Hello Adventurers! 

Understanding how our body is connected with our mental health is fascinating. I started rope skipping and engaging in physical exercises that changed my neuroplasticity. I read the book called 'Switch On Your Brain' by Dr. Caroline Leaf, and this book is helping me to rewire my brain through different activities. Start something that challenges you. According to studies, when we start learning new language, our brain improves more than we think. This week, try to find something challenging and strive to master it.

Love,

Ammar

💌 Things I Love the Most

AI Tools for Productivity

1. Resume Wizard: Resume Wizard is a helpful App that assists you with creating your resume. (link)

2. Bubble Docs Bot:Bubble Docs Bot is a helpful assistant for solving problems and providing guidance related to Bubble. (link)

3. Anxiety Coach: Anxiety Coach is an app designed to help you recognize, manage, and cope with anxiety. (link)

4. Serpentina: Serpentina is a useful App for Python enthusiasts and learners. (link)

5. HomeOwners Hub Helper: Get expert advice and practical tips for all your home improvement and maintenance needs with HomeOwners Hub Helper. (link)

6. Gptkit.ai: Distinguishing Human-Written from Machine-Generated Text. (link)

7. Scalenut: Boosting Organic Traffic and Building Sustainable Businesses with AI-Powered SEO Platform. (link)

8. Seventh Sense: Helps optimize email delivery for businesses using HubSpot or Marketo. (link)

9. Alkanzo: Schedules managed. Focus protected. Tasks completed. Meetings minimized. (link)

10. Clips AI: Clips AI automatically creates social media clips out of long-form videos (like podcasts). (link)

Weekly Quote:

My Weekly Journaling Prompts:

The 10 Prompts to find your purpose 👇🏼

1. What would I do every day if I could if money didn’t matter?

2. What are my 3 core values? And how can I align my life to these values?

3. Imagine a perfect day without limits. What activities would you engage in and what impact would you make?

4. Recall moments in your life where you felt a deep sense of accomplishment. What were you doing, and why did it feel significant?

5. What are your strengths, qualities and unique talents? How can you use your talents to help other people?

6. Consider the positive changes you want to bring to the world. What issues or causes resonate with you, and how can you contribute?

7. List your skills and talents. How can you leverage these abilities to create a fulfilling and purpose-driven life?

8. Reflect on challenges you’ve overcome. How have these experiences shaped your values and aspirations?

9. Identify people who inspire you. What qualities do they possess, and how can you incorporate these into your own life and purpose?

10. Envision your legacy. What impact do you want to leave on the world, and how can you work towards that vision today?

Once you find answers to these questions, you‘ll be a lot closer to your purpose and reason for being.

Video Of The Week :

In this insightful conversation, they delve into the complexities of self-improvement and self-esteem. Acknowledging the therapeutic value of recognizing failure and rejection, they emphasize the importance of not only accumulating evidence of one's achievements but also embracing and learning from moments of failure. The discussion touches upon the nuanced nature of self-esteem, emphasizing the need for a more detailed understanding. The speakers explore the challenges in measuring self-esteem, highlighting research findings that suggest its impact on outcomes is around 8-10%. They candidly discuss the historical overselling of self-esteem, acknowledging the ongoing debate in psychology. Ultimately, they stress the benefits of high self-esteem in fostering a willingness to appear try-hard, tolerance of mistakes, and a balanced approach to goal accomplishment, addressing the self-improvement paradox of being perfect as you are while striving for improvement.

A Podcast Worth Listening: 🦻 

The podcast underscores the significance of small, consistent exercises, such as starting with a 5-minute walk, for effective stress management. It emphasizes the mental health benefits of exercise and highlights the value of even minimal activities in reducing stress. The speaker shares a personal journey of gradually incorporating walks during a stressful period, emphasizing the role of self-efficacy.

 Juicy Reads to Check Out: 📰 

The freeze response is part of the body’s stress response system. Unlike fight-or-flight, “freeze” involves a state of immobility or a “deer in the headlights” reaction. It is a protective defense mechanism that can be triggered by real or perceived threat.

I think about it like this: if you’re faced with a threat or stressor and you think you can do something about it, you first enter a state of fight-or-flight, but if you’ve done all you can and you feel powerless to make a change or move away from that stressful thing, you’re forced to shutdown and go into a state of freeze to protect yourself from the threat.

Another way to look at freeze is to consider a deer being chased by a lion. If there is enough distance between the deer and the lion, the deer will run away. If it can’t, the deer will try and fight back and shake itself loose. But if neither of those responses work, the deer’s body will actually go into a state of immobility, or freeze, in order to protect itself from the pain of being eaten.

Freeze can feel like:

• numbness

• detachment/dissociation

• difficulty concentrating

• apathy

• zoned out and foggy

• shallow breathing

• tired and fatigued all the time

• disconnected and feeling spacey

Remember, a state of freeze is PROTECTIVE. It’s an automatic response to threat that it protecting you from the pain of the threat you’re facing.

Here are some ways to get out of a freeze state:

• slow and deep breathing

• grounding techniques — placing your feet on the ground, feeling the seat underneath you

• gradually introducing movement to the body — stretching, yoga, going for a walk

• mindfulness techniques — doing a mindful body scan, focusing on your five senses

• laughter and connection to stimulate serotonin

I see it like putting air into a deflated balloon 🎈 You want to find ways to increase the amount of energy in your body.

Tweets of the Week:

Meme Of The Week:

Reminder:

Global Fellowships:

1.  Millennium Leadership Fellowship: Fellows complete a comprehensive, 8-month leadership curriculum, executive coaching, and access a range of Atlantic Council events.

2. Female EdTech Fellowship Europe: For female ed-tech founders to grow their businesses.

3. SOAS Centre for Pan-African Studies Virtual Fellowship: Postgraduate students and early career researchers based in institutions in Africa. This program is linked to SOAS ‘Pan-African frontiers and identities: the remaking of Africa in the world’ project.

4. Stanford Fellowship for Asia-Pacific Researchers: Three visiting fellow positions are available, with one of them specifically dedicated to research on the Philippines.

5. Fox International Fellowship at Yale University: Graduate student exchange program between Yale and 20 partner universities. Fellows are selected for their potential to become leaders in areas of social impact.

6. African Peacebuilding Network Individual Research Fellowship: Applications welcome from African scholars, researchers and policy analysts working on conflict and peacebuilding issues at universities and research institutions; or regional, governmental, and nongovernmental agencies or organizations based in Africa.

7. Women's Impact Leadership Fellowship: Executive coaching, peer-to-peer forums, and much more – the program is designed to increase the leadership capacity of the next generation of women leaders in social and environmental change.

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See you next week. 🙂