If you are a frequent visitor to my website, you know how much I appreciate the teachings and philosophies of Jerry “dRhino” Clark. One of the most powerful techniques that Jerry Clark is famous for is his “30 Day Mental Fast”. Just as your body needs a Reset to get rid of all of the toxins, so does your mind. Here are the 8 steps to the Jerry Clark Mental Fast

1. Read Uplifting Material for 15-20 Minutes A Day- Did you know that 87% of the population doesn’t read a single book after they graduate from High School. Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are great reading material, but they do very little to improve the skills that are going to help you reach your dreams. Instead read some empowering books, such as the ones that can be found on my Recommendations Page. You can get a used copy that ranges between 5 dollars and a penny! Come on now, a penny! There’s no excuse left not to read empowering material.
2. Turn Off The Television- The statistics are alarming at how much time we devote to the Television, or as Jerry Clark calls it, “The Electronic Income Reducer”. I wrote an article about how much damage a TV does to the average person watches: How Much Did Your TV Cost? Now you may want to know what is going on as far as the news goes, but is it really helping you? Most people watch the news before they go to sleep, and is the news empowering or disempowering? Right, Disempowering. So all night long while your body is sleeping, your subconscious is working, and it thinks all night long about the last message that it received, disempowerment. Instead of watching the news, read your uplifting material. Your subconscious will thank you because of the powerful messages that it will be thinking about all night long  If you have shows that you just can’t live without, record them. Watch them 30 days later if you must. If worse comes to worse, just unplug your TV.
3. Turn off the Radio- How much time do you spend in your car a day? An hour, longer? Most likely you are listening to the radio or a music CD, which is only feeding your mind with more toxins. Instead, listen to personal development CD’s or download some off the internet. For more information, read: How to use MP3 Players For Personal Development. If you don’t have any personal development material, just turn the radio off. Be alone with your thoughts, clear your mind, relax.
4. No Newspapers- This is very similar to the reason why you don’t want to watch TV. Negativity sells. Here are the headlines from an array of newspapers that I found just today: “Auto Thieves Leaving Their Mark”, “How Safe Is Your Grocery Store?”, “New Report Suggests Your Kids Have Already Been Exposed to Pornography”. Yes, these titles are attractive and make you want to read the paper, but at the same tine, they are filling you with doubt, fear, and a feeling that you are not in control of your own life. Stay away from this!
5. Associate Only with Uplifting People- One of the most difficult lessons I’ve had to learn is how negatively friends can impact your life when I wrote Are Your Friends Leading You Nowhere?. It’s very hard to look at your friends without any emotions and to judge if they bring you up or down. Stay away from people who complain, gossip, or have no desire to improve their lives.
6. Drink Water- Another alarming fact, the only water that 83% of kids and adults get is through soda. Put away those bottles of soda, coffee cups, and juices and replace it all with water. A trick I learned a long time ago is to take your weight in kilograms, divide that by 2, and that is how many ounces of water you should be drinking. I way 135 lbs, which is 61 kg, which is about 30 ounces of water. Now I don’t know if this is right or not, but it works for me.
7. Exercise At Least 20 Minutes A Day- This shouldn’t even be on the list because you should already be doing it… right? What’s stopping you, get out there and move your body. Do something fun and adventurous. Go hiking, walking, dancing, anything to get up and move around. 20 minutes minimum, ok! Another important factor is breathing. Only 1 out of 9 people breathe correctly. To learn how to breathe right, read the article I wrote called: How To Breathe Properly
8. Reflect on the Good for 30 Minutes Each Day- At the end of the night, do you just go to sleep and call it good? Take a few minutes to yourself. Make a cup of tea, sit in your favorite chair, and reflect about everything positive in your life and the positive that happened to you through the day. Think of the people you met, the smiles that you received, the hugs, the emails, the phone calls. For help on recognizing the positives in your life, refer to this post I wrote titled: Fight Depression with a Happiness Journal.

There you are, 8 powerful steps to help clearing out all of the cob-webs in your head. I will be making frequent posts about my progress. Please feel free to share your experiences as well.

• In 20 minutes your blood pressure will drop back down to normal.
• In 8 hours the carbon monoxide (a toxic gas) levels in your blood stream will drop by half, and oxygen levels will return to normal.
• In 48 hours your chance of having a heart attack will have decreased. All nicotine will have left your body. Your sense of taste and smell will return to a normal level.
• In 72 hours your bronchial tubes will relax, and your energy levels will increase.
• In 2 weeks your circulation will increase, and it will continue to improve for the next 10 weeks.
• In three to nine months coughs, wheezing and breathing problems will dissipate as your lung capacity improves by 10%.
• In 1 year your risk of having a heart attack will have dropped by half.
• In 5 years your risk of having a stroke returns to that of a non-smoker.
• In 10 years your risk of lung cancer will have returned to that of a non-smoker.
• In 15 years your risk of heart attack will have returned to that of a non-smoker.

As you can see, 15 years from now your body will become normal. Where will you be in 15 years…

Make it a goal to spend 5 minutes outside everyday. Not while running your errands or the walk to get the mail, but actually go outside, stand for 5 minutes, take some deep breaths, and just let go. Make sure you are breathing correctly, to learn how check out this previous post How To Breathe Properly. You will begin to look forward to this time when you can just relax, let go of stress, and enjoy one of the simple pleasures in life.

A while back ago I was having a conversation with a person who had bad breath. I wondered how many other people also felt he had bad breath, but never told him because they didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Then it hit me, what if I am that guy? The guy with the bad breath that nobody will tell on the count of they don’t want to hurt my feelings.

Since then, I always carry around breath mints with me, and I always pop one in before I am meeting with someone. Here are some interesting facts about bad breath:

• 65% of the population is believed to have bad breath
• The number reason why people don’t purchase from a salesman is because of their breath
• The Romans believed that the cure for bad breath was strawberries
• Dry mouth is a major cause of bad breath
• 90% of bad breath is caused by bacteria on the back of your tongue
• You should rinse your mouth after Coffee, Milk products, meat, and fish
• Not flossing your teeth everyday is the same as not brushing your teeth for 2 weeks

I would recommend brushing your teeth twice a day, flossing, and using a powerful mouth wash. Also, use breath mints and sugarless gum. You might also want to ask someone you trust to be honest if you have bad breath. Start to notice patterns of bad breath associated with food and then work on eliminating those foods or using mouth wash afterwards. I just got done drinking some coffee over at Cutters Point Coffee on Lacey Blvd so I better go brush my teeth now…