Listen Instead of Reading
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4 THOUGHTS
1. Focus On Enjoyment (but only if you want better results)
“Literally anything you can do to augment your enjoyment of training will facilitate a process focus and lead to better performance. If you will enjoy a given workout more in location A than in location B, you'll get more out of it in location A. If you will enjoy a workout more with training partner C than with training partner D, you'll get more out of it with training partner C. If you will enjoy a given workout more with music than without, you'll get more out of the workout with music. And so on.”
- Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient
I think this applies to our breathing, mindfulness, or any contemplative training: focus on enjoyment, and you’ll get way more out of it.
2. Jimi Hendrix and Breath Awareness
I bet when Jimi Hendrix picked up his guitar, it changed his whole demeanor. Just holding it likely put him in a different state.
That’s what breath awareness is like.
Sure, we can breathe in specific ways to tune our minds for certain thoughts or our bodies for certain states. But just noticing your breath immediately transforms you, like a musician holding their instrument.
So even if you don't change it, make sure you at least “pick up” your breathing several times today 🙏
3. Less Perceived Effort: Slow Breathing Helps with Both Layers
“Perceived effort actually has two layers. The first layer is how the athlete feels. The second layer is how the athlete feels about how she feels. The first layer is strictly physiological, whereas the second is emotional, or affective.”
- Matt Fitzgerald, How Bad Do You Want It?
This passage pertains to sports, but it applies perfectly to perceived effort in life in general. And slow breathing helps with both layers:
First Layer: Slow breathing improves how you feel by reducing physiological stress (cortisol, sympathetic activity, brain waves).
Second Layer: Slow breathing helps you feel better about how you feel by improving your emotional health.
So practice some mindful, slow breathing and watch your perceived effort in everyday tasks go down, allowing you to live a better life.
***
P.S. If you want to learn more about breathing for better emotional health, consider signing up for my 4-week course starting Aug 20th.
4. Element of Choice: Meditation’s Benefits for Your Whole Life
“If I had to say in one or two sentences what the benefits of meditation were for your whole life—for your emotional life in particular—it is that meditative practice helps introduce the element of choice. … We cannot necessarily control what the outside world offers us, but we can control how we respond to it. That is the element of choice, and choice creates freedom.”
- Erika Rosenberg, Ph.D., The Healing Power of Meditation
I have nothing to add but a few of these 👏👏👏
1 Quote
“It takes only two seconds, three seconds, to breathe in, to bring mind home to your body. And there, mind and body together, we are established in the here and the now, and you get in touch with the wonders of life, the Kingdom of God.””
P.S. This was transcribed from this wonderful 58-sec clip.
1 Answer
Category: Meditation Retreat
Answer: Participating in a meditation retreat has been shown to positively impact this metric, representing an increase in well-being, mindfulness, empathy, and ego resiliency and a decrease in depression, anxiety, neuroticism, and difficulties in emotion regulation.
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(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)
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Question: What is adaptive functioning?
P.S. I found this in The Healing Power of Meditation.
In good breath,
Nick Heath, T1D, PhD
“Breathing is the compound interest of health & wellness.”
P.S. POV: you’re a certified people pleaser
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* An asterisk by a quote indicates that I listened to this book on Audible. Therefore, the quotation might not be correct, but is my best attempt at reproducing the punctuation based on the narrator’s pace, tone, and pauses.