Meditate

Close your eyes. Pay attention to your breathing. Count ten deep inhales and ten deep exhales. Open your eyes. How do you feel? You just meditated. This is might be an over simplification, but it counts. You don't have to be a monk in a robe in a temple to find a quiet space in your mind. Meditation can be done anywhere, anytime.

In meditation, a number of techniques can be used to slow down our brains and find a sense of calm. In any of these methods, the idea is to allow your thoughts to pass across your consciousness without judging them or letting them distract you. Acknowledge the things that bubble up out of your mind and let them pass by without judging yourself. You aren't going to levitate off the ground and you probably won't transcend this world and graduate to a higher form of existence, but who knows? Here are a few ways to try.

1) Seated  - Find a comfortable seated position, preferably away from screens, people or other distractions. It helps to set an alarm to go off after a preset amount of time, say 15 minutes. This way you don't have to worry about the clock while you practice. Close your eyes and begin to notice your breath. Let your breath slow down and elongate. Begin to count each breath, starting on the inhale. See if you can keep your mind focused on counting your breaths for a count of ten. Most likely, your thoughts will wander well before you reach ten (mine usually do). Pay attention to what thoughts come into your head. Are you stressed about work? Relationship? What errands you have to do later? A mistake you made earlier in the day? Acknowledge any of these as legitimate and let them drift away on the tide of your breath, to be dealt with at a later time. In this block of time, you are free to relax.

2) Walking - This method can be practiced during normal walks (ie; to school, work, the store) or you can walk specifically to meditate. Either way, decide to practice walking meditation before you start. In this method, I like to count every step with my left foot instead of my breaths. Similar to seated breathing, focus on the count of your steps and notice what thoughts enter your head. If you lose count, smile and start back at one. Don't close your eyes for this variation.

With either of these methods, you will gradually get better at allowing your thoughts to drift away. Don't worry if you aren't getting to ten breaths or X number of steps. That is not the point. We often get so wrapped up in our daily lives that we forget that we are in control, not our thoughts. Taking as little as five minutes a day to sit or walk quietly and with intention will serve as a reminder to slow down, breath and hopefully enjoy life a little bit more.

Add/Subtract

We all have habits; some good, some bad. Regular exercise and cooking meals at home = good. Procrastination and reflexively spending time in the smart phone hole = bad. How do these habits form? And how can we make a change? Like many other things, success starts with making a list. My wife and I recently sat down and listed the things we'd like to change, add or subtract from our lives. This process started by identifying the recurring troubles we both had in our weekly routines.

Missing workouts

Making time to exercise in the P.M. is hard. Our previous approach had been to try and sandwich a quick workout in between cleaning the house, putting our daughter to bed and making dinner. Plus, by this time of day, we were both usually pretty worn out. This meant that many nights passed without a workout happening.

Our solution? We moved our workout to the A.M. We had been sleeping until the baby woke up, usually between 7 and 8 am. We added an alarm at 6 am and, Monday through Saturday, we get out of bed and get our workout done for the day. We plan the workout and lay out our clothes and gear the night prior to give as much help to our bleary eyed future selves as possible. The mornings are usually cool and quiet, the perfect setting for a short, intense workout. We now face the rest of the day with a sense of already having accomplished something (and not thinking about when we are going to exercise).

Tech Hole

If you own a smart phone, you have probably found yourself picking it up and mindlessly thumbing through apps, not knowing what you are looking for until you find something that catches your attention. You have probably also channel surfed a time or two. The glow of the device and its unlimited access to information are known to activate the brain's reward system, much like chocolate or heroin. Our brains have not evolved to handle this technological onslaught and we, adults and children alike, are left mindlessly staring down in all situations, public or private. I see other people doing this and I am disgusted, yet I am 100% guilty of doing it myself.

To combat this deeply entrenched issue, we instituted a "no-fly zone" for devices and screens between the hours of 9 pm and 8 am. The reasons for these hours are two-fold: Starting the day with 2 hours of no screen time helps set the tone for the rest of the day. I used to check my phone upon waking, feeding my habit. Now, I exercise, write, make breakfast and prepare for the day, all before touching my device. The second reason is that the blue spectrum of light emitted by screens affects our brains' ability to shut down and go to sleep. Turning off all screens 1 hour prior to bed time allows us to wind down and get a full night's sleep.

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

After 6 days of morning workouts, Sunday deserves a change of pace. We still wake up at 6, only we spend our morning writing instead of sweating. She writes poetry and prose, I write a blog. It is a great time to sit quietly and gain clarity on thoughts that have built over the course of the week.

By making these changes, we are actively choosing how we want to live our lives. It is too easy to sit passively back and let life happen, wondering why things are the way they are. Identifying the activities we want to add and those we want to limit is key in living the happy, productive life for which we all strive. We will try this schedule for a month and reassess to see what effects we have seen.

2 minute rule

It's the beginning of a new year and the Internet is flush with ideas for resolutions. Diets, workout plans,  productivity tips abound.  I'm always on the lookout for ways to improve my routine, be it taking out head trash,  working on a weakness or revisiting old or lost habits.  Today I want to talk about an easy habit I'm trying to add; the 2 minute rule.

How many times throughout your day does a little task come your way?  Respond to an email,  clean a spill, fix a problem: these usually get put off until later and they either pile up or get forgotten.  The rule that I am trying to implement is if I can check something off of my to-do list in under 2 minutes,  I do it right away.  If not, I shelve it until later. Simple as that

The idea is that I don't want a bunch of little tasks to tackle at the end of the day. I will knock out quick items immediately,  leaving myself with more time to focus on larger,  usually more important tasks. 

Sometimes, these little tasks can turn into larger, more time consuming projects;  a lengthy email response or a trickier problem to solve. If you find a task taking more than 2 minutes, decide if it needs doing right now.  If not,  save it for later.

I hope this helps you navigate your world more efficiently.  It is working well for me.

Have a great day,

Jack