right away, I 100% agree with this. 

Pressure is good and we need to push ourselves, but what few talk about is how  strategic rest in between the pressure can help skyrocket your results, if we do it in a smart way, of course.

Pressure can create diamonds - But it can also break you...

We can’t forget about the rest, because yes, it is true that pressure can make a diamond, but it is also 100% true that pressure can burn you out or even completely break you if you’re being stupid about it.

Ok, so building strong mental muscles is somewhat like bodybuilding. 

So, imagine you go to the gym because you want a stronger body. Well, all of you who lift already know that it is actually not in the gym that you grow. 

In the gym you simply provide the stimuli for your muscle. And then after your gym session when you rest it is then your muscles recover and grow stronger.

• Let’s call this the pressure phase just for the sake of the argument in this video. 
• And, we’ll call this phase the strategic rest phase.

And strategic rest does not mean that you’re lazy. 

In fact, not using it is stupid. 

More is not always better when you want to become mentally tough and emotionally strong...

Let’s say you think it would be awesome to have bigger arms and you think that the more biceps curls you do the bigger you will get. 

And so you go to the gym 2 times a day 7 days a week training your biceps every single time.

Well, good luck with that because you would burn yourself out so fast you would even know what hit you.

So, here the rest and recovery phase is the missing piece. 

And even though the pressure part is the piece that the modern world’s lazy people most often tend to avoid, well that doesn’t mean that it makes the rest and recovery piece any less important for those who actually are out there trying hard to grow. 

Never think that strategic rest is the same as being lazy...

Heck even within your gym session you have frequent rests. I mean you wouldn’t go into the gym and do one continuous 45 minute long bench press set. No, you divide your session into multiple sets and then you rest in between those sets. 

And even within a given set, you are actually resting a bit as well. Because you don’t keep your biceps 100% contracted during the set, even if it’s time under tension you still have to relax your biceps enough in order for you to lower your arm so you can do another rep.…and another…and another.

I mean it would look pretty funny if you walked into a gym and saw all the big guys there standing still like statues with a dumbbell in their hand not moving their arms at all.

So, in order to put in reps, you need to relax a bit between the reps. And in order to do sets you need to rest between sets. 

And in order to do good gym sessions you need to rest in between gym sessions.

And in order to do good gym sessions long term, you need deload weeks where you take a whole week or two where you are training a bit lighter. 

Cycles of rest within the stimuli...

So, you see, within any given rest cycle here there are smaller rests cycles as well and then they in turn have  also have even smaller micro rests cycles.

Now, this is true for almost everything in life. 

For example, I would be willing to bet that many of you have heard about the potential health benefits of fasting.

Well, did you know that it’s actually after the fast is done, and when we start eating again that we get the biggest benefits?

Yes, because it is then we replace the old cells that have been eaten by the body during the fast, with new healthy cells.

So the fasting was kind of like the pressure phase and then the eating the rest phase, in terms of your cell health there.

Refill your readily releasable pool of dopamine by real relaxation...

I have also talked about how your dopamine system can go harder if you make the first half of your day dopamine driven, with you being in ‘go go go mode’, but then you make the last hours of your day more serotonin driven, where you are doing things in a more mindful way and you relax a bit more.

And if we take a dive into science here, by doing this phase here will actually help to refill your readily releasable pool of dopamine so that you can go even harder the next day.

So here we could call the first part of your day your pressure phase, and then the second part your day the strategic rest phase.

Practice resting for better result...

And listen up guys, when I started focusing more on not being stupid with the second phase here, and I literally started to practice resting in order to become better at it, I started seeing vast improvements in every area of my life.

Even with anxiety and mental toughness.

Yes!

Because, well, just with the gym example, you can then also zoom in on for example this phase and use strategic micro rest phases.

How to use Richard Solomon's opponent process theory to be more mentally tough and emotionally strong...

Let’s say I have a trumpet gig at 4pm on Sunday. Well, then what I like to do is to stress my body hard around noon, where I do something like the Wim Hof breathing - followed by a pretty intense cardio on my elliptical trainer - followed by a 4 minute ice cold shower. 

Well this is a short but very intense stressor to my body, but as those of you who have my online course know, we have Richard Solomon's opponent process graph here that shows an A-process here, followed by a B-process down here. 

And the opponent process graph shows how whenever you present a stimulus to your body, in this case then, the A-process is the intense stressor, well your body and nervous system kicks in a counter mechanism that is always the complete opposite of the A-process. 

So in this case the B-process is relaxation.

Yes, so this means, by deliberately stressing my nervous system about 4 hours before my trumpet gig, the B-process will be taking place at the exact moment I’m performing and thus it will help me stay relaxed during my trumpet gig.

Pretty cool, huh?

Become more mentally tough in every area of life...

Now, that’s not all because remember the gym example and that we can zoom in on micro cycles as well?

Well, you can do this with pretty much anything in life. 

And for me, I also zoom in on the 90 minutes that I have my trumpet gig. 

The music pieces are like the sets in the gym, but then in between the pieces I deliberately try to relax and calm my nervous system down. 

And then when I start playing the next piece I say to myself, “ok it’s ok to be nervous now…this is my mental set where I’m building my mental muscles.”

Recognize the pressure phase - And be okay with it...

It’s the pressure phase. It’s ok!

And then, again after the piece I again try to calm down as much as I can and rest before going to the next piece. 

And there’s even more to it than this…

Just like you lower your arm before doing another rep when you’re training your biceps.

I even divide the music pieces into micro rest phases.

Because the piece consists of difficult passages combined with things that are easier for me to play.

Dive down into micro cycles...

So, during the seconds I play the easier stuff I lower the dumbbell - and then a few seconds after that when the difficult stuff comes I raise my arm and do the pressure rep.

And you can do something similar with almost everything in life.

Anxiety, getting stronger, talking to girls if you are afraid of that, then that’s your pressure phase, refilling dopamine, building muscle and just pure resilience and mental toughness.

And why should you?

Because by incorporating strategic mental rest phases, bigger, smaller and even on a micro level, you make sure to recharge your mental battery much much faster.

Putting in the reps for your mental toughness muscle...

Because by strategically  lowering your arm you can do another rep after that. 

And thus you build stronger mental muscles.

And by reaching your mental battery faster you can keep going and performing on such a high level that you will completely surprise yourself when you realize what you’re actually capable of achieving.

And it’s amazing how well it helps you to mentally think of that stressor phase that, “hey, this is the stimuli phase now, and I’m allowed to feel nervous. I’m allowed to feel pressure right now. It’s actually good for me”.

But then rest after.

Giving yourself permission like this will actually make it more like a fun game, instead of a dreadful event that you’re so scared of.

I hope you found this interesting, and if you did, consider subscribing for similar videos in the future.

And if you’re still struggling with relapses on your NoFap journey, make sure to take a look at this video right here ==> Dopamine Discipline Review, as over there I talk about something that has now helped thousands of men quit for good. 

This is Scandinavian Bob singing out for today and as always I wish you all the best in your journey to become the strongest version of yourself.

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