Mental Fitness

The bestselling author of How to Escape from Prison,  prisoner-turned-psychologist Paul Wood on developing the mental strength  and fitness to take on all of life's challenges


Getting and  staying mentally fit, just like getting and maintaining a high level of  physical fitness, involves hard work, effort, and consistency. Our  level of mental fitness determines how effectively we can flourish  through adversity, realise our potential, and be happier with our lives -  regardless of what the universe has in store.

We all know about  mental stress (or we think we do). We've definitely all experienced it,  and none of us like it. Yet this is not a threat to be avoided. Mental  stress is perfectly analogous to physical stress: it is the mind's way  of telling us that what we are attempting to perform is challenging our  resource. This is a catalyst for growth, and a sign we are pursuing our  potential. When we experience stress, we have a choice: we can heed that  signal and give up - after all, we're meant to stay in our psychic  comfort zone all the time, right? Or we can recognise the discomfort we  are feeling is simply nature's way of enabling us to rise to the  occasion.

In Mental Fitness you will learn how to:
Increase  your mental fitness, just as you would increase your physical fitness  Get closer to your potential by working proactively to maintain your  mental fitness Experience the right level of stress (this is what makes  us get fitter) Cope effectively for longer before you get fatigued or  exhausted (it doesn't mean you don't feel the struggle) Pay attention to  the indicators of fatigue to avoid burnout and unnecessary misery