The Mind is Always Listening

-
The breathing you hear, is the breathing you fear. The mind listens to it all: sound, speed, mouth, nose. It’s all noticed deeply in the brainstem. Pay attention to your thinking throughout the day and then take note on how you’re breathing during these moments of thought/emotion.
Mouth breathing exhausts the tank, tends to make us more reactive. Fast breathing overstimulates us especially if it’s going on all day which makes it harder to solve problems (Few examples). Begin to pay attention at your next meeting. Can you hear yourself breathing or others while talking?Taking big sighs in between talking points? Upper chest movements? Dry mouth? (Observe yours or their behaviors during this) learn something from it.
Study the next sporting event. You see problem solving and motor skills through the breath. Are the shoulders rising on a mouth breath or nasal breath? Do they look timid in their eyes? Are their decisions reactive down the stretch on a movement they’ve practiced millions of times? They’ve trained to go the duration of a game so is the athlete out of shape or just a dysfunctional breather? •
You can start practicing on your own. Unless you’re really pushing it in a performance, spend your day being aware of breathing very calmly and quietly through the nose. Notice the effect this has on the way you think and feel. (Homeostasis keeps the breathing rate at the energetic demands of the body. Breathe less y’all!)
One Love, Harv

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mind-Body Connection

-
We are mental beings, in a physical body, in a physical world. The mind is mental and is subjective. The body is physical and is objective. At some point they intersect. Due to our human nature, we happen to have both. To some degree, the two are tethered together, like two birds of a feather (am I rapping?). So how does this happen? How does the abstract, subjective, emotional, non-material world intersect with the concrete, objective, factual, material world? In human form, here is how: There is a chain link of interaction, starting on either end of the spectrum. Within this spectrum are 5 main factors that interact up and down the chain. Physical Level 1: Environment: The physical world. Nothing mental about it. Only physical matter. Physical nature. Everything on the Periodic Table of Elements. Level 2: Physical Body: Receptors. This is humans’ first interaction with the physical world, and happens on a physical level. Still physical to physical. We feel pain, we feel heat, we feel
Read more

Between Stimulus and Reaction

-
One could argue the optimization of performance is the choice made under pressure. At its core you have few things that you really control in these short bursts between a stimulus and your reaction. (Breath) The paradox here is that it certainly does not seem like it. Our brain is wired to make decisions all day in hopes of keeping us safe. This creates a massive amount of chaos. Constantly bouncing back and forth between past and future decisions. And like all things this means (Energy). This is how chess players are capable of burning thousands of calories a day during a competition. They’re thinking, solving and projecting (Mental Energy). Think of people in sales, coaches or teachers...Exhausted at the end of the day purely through talking. (Emotional Energy) (Physical Energy) Look at google or YouTube of any exhausted runner, fighter or athlete. Or observe your dog after chasing all the sticks we throw them. Chances are they’re breathing through their mouth, their eyes are squint
Read more

Pulling The Weeds

-
Being an observer of human behavior for a living is equally rewarding and exhausting. Why? The reward comes from repeatedly seeing the triumph in our human spirit after tragedy, and from observing families and friends sharing love and growth together. The exhaustion comes from repeatedly seeing the human ego sabotage human decency or fracture relationships, and from seeing fear cripple the confidence or joy that should be the essence of our human experience. Pulling the Weeds. In order to grasp the full picture, it feels useful to first examine what behaviors do not fulfill us. If we can understand what the opposite of fulfillment is, then the path to fulfillment comes a bit more clear. By no means is this list comprehensive, but it includes a vast array of what it looks like when insecurities and disillusioned thought patterns make an appearance. Stagnant Unaccountable Angry Pessimistic Fixed mindset/stubborn Arrogant Fragile Physically unhealthy Insecure Unreliable Manipulative Contr
Read more