The Breath-Mind Connection

So how about this breathing thing.  I showed you last week how just the simple act of smiling can help to change how you think and how you feel. But how can breathing change your brain?

I’m pretty sure all of us have seen this–when we experience a big scare, our breathing speeds up immediately. This response in the increased speed of our breath also occurs, to varying degrees, when we are under any kind of stress. And as you might guess from reading my posts the last couple weeks, faster breathing can also increase your feeling of stress. The obvious conclusion is that you will want to slow your breathing to help manage and alleviate stress.

I will never forget watching this TV special with a yoga practitioner that had been hooked up to heart rate and blood pressure machines before sitting down to meditate. He assumed his yoga position and began using his mind to slow down his breathing. As he did, the monitors showed that his decreased speed in breath also resulted in his heart rate and blood pressure dropping.  It was a great demonstration of that mind-body connection we’ve been talking about.

Amy Cuddy in her book Presence quotes a psychiatrist and a PTS expert Bessel van der Kolk who said, “Some 80 percent of the fibers of the vagus nerve (which connects the brain with many internal organs) are afferent, that is, they run from the body into the brain. This means that we can directly train our arousal system by the way we breathe, chant, and move, a principle that has been utilized since time immemorial in places like China and India.”

Amy goes on to say “That’s one of the reason yoga can change the way you feel–it naturally prompts you to breathe slowly and rhythmically, as you do practices such as chanting, tai chi, qigong, and meditation. But you don’t need to do any of those; you can reap the benefits of breath control almost anywhere at any time. With a few deep, slow breaths, you’ve just changed your body and your mind.”

She goes on to give this good advice: “Take a second right now to focus on your breath. Inhale quickly, then slowly exhale.  One more time. Inhale for two seconds, then draw out your exhale for around five seconds.”  Go ahead. Do it over and over again and see how it makes you feel.

I find the beauty of all this–power posing, smiling and controlling the breath–can all be done at the same time or done one at a time at almost any time or in any place. Such simple practices can make changes for the good in your life.

Ok … maybe we are better off not power posing on an airplane. You never know how the crew and other passengers will take that.

Baby Steps and Gentle Nudges

 

Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve been very big on setting goals including New Year’s Resolutions which are pretty much at the top of my list. At years’ end, I’ve always been surprised and often disappointed by how many goals I failed to accomplish or fell short of accomplishing during that one year. I’ve always thought that I just needed to set bigger goals and try much, much harder. And yes, I would end up berating and beating myself up for my failures. But now I am learning from Amy Cuddy’s book, Presence, that there is growing evidence and research indicating that most of us having been going at the goal setting and resolutions thing all wrong.

Under the section entitled, “Many Popular Self-Change Approaches Fail–And Even Backfire”, Amy says, “For one thing, New Year’s resolutions are too ambitious. Setting big goals such as getting straight A’s in school or working out three times a week is a positive step in theory, but these goals are not designed in a way that actually allows us to build toward them.  They’re reliant on the success of hundreds of smaller changes and they don’t come with step-by-step instructions showing us how to get there”.

I will say, as I do in my preaching on goal setting and what I almost always do myself, we all need to break down our goals into small steps. But Amy goes further saying we need to break our goals down into ‘baby steps’ and gently ‘nudge ourselves’ along.

Additionally, Amy says, “One of the biggest culprits, as least in the United States, is the repeatedly dispiriting New Year’s resolution, which is riddled with psychological traps, that work against us.”  The problem with big goals, with a time frame that is way in the future, is that we really can’t easily visualize the end results and so it’s easy to get down on ourselves and give up along the way.  Quoting Amy again, she adds “focusing on process encourages us to keep working, to keep going, and to see challenges as opportunities for growth, not as threats of failure.”

In other words, take lots of baby steps.  Amy mentions her ambition to be a runner which at one time in my life I thought I wanted to do also. The problem is, when we set big goals, like maybe running a marathon in 6 months or doing a 3 or 4 mile run our first or second time out, we usually get totally exhausted very early on and we give up or become very discouraged.  I’ve talked to many runners who have had a similar experience. However, if I start with very small goals—baby steps—such as saying to myself, “I’ll just run for 10 or 12 minutes,” or “I’ll just go down to that mailbox or tree,” then when I’ve reached that very small objective I can say, “Hey, I want to see if I can just run another 5 minutes or just to that house down there.”  That approach is such a hugely different experience and it sure seems to fit what Amy Cuddy is discovering in her study of goal setting and resolutions.

So I would challenge all my readers to give more thought to your goals and objectives as we begin this wonderful new year. Think ‘baby steps’ and ‘gentle, small self-nudges’ and we all might find that we stop beating up on ourselves for thinking we have failed and instead find we have made some very big gains in our physical, family, social and financial life.

Accountable Goals for 2016

As pretty much everyone knows, this time of year is so super busy it can be the most stressful time of the year.  There is an automatic built in deadline for all of us and as you read this we’ve just past that automatic deadline that’s called Christmas. The 25th of December is a goal that the world has set for all of us. That date pushes all of us to get many tasks done and in a way that is a good thing.

So now as we finish this year of 2015, most of us start thinking what the next year will be like and what is it that we want to accomplish.  We start thinking about what goals we want to set for ourselves and, if we are wise, we put deadlines on our goals which pushes us to reach those goals within that self-imposed deadline.  If we tell other people what our goals are and the deadline dates, that is usually very helpful because those friends and relatives can help push us and keep us on track by asking how we are doing and if we are on track for completing our goals on time.

I couldn’t help but think of that late last night at a party, when I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t written this week’s blog and I had told my editor that I would have a draft to her by last night. Ouch.  So first thing this morning I got right on the task of writing this blog that you are now reading. Outside help can really keep us on track.

Additionally, last night someone asked me what my goals were for 2016. They knew I was big on goal setting and they also set goals for themselves and push their kids to do the same. My answer was that my biggest goal for the new year was to push myself for better and better health.  Now that I’m almost 72 years old I see, more and more, how important health is. I’m already in darn good shape and came so very close to a 10 mile a day goal I had set for myself in 2015 that included running, walking and playing tennis. But in 2016 I’m going to raise the bar to an even higher level and add some tough weight lifting goals since I know that extra muscle will increase my metabolism and of course make me look and feel better and stronger.

So my challenge to you is take time to think through what you want to accomplish in this coming year and be sure, as I’ve preached over and over again, to write down what those goals are and then be sure to put a time frame or a deadline on your goals. To help yourself along, tell friends and or relatives what those goals are and ask for their help. That combination is a sure fire way to make your goals a reality.

 

The ‘Refrain but Don’t Repress’ Approach to Destroying Bad Habits

As human beings, we have many good habits that we’ve formed and held onto in our lives and then there are some bad habits that we’d really like to dump. Like most of us, you have probably observed and experienced how very difficult it is to change bad habits, whether the bad habit is overeating, overworking, sleeping too much or too little, watching too much TV, checking our email or text compulsively or some even worse habit or addiction.

In the last few weeks I’ve been reading an incredible book that I believe sheds tremendous light on habits including how to form good ones and how to break bad ones. The book by Pema Chodron is entitled Living Beautifully. I must admit that even though I’ve formed lots of good habits that have led to some very wonderful and rewarding successes in parts of my life, I’ve also had some bad habits that have hurt me, and it’s been so very frustrating for me to try to break or change the bad ones only to fail and fall back into them. But Pema’s book has some real answers and directions that, so far, seem to be a quite a breakthrough.

First of all, she outlines that part of the reason we have trouble breaking bad habits is because we are too hard on ourselves.  What most of us do when we end up doing something that we’ve tried to stop doing, is to get mad at ourselves, beating ourselves up mentally, then we try to repress our thinking and whatever we did that broke our promise to ourselves. She strongly suggests that instead, we come to recognize that we are fundamentally good rather than fundamentally flawed.

Probably Pema’s biggest lesson for us is a bit surprising. She suggests that if we are trying to break a bad habit, we need to think hard on refraining from doing what we promised ourselves but DON’T repress it. She goes on to say that many bad habits come from us trying to escape from uncertainty and fear in our lives in particular situations.  So when we are faced with the desire to fall into that bad habit, we need to examine our thinking to see what led us to that point and then just try to refrain from that action but not repress those thoughts.

Pema has science backing her up on this issue.  She says “Science is demonstrating that every time we refrain but don’t repress, new neural pathways open up in the brain. In not taking the old escape routes, we’re predisposing ourselves to a new way of seeing ourselves, a new way of relating to the mysteriously unpredictable world in which we live.” And in the process we are hard wiring our brain to do the right thing automatically.

What I learned from Pema is already working well on a couple bad habits that I’ve been trying to break for years and I am so pleased!! Try it yourself and you may well see what I mean and find success.

The Power of Unchangeable Deadlines

Here I am sitting in the Los Angeles on the way to Kauai. I know poor us, right? But what a day! Got up early to bury a rattle snake, fix a broken sprinkler pipe, negotiate the multi-million dollar sale of a property that I’ve been wanting to sell off, pick up the paperwork, write emails to the office and others, do a last check on the swimming pool motor, double check to make sure we have enough gas to make it to the airport, get packed for our trip, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.  It was quite a morning but so much better than the day before with all the stress and worry about the tight schedule we had today.  But why had I been so stressed?

Well, it’s simple. Before we have a big day planned, whether it’s a trip, a big event or a similar massive change from what we usually do, most of us are filled with stress over the great unknown outcome of all we have to do. When we get going on all the tasks that need to be done, then the stress starts to go away because we are so involved with the ‘doing’.  What’s so amazing to me is that most of us humans can and do get so focused and determined to get these time sensitive and necessary jobs done that we can and do manage to get tons more done than on a normal day. We can amaze ourselves at the efficiency and effectiveness with which we get things done.

I am pretty sure you have, in the past, experienced the same thing as I did these last two days.  I’m so impressed how efficient I can become if I have absolute deadlines that I have to meet. You know, like an airline departure time that won’t wait for me.

I guess we can say that one of the great powers of goal setting is in its time limits. In this case, it’s time limits that are set by others, time frames that can’t and won’t be changed for us.  And that’s probably a good thing.  The problem we have when we set goals for ourselves, whether they are physical, family, health or wealth goals, is that we can cop out and change those goals along the way.  If we can somehow set those goals in real, immovable ways, kind of like an airline flight

Think about that and see if you can come up with a plan or a method that might create for you a deadline that you won’t think about changing or that really is absolutely unchangeable so you can’t even begin to think about not hitting your goal! What would do that for you?

 

How to Live to be 142!

You no doubt have heard the rumor that all of us humans will die someday. Of course, I don’t believe every rumor I hear and this one sucks. I just don’t want to believe it! So maybe I’ll call for a huge boycott. You know, get a bunch of us older people together with big signs saying “We are boycotting death!” or “We refuse to die!” or “Death sucks and we won’t participate!” Well, it’s a nice thought but it probably won’t work. Oh yes, if we did it in front of a TV station they might put us on the news so everyone could get a big laugh out of it, but I don’t think that will help us avoid death or even prolong our lives by much.

However, there are things we can do to postpone the inevitable and live longer, stronger and in great health. In fact, there are some researchers that are “inching toward the seemingly impossible: a cure for aging,” according to the February 23, 2015 Time Magazine article. Maybe you saw that issue. On the cover was a picture of a cute baby with the headline “This Baby could Live to be 142 Years Old”. That headline certainly grabbed my attention and yes, I read every word of the several stories covering what the researchers have discovered and what we can do right now to postpone our own demise.

The main story was about “Mouse UT2598″ and the discovery of a compound called Rapamycin which seems to dramatically slow aging, at least in certain cells. If this compound works for humans it could increase lifespan to around 142 years. The research going on at the Jackson Laboratory and the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, is in its early stages and researchers don’t recommend that humans start popping Rapamycin pills just yet says David Harrison because there are some down sides they have discovered at this point in their research. But the good news for me at age 71 is that they have seen that, “Rapamycin is also neat because it works even when you start quite late in life”.

So if this compound isn’t for humans just yet what can we do about it now? The obvious answer, at least to me, is to do everything in my power to stay healthy, in hopes that science figures out how humans can safely take Rapamycin. And the most effective and proven ways to do that is by eating the best foods which, according to the researchers in the Time magazine article include fish, fruits, veggies and extra virgin olive oil as well as calorie restriction, periodic fasting and consistent exercise with maybe a bit of yoga and meditation.

Do all that and you will have a significantly better chance to live longer and maybe hang in there until they perfect Rapamycin for humans. If doing all those things that you can do and should do sounds like a tough challenge, then listen to the words of William James. What he said many years ago has helped me to better my life when I could see that I needed to make changes and knew that it was going to be a big challenge. “If you change your mind, you can change your life”. I have that burned into my brain and hope you do the same.

 

 

 

The Principles of Stick-To-It

As mentioned in the last two posts, the comments made by Jeff Rahill in this little “book report” he sent me has really had me thinking about what I wrote in How to Ignite Your Passion for Living. Even the author can use a little reminder here and there! Here are two more sections he pulled out and comments he made about them that highlight two areas particularly important to keep you on task:

In regards to the chapter “Clone Yourself with the Amazing “L” Factor”, Jeff noted that he uses lists himself and has for a while. He wrote, “Yes, I’ve been a prodigious list maker for decades. I switched from the little scraps of paper to my Day-Timer in 1972. ‘The strongest memory is weaker than the palest ink.’ (Write it down!) I update my to-do list every morning (if not the night before).”

And that is the way to do it. Keep creating lists and you will stay on task and succeed.

In regards to the chapter “The Greatest Lesson in Life. Get Going”, Jeff said, “The journey begins with the first step. Nothing happens until you take action. You mentioned the story of Alive, the plane crash survivors in the Andes. What an incredible story. I have seen that movie and still think about it. Nando Parrado took action and his incredible journey saved his friends. ‘When the morning light comes streamin’ in, I’ll get up and do it again.’ (Jackson Brown) Amen.”

This “get going” advice is something that we need to remember and do at every age and stage of our lives. No matter what you want to do, whether it’s goals you have set for your business, family, or personal health, the bottom line is, you just have to GET GOING!

If you’ve follow my blogs for very long you know that I am also a big time fan of counter acting aging by “keeping moving”.  I am 71 in less than two weeks and my “keeping moving” philosophy—as in work outs, tennis and walking—make me feel like I’m 50. (My Fit Bit measured me taking 22,707 steps yesterday–btw that’s 10.54 miles). Bottom line here is we all need to “get going” and keep going which will improve every part of our lives without question! That attitude and well-kept lists will help you Stick-To-It until those goals and dreams are yours.

ALMOST 5 MILLION

I got a bit of a shock via an email I received last week. It came from “Fitbit”. It was a summary report of my fitness for the year 2014. It said, “Whoa, take a look back at everything you accomplished in 2014!” And I did.

The shocker was my Fitbit recorded me taking 4,980,169 steps in just one year. That’s 2,341 miles. The message went on to say, “You might not have noticed when you were running errands, chasing the bus or hitting the gym after a long day, but every single step you took added up to something big. Something really big. It’s a year to be proud of and we’re pumped to be a part of it.”

I would have never guessed a year ago, when my wife gave me this little tiny thing called a Fitbit that I ever could or would take almost 5 million steps in a single year!

I wrote about my Fitbit in a blog early in 2014 saying that when we take time to measure and keep track of most anything, we tend to get better at whatever we are measuring. This is because we are competing against ourselves and we can see our progress. We just want to do better or do more today than we did yesterday and with those records to keep reminding us, we then are driven to continue improving each day after that.

After getting the summary report from Fitbit I am certainly even more motivated to continue improving my fitness and have challenged myself to do much better in 2015. In fact my goal is now 7 million steps for this year.

As all of us begin this new year, I want to push and challenge you to start measuring whatever it is that you want improve upon. It could be your wealth, your health, your donations of time and or money to others or anything you would like to be doing more of or be better at. Start today to keep track and I promise that ‘keeping track’ will to keep you ‘on track’ and you will get better and better at whatever you are measuring.

A List for Great Health

For the last few weeks I’ve been talking all about Money, Money, Money … so now I want to shift gears and talk about the extremely important subject of Health, Health, Health!  As most people know having tons of money without good health can be a real bummer. I can’t help but think of Steve Jobs with all his billions, who left this earth at a very early age because of a huge health issue that his money couldn’t solve.

I have preached for years that it’s better to read and re-read the very best book many times over to remind ourselves of whatever great lessons or super inspiration we got out of reading that great book the first time, since we tend to forget much of what we’ve learned. So with that in mind I was reviewing my notes of some of the best stuff I learned from reading Dr. Robert Lustig M.D. great words on health. So today I am going to give you a list that you can review at a glance to remind yourself of what you can do, and should be doing, to greatly increase your odds of achieving and keeping yourself in Great Health!

From Dr. Lustig’s great book entitled Fat Chance.

1. Sugar is killing us.

2. Your waist size is most important.

3. High fiber appears to limit total food intake.

4. Orange juice is worse than a sugar soda.

5. Alcohol increases fat around the liver and other organs.

6. Exercise works at so many levels, except your weight.

7. Studies show that those who skip breakfast eat more calories during the day.

8. Muscle burns more energy, even when you are at rest.

9. Consistency in exercise is the key.

10. Even 15 minutes a day is great for health.

11. Fiber one cereal has 14.9 grams of fiber.

12. Eat real food.

13. Don’t eat anything 4 hours before bed.

14. Wait 20 minutes before second helpings

15. Kids who get exercise during school do better academically.

16. Vegetables give you fiber and micro nutrients.

17. Resveratrol keeps inflammation down.

18. Diet is about weight loss and exercise is about inches and health.

19. People who eat veggie omelets at breakfast are less hungry at lunch time.

20. Eating protein does not stimulate insulin or hunger.

21. Alcohol is much worse than fructose and glucose because the lipid build up can lead to liver inflammation.

22. Alcohol for the same number of calories is more likely than glucose to cause chronic disease.

 

And here is another list that I wrote to myself so many years ago. I forgot where I got it–but it’s good and works.

Mood boosting super foods.

1. Tomatoes

2. Whole grains

3. Fatty fish

4. Dark chocolate

5. Spinach

6. Red meat -lean

Stick to the recommendations on these two lists and that commitment alone will show you great improvements your health!

 

Super Brain Gives You Anything You Want

Last week I ended my blog with a tease, saying I would give you some secrets and methods of how to train your brain to give you anything you want.  The authors of the book Super Brain say that you need a ‘matrix’ to work from to accomplish whatever goal or goals you set for yourself.  They also make the very powerful point that the “secret isn’t exerting more willpower or beating yourself up for not being perfect. The secret is changing without force.” So to achieve goals and objectives in your life without force you need to create a matrix for making better choices.

Obviously if you are trying to lose weight you wouldn’t set up a matrix that lists thing such as:

1. Eat more meals at fast food places.

2. Buy and stock more ice cream and donuts in the house.

3. Watch more T.V.

4. Drink more beer.

5. Hang out with more overweight people.

For your matrix to work with a weight loss objective you would  much list items that were opposite of those listed above and you would be better  served if the list contained 10 or 12, or even more, positive directions that you would follow.

For example, the book Super Brain gives a wonderful matrix for a positive lifestyle:

1. Have good friends.

2. Don’t isolate yourself.

3. Sustain a lifelong companionship with a spouse or partner.

4. Engage socially in worthwhile projects.

5. Be close with people who have a good lifestyle–habits are contagious.

6. Follow a purpose in life.

7. Leave time for play and relaxation.

8. Keep up satisfying sexual activity.

9. Address issues around anger.

10. Practice stress management.

One last word of wisdom from Super Brain–“Success comes when people act together and failure tends to happen alone.” This last quote from the book certainly has been the case with me and my life with everything from making tons of money to losing weight to being in tip top shape.  I’ve been so blessed to be able to hook up and hang around all the right people who have made it so much easier to start and stick with a particular matrix.

Go ahead and start today by creating your own matrix for what you want most at this time in your life!

 

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