Working4Me

MiniPost: Snow Shovelling with Polar FA-20 vs FT-60

Feedback. We know it's valuable. We know we need it to help progress toward our well-formed outcomes. There are so many ways to collect and analyze feedback that it boggles the mind but I have been very pleased with one particular way of measuring feedback regarding my physical activity and performance over time: electronic heart rate monitors.

I've been using a Polar FT60 heart rate monitor to help track my workouts and their effectiveness, allowing the STAR training program to guide my efforts. It provides great feedback and measurability which I will write about in the future - remember for now that feedback helps your relentless self-improvement and helps to fuel aggressive optimism. 

A while ago I also stumbled across an FA-20 Activity Monitor on clearance. It was affordable enough that I decided to pick one up just to try it out. It's based on computing your activity levels all day long rather than just in relatively short bouts of intense exercise, although it does have workout tracking built in (not heart rate-based, but accelerometer based).  This difference in measurement was highlighted today when I wore both units while shovelling the sidewalk. 

My FT-60 estimated my calories burned during the snow shovelling bout as around 220 while the FA-20, using my body motion, decided that I was still having a "lazy day"  (seriously, the watch literally says this stuff) and that I had burned about 6 calories since putting it on for the day.

It's probably calibrated around the swinging motion of your arms while walking or running and shovelling snow does not match those movements, leading to the interesting feedback I got. Lesson: use the right tool to measure the right activity. Even a HRM might not be completely accurate but it's at least available to be graphed in context with all of my other exercise. I've read that the newer FT-80 might be a better fit for someone doing the varied activities that I do (including some weight training) but for now I absolutely love the FT-60 and won't train without it.

That said, I am thinking of wearing my FA-20 more just to see what it thinks of my non-training activity levels.  I think it's meant more as an entry-level device to get sedentary people moving, who will then probably want to upgrade to something more interesting like the FT- devices.

 

 

Remember to Put Your Fork Down!

In the United States, tomorrow is the holiday called "Thanksgiving". It's a day where the nation is to relax with family and take stock of our blessings. Something like this is key to Aggressive Optimism, wherein I encourage people to 1) maintain cycles in their lives and 2) power their attitude with gratitude.

I've probably mentioned this before but I will touch on it again: reading John Grinder and Carmen Bostic St. Claire's "Turtles All The Way Down" left an unexpected and far-reaching impact on me. One of the things I took from that book was the discussion on coherent cultures. I can't recall any specific text about time but I relate my concept of cyclical time to having read that book... time for a re-read!

In any case, Thanksgiving represents a yearly cycle where we can all check in with what it is we are thankful for. There's always something! I am going through some lean times right now but I am still able to stir up feelings of gratitude for many things. And for the spiritually inclined, I encourage you to reflect on what and/or who you might be thankful TO. If you're not so inclined and won't consider changing, I suggest finding something or someone to aim your thanks at, even if it's your unconscious mind :-)

As a final note, please remember to put your fork and spoon down between bites! Bring mindfulness to the food you eat tomorrow and you will help keep from sliding into a weight gain period. Put the glass or bottle down between sips as well, and drink lots of water!

Peace to you and your families.

 

Breathing Through Conflict

It happens to all of us. Some situation in which we find ourselves seems to spiral out of control, with tensions and emotional energy increasing in intensity. Perhaps you're in a meeting, and conflict arises. Maybe you're working on a project and suddenly there's a problem going on. Or maybe you've found a mistake on your grocery receipt and the customer service staff do not want to help you.

If you've been learning and applying NLP for any length of time, you've probably learned about rapport. One of the techniques for gaining and maintaining rapport is to notice and match the breathing rate of the person with whom you wish to be in rapport. But what happens when the situation is changing so rapidly that anything short of instant rapport will not suffice? What if there are multiple players with whom it's difficult to gain rapport? What if you're dealing with someone who seems to always take the opposite direction to which you're trying to lead?

One tactic I would suggest is simply "holding the center".  Nothing too mystical here - just watch your own breathing and maintain it. Keep it nice and slow and easy. As you breathe, you might notice that it slows down on its own slightly and some of the tension in your mind and body can be let go. Your own stress levels diminish, and you are more able to see the way out of your situation.

Check your posture - tension in the shoulders, back, and neck can aggravate a tense situation and might even encourage you to escalate the conflict rather than tone things down.

An image I like to use is standing in the center of the hurricane. The thing is, you're not an island that's stationary and about to be pummeled by the other side of the eye. No, you are a moving column that has your own spin, and by being flexible yet holding fast to the center of all that stormy activity, perhaps you can slow the winds over time and diminish the conflict. The winds are calm in the eye of the storm. Breathe and maintain that calm. Perhaps rapport can come after that.

5 Tips for Keeping Your Cool in the Current Economy

It's been quite some time since I've last posted; I've been keeping very busy and working on some improvements to my life so it's for good reason. 

What are we all doing, as folks interested in NLP and peak performance, to make sure we're not drowning in the bad news of today's economy? I'd just like to share a few simple things I'm doing to keep an even keel and prevent myself from being overtaken by stress. YMMV.

• Maintaining an active intellectual and spiritual life   - I'll leave the spirituality (or non-spirituality) up to you, but I can't not talk about the realization I've had relating to the mind. It's not a new discovery but it's inspired in my case by Turtles All The Way Down by John Grinder. Play games. Solve puzzles. Play at activities that are absorbing a even slightly frustrating to your mind. This might break up thought patterns that are causing stress in your life. It may even let your subconscious mind see things in a new way.  Sometimes a good distracting game is all I need to have an "A-Ha!" moment about some vexing problem.
• Create a nutritional shortlist - pare down the number of supplements you're taking. If you must, eliminate them in favor of healthy, whole foods until you can realistically and responsibly afford your normal supplement program.
• Continue your daily short trance breaks or power naps if you have the time.  And I bet you have the time to enter a light trance for just five minutes a day.  It's another way to give your mind a rest by directing it somewhere other than the chatter of everyday life. 
• Get daily sunshine and fresh air when available
• Keep in touch.  A strong network of good relationships will help you in the short and the long term, and you'll be helping those with whom you relate.  

As I come up with more, I'll post them here.  These are all things that you can work in; no matter how tough things get I would expect you could maintain at least one of these stress-busting habits.

What are some things you're doing just to keep the stress off? Comment below.

Hypnosis found close in effectiveness to counseling

A recent study conducted with 246 men and women who desired to quit smoking apparently showed that hypnosis is similar in effectiveness to traditional counseling.

Further, the study showed greater effectiveness for hypnosis in a group that identified themselves as having experienced depression!

The study was conducted over one year by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and funded by the California Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program.

It seems that a lack of research exists in this area. The design of studies is full of potential pitfalls as well, such as what script they hypnotist is using, whether or not they even use a script, their hypnotic technique, and more variables that can affect the outcome of using hypnosis to achieve any goal.

For more details on the study: http://pub.ucsf.edu/today/cache/feature/200806201.html