4, Recovery

​This includes sleeping, relaxing, and refreshing.

After using our body or brain for work, study, exercise etc, we always need to recover  to get more energy and power.
The same as our muscles after a workout. They get bigger and stronger if you give them a rest.

Having a good sleep is the best thing to recover our body and mind.
Good sleep means good quality sleep. 
Even if you sleep for a long time, you will be tired if you wake up a lot or couldn’t get deep sleep. And sleeping too long will make you more tired too.
Quality is more important than how long you sleep.
There are so many different things you can do to have good quality sleep such as having a good diet, getting the morning sun, not eating right before you sleep etc, I can write more of them another time.

Having relaxing and refreshing time also helps to recover our body and mind.
When I was still fighting in Japan, after every big competition I always went to the hot spring resort in a nice country town just for a day.
Having a hot spring bath, nice food, and nice SAKE ( Rice wine ) made my body and mind recover very well. 
I remember a lot of power and energy came back, and I was motivated to train harder after that.

You don’t have to go to hot springs or resorts to relax. There are many things you can do to relax your body and mind easily.
So I will write a little bit more about this topic next time.

3, Food

​What you eat, how much you eat, how you eat, and when you eat are important.
Always try to have meals with balanced nutrients.

Sometimes we don’t realise we are having too much of certain nutrients, and not enough of others. 
For example, you need protein to build more muscles, but if you are having too much proteins, and not enough other nutrients, that won’t give you much power or energy. and doing that long term could possibly make your body have problems later on. 

Also, A lot of people are having micro nutrients deficiency. That might be a reason for feeling being tired all the time. 

You don’t have to think too much, you don’t need to calculate how many milligrams of this nutrient or that nutrient you have to take, and you don’t need to take any supplements.

What you have to do is have a variety of nice food and good ingredients everyday. Eat many varieties of fresh vegetables, nuts, and seeds regularly.
There are a lot of delicious and healthy foods and ingredients around.

You will  feel lot of energy coming from your body If you keep eating healthy, and  have balanced nutrient foods everyday.

Although, Make sure you don’t over eat. Your body has to work very hard to digest if you over eat. That takes a lot of energy away from your body, and even good nutrients can become toxic if you have too much. 
It is best if you stop eating when you feel about 80% of your fullness. 

Enjoy a variety of many different kinds of delicious food, then you will get explosive energy!!

2, Physical exercise

You don’t need to do an athlete’s training to just be healthy, but you should always challenge yourself when you do exercise.
That way, your fitness level constantly improves, then you don’t get tired as much and get more energy in your daily life.

Also more importantly is to exercise regularly and persistently. 
Not just once a month, or for 2 months.

Regular exercise can reduce the risk of serious diseases such as cancer, stroke and heart disease, and people who exercise regularly benefit with a positive boost in mood and lower rates of depression. 

People sometimes come to my classes or personal training with tired, stressed, or depressed from work, etc, but when they start training and by the time they finish training, they feel better, get more energy, and feel happier. 

That’s because the training itself is enjoyable, and also when you exercise, your body releases chemicals called endorphins that make you feel better, and your mind gets clearer. 
Endorphins also make your immune system stronger too. 

I recommend not missing exercise even when you feel a little bit tired, stressed, or depressed from something. 
You always feel better and get more energy after exercise. 
 
So, if you change your mindset ( from the last topic ), that will effect positively  to your body, and exercising will effect  positively to your mind as well.   

Next topic will be about No 3, Food.

1, Mindset 

Mindset could be the most important thing, because our mind does a lot of things to our body, like when you get nervous, scared, or shocked, your breathing goes fast and the heart rate get higher, even if you are not moving your body.

If you worry or are stressed from something, you feel like you don’t have much energy.
Some people get really sick from stress.

When you are just about to go on holidays you have been looking forward to, you get excited, and you have lot’s of energy.

Imagine if you won, one million dollars. You wouldn’t feel any sickness even if you were sick.

If we can control our emotions by ourselves from inside but not from anything else outside, it’s good for our health, and we get more energy.

If you overreact to every small thing, you wast so much energy, and get tired quickly, but if you can control your emotions, you can focus your energy on what you really need to.

In fighting it is exactly the same. Fighters who haven’t got much experience get tired quickly not just from fitness level but  from wasting so much energy by being nervous, etc. 

There are a lot of mindset techniques I’ve learnt from Martial Arts training and fighting which I am now sharing with my students little by little.

​One example, the Martial Arts mindset is not just a simple positive mind. 
Expect the best, but you have to prepare for the worst, then you can control what comes.
We need a dairy study, and practice to achieve this mind which is unwavering and not being confined by anything. 
It is the same as attaining Martial Arts techniques. Repetition is the key to achieve this.
 
I will explain about No 2, Physical exercise next time.

​Are you sick of being sick all the time? and always feeling tired?
Do you want to get unlimited energy?
Waking up with 100% energy, and not getting tired after work, and able to keep active until you go to sleep? 
 
This is what I’m focusing on, so I don’t get sick, and can keep moving full power from early morning till I go to sleep!!

1, Mindset      2, Physical exercise     3, Food      4, Recovery     5, Breathing

6, Life style and habits

I will explain one of each topic next time. 

We need to be healthy and energetic all the time to enjoy our dynamic and exciting life!!

There are SAMURAI sayings in Edo age in Japan, “ Never forget to prepare yourself for battles even if you are in a safe and peaceful society. “ and “ Sharpen your sword everyday even if you will never have to use it. “

If something like conflicts or physical attacks happen all of a sudden, and your mind and skills are not prepared for it, you won’t  know what to do, you will panic, and won’t be able to control the situation.
If you are prepared all the time, you will be calm and confident, so most of time you won’t  even have to use your skills. 

There are dangers everywhere these days. 
Learn practical skills and train hard all the time to prepare yourself for dangerous situations.

This mindset is also good for fighters too, because sometimes your match up happens all of a sudden. 
If you are not prepared for the fight, you can’t take it, and you may miss a good  opportunity.
It’s good to be fit, then your mind and skills are prepared all the time for competitions.

Sharpen your sword everyday, and be prepared your mind, skills, and fitness all the time!!

Also, the other questions you should ask yourself when you experience negative things are “ What can I learn from this? “ and 
“ What is good about this experience? “ 
Be a good meaning maker.
Positive thinkers see an opportunity in every difficulty, negative thinkers see a difficulty in every opportunity. 

One more important thing you can do is going to see people who think big. Try to get involved with the group that is full of positive people, who have got big dreams and think things big. Then, find a role model, and always think if it was him, what would he think? or what would he do? 
Do you know this, if one champion came from one certain gym, it’s likely to get more champions from the same gym? There are a few different reasons for that such as they have a good trainer, good training partners etc, but I think the main reason is that, people get affected by a champion’s mindset, their attitude towards training , their big dreams and goals etc. So the other people become good fighters and champions as well.  
​
Think big all the time, and don’t sweat every small thing!!

So, what we should do first is plan our dreams or goals.
Making it clear, what you really want or want to be. Those dreams or goals should be something that, when you think about it, you get so excited and happy.
Then, you should think about what action you need to take to achieve those dreams or goals.
After that, keep asking yourself “ What can I do right now to make it closer to those goals? “ 
Do this all the time. If you do this all the time, you can start seeing lots of positive things, good ideas, and good opportunities towards the goals, and you won’t see much or feel much of those small negative things.
If you change what you are focusing on, the world you see will change, your life will change. 
Even if you see or feel negative things, you should think about those dreams or goals, then ask yourself that question “ What can I do right now to make it closer to the goals? " Because questions immediately change what you are focusing on.  
Also, the other questions you should ask yourself when you experience negative things are…continue to part 3

Have you ever had this kind of experience?
After you bought a certain kind of thing like clothes or a car etc, then it seems as though everywhere you look, people are wearing the same kind of clothes, or have the same car.
You feel like everyone is copying you.
When you just had new born baby, you see people with babies, or pregnant women everywhere.
People see more of what they are focusing on.
If you are focusing on every small negative thing, you will see them more and more, then it will never stop.
According to research, the people who failed in life think about and focus on what they don’t want most of the time.
While the top achievers constantly think about and focus on what they do want.
What do you think about most of the time? worries? complaining? excuses? If you always think about or focus on negative things, the negative energy will take over your whole life.
So, what we should do is… continue to part 2

Having a lot of different experiences gives you knowledge as well. You can’t learn the truth just from reading textbooks and Internet. So, try to experience many different things.
Don’t be afraid of having experiences or of failing or making a mistake. Failing and making mistakes is better than worrying too much about it and not doing anything. 

Make sure you don’t compare yourself with other people, because if you do, when you see someone better than you, you lose your confidence straight way. Compare yourself to your past.

You have to be careful what you think about things, what you say too. This is a lot to do with your subconscious mind. 
When you try to do something, you shouldn’t think or use these words such as “ I can’t, that’s too hard, impossible, I feel no good, I’m too tired, etc “.
Your subconscious mind is the closest one to listen to those words, so you are making yourself weak by using those words. 
You also shouldn’t criticise people. You may feel good just after you criticise someone, because that makes you feel you are better than someone.
Your subconscious mind can’t tell if you criticised yourself or someone else, so you will lose confidence afterwards.  
You should always use these words instead “ I can do it!! , That’s easy!! , I feel so good!! , I got so much energy and power!! “ 
Say those words with your head up and back straight. 

You don’t have to be elegant or pretend to be tough. The real confident people don’t have to do that. 
They are so natural, they don’t need to put on an act of confidence it comes from deep inside, from their experience and mindset.