Good Enough Is Not Good Enough

Good Enough Is Not Good Enough

We all want to succeed at the things that we do in life.  To some, success is measured in accumulation of wealth, time spent with family, prestige earned from a job well done.  

Just like everything else that we do in life, words and labels are of paramount importance when we are defining what we do and what we don’t do.  When you label a job as “good enough,” you are perhaps missing one of the critical elements of performance and the quest for perfection.  Is good enough good enough?  Perhaps for some it is.  But for others, good enough is never good enough.  

Military Perspective

From a military or high risk professional perspective (high risk professionals are those individuals who risk their lives or risk the lives of others in the line of duty), good enough does not cut it.  When lives are on the line, good enough is never good enough.  We always strive for perfection.  We may never attain it, but we make continuous course corrections and seek critical feedback from our trusted agents to come as close as we can to a flawless performance.  This may seem like too much work for some people; however, when lives are on the line and failure could mean certain death or worse, then approaching flawless execution is the only answer.  When high risk professionals settle for the “good enough,” then complacency can raise its ugly head and we all know what happens when we get complacent.

Civilian Perspective

For some civilian professions, good enough is not good enough either.  When your favorite professional team wins their respective title, they immediately study their films to see how they can do better next season.  Even if they have won the game.  Striving for continuous perfection is the mark of any professional organization; it should be a part of what you do as well.  If you are taking out the trash, make it the most perfect trash taking out event that you can accomplish.  Why?  Because good enough becomes a habit that is hard to break.  When you strive for perfection in everything that you do, this also becomes a habit.  A good habit.  

Love to Fail

Most people avoid failure at all costs.  If you learn from your failures, then you should be happy to fail.  In fact, those who fail learn more than those who succeed.  Stories abound of companies and individuals failing countless times before they strike gold in their respective areas or expertise.  Failing should be something that you embrace, as long as you learn from it and you don’t get someone killed in the process.  That is why it is very important to learn from your failures in training and not when you are playing for keeps.  Accepting failure and seeing it as a challenge can be quite a learning experience.  I remember when I was nearly drowned during a phase of SEAL training called Pool Competency, or Pool Comp.  We were attached underwater by and instructor who commenced to tie hoses in your Underwater Breathing Apparatus.  As a student, you were supposed to clear the problem (often without the assistance of air in your lungs) and you had to follow a certain set of procedures.  Failing during Pool Comp assured that you would learn from your mistakes so that you would not drown during a real world underwater emergency.  Good enough did not exist in this situation.  By failing during this phase of training, I learned that one should not be too confident of one’s abilities and always be on the alert.  I eventually passed the event and moved on, but I learned a valuable lesson that day.

Taking out the Trash and Having Fun

Striving for perfection does not have to be a negative event.  We are so programmed to be failure averse and avoid criticism that we have become psychologically soft and too sensitive when it comes to failure.  The way that you can become more accepting of criticism and actually enjoy the process of striving for perfection is to suppress your own ego.  In fact, go ahead and kill it while you are at it.  Our egos take hold of our emotions and other faculties and drive us to avoid failure and criticism at all costs.  Instead, you should focus on the mission at hand.  What can I do to improve my performance so I can support this mission that I am on?  And if the mission is taking out the trash of sweeping the floor, approach it in the same way that you would any other “more important” mission.  You see, everything that we do has an innate importance to it because it builds our ability to perform in any situation.  Just think of how you will perform at something that you are truly passionate about if you can perform flawlessly at something that you don’t like or want to do, like taking out the trash.

Assignment

Push good enough out of your collective lexicon this week.  There is not place for it.  Strive for a flawless performance at everything that you do, from the most mundane to the most important.  Don’t do it for your own ego or self satisfaction.  Do it because it is the right thing to do and part of the mission that you are on.  A mission is always more important than the individual who is one it.  It supports a higher purpose and goal.  Practicing this pursuit of flawless performance at everything you do will pay huge dividends when you are in the arena and when you are doing something for real.

“Lean into it!”

Dr. N

Training to Increase Performance and Limit Injury

Training to Increase Performance and Limit Injury

The concept of training has existed as long as humans have been humans. We can see this in the play that animals conduct when they are little, whether it is the lion cub practicing for the kill or the chimpanzee posturing and practicing for a stand off with a potential competitor.  We train in order to get ready for something that is going to happen in the real world.  Most of us train for our jobs because we want to make money and provide for our families.  Some of us train so that we will survive at the jobs that we do; this is especially the case if you work in a high risk profession, such as an oil rig worker, military operator, or law enforcement officer.  The basic reason that we train is to increase performance and limit the chance of injury.  Let’s go back in time about 2500 years or so.  In battles, Spartans could not afford to be injured.  Their lives depended on it.  If a Spartan was injured during a battle, he probably did not survive to see the end of it.  Even a minor injury such as a twisted ankle or a dislocated shoulder (well those are not that minor) could prove devastating.  Thankfully, we have progressed into a more “civilized” society and we no longer live and die by how in shape or injury free we are.  However, even today, injury prevention is the number one rule for professionals in the realm of fitness. Injuries hinder any advancement toward achievable goals, diminish motivation, and in some extreme cases make the trainer look bad.

Preventing Injuries

An injury is simply physical damage to an area of the body. Most do not take into consideration is the negative psychological effect injuries spawn in a once highly excited and motivated participant. Injury prevention is a continuing progression for all individuals. Understanding the commonality and root of injuries are a large part in developing plans that implement injury prevention strategies. Many of these strategies include fixing weak areas, correcting musculature imbalances, implementing proper movement mechanics, and constant engagement of correct posture. Application of each of these during a strength training session can greatly enhance injury prevention.

Posture and movement mechanics are the two most noticeable in the gym. Of course, taking into consideration that bad movement mechanics is usually do to imbalances, weak and tight areas that do nothing but win over poor mobility. It is important the focus on the chronic injuries versus the acute. With that said, acute injuries again, can usually be prevented with the above strategies and if an injury were to occur absolute attention should be observed toward the healing process. Most feel a small pain and push through the workout, WRONG!  Chronic injuries usually entail that the above strategies are a constant, successive issue. Without correction, degeneration of motor sequencing and muscular tissue are certain to transpire.  Many common injuries happen out of ego and ignorance. Both of these can and should be avoided. Proper technique requires correct knowledge. Then the individual must have the mobility to execute the movement. If the mobility is limited, the individual must make corrections before continuing with an improper movement. This is usually skipped, creating poor movement patterns, which lead to imbalances. Use progression in every aspect of training!

Finding the Why of Your Training

The most important question that you should ask yourself when coming up with any training program (physical or other) is to answer the why question.  Why are you doing this type of training?  Is this the best use of your time?  What is the purpose of the training and what is the end state or when do I declare that the training is accomplished?  These are important questions to ask yourself before you start the training or even plan for it.  Whatever the answer to the why question, at a minimum you should have a training plan to execute the training properly.  If you don’t, then you will be haphazardly going through motions and never seeing measurable progress.  You are more likely to stop the training or train improperly and get injured or burned out.  

Assignment

This week, renew your training program.  If you don't have a training program, it is time to develop one.  Make sure you have a quantifiable goal and write it down. Find the why in your training.  Make sure that you have a date set when you will accomplish the goal.  Develop a training plan that incorporates strength training (if you are developing a physical training plan) at least twice a week.  The rest of the week, you should be practicing events that are leading up to your goal.  If you don't have a goal, then find one that supports your passions and satisfies a higher purpose.  Doing "whatever you feel like doing" for the day leads to doing what you like and often times, this leads to overuse injuries or underdevelopment of your weak points.  

Take care of yourself so you don't become a liability to your fellow Spartan!

“Lean into it!”

Travis Williams and Dr. N

Feeling Your Present Presence

Feeling  Your Present Presence

Autism is an interesting condition.  Research suggests that the condition is the result of an overabundance of dopamine in the brain.  Dopamine stimulates your brain into action and helps you to focus on certain stimuli.  The problem is, when you have too much of it, you become overwhelmed with confusing inputs and you don’t know what to do.  Individuals with autism, depending on the severity of the condition, retract into themselves to block out all the confusion.  Speech becomes very difficult, perhaps because one’s own voice creates even more stimulation.  Your sense of smell and other senses become heightened and overloaded.  However, there is a silver lining to all of this.  A lesson that we can all learn and adapt to our own lives.  After living with my own autistic children for 20 plus years, I can make this observation and would like to share this theory with you.

The Future and the Past

Neurologically typical individuals have a sense of the past and the future.  Both situations cause us to produce cortisol, the stress hormone.  The interesting thing about this is that the future and past don’t matter because they are pure fantasy.  In reality, both don’t exist.  They are abstract concepts made up in our minds.  For example, last week perhaps you opened presents with your family.  Did you anticipate what the scene would look like before it happened?  Were you stressed in any way when you thought about guests coming over?  This is normal in the course of your day and helps you to action.  The problem is, when individuals dwell too long in the future or the past, they sacrifice their present presence.  Future events rarely turn out just the way we anticipate them; they are abstract concepts that, at times, plague us with stress and indecision.  Past events are OK if we don’t regret them but perhaps great event in the past, when compared to your present situation, can bring your grief and stress as well.  Living in the moment is the key to a happy and stress free life  

“…when individuals dwell too long in the future or the past, they sacrifice their present presence…”

Autism and the Present Moment

In my experience, my daughter does not understand about the past and the future.  The realization manifested itself to me when were at the Toy Store one day.  Playing with toys happens in the store.  When you ask her if you want her to take the toy home to play with it later, the concept is not understood at all.  Her brain seems to be only wired for present tense thinking.  The past does not exist, neither does the future.  A situation of no stress, which is both a blessing and a curse.  The blessing is that you are fully present in the moment, taking everything in and enjoying and being amazed by everything.  No stress.  The curse is that, if you stay in that state for too long, you get nothing done and you become self absorbed and tend to not interact with others, the main symptoms of Autism. 

Assignment for the Week:  Feeling Your Present Presence

Your present presence is very important.  It’s the way your mind, body and spirit interacts with the outside world.  Go to a quiet place and feel your body reaching out to everything around you.  The chair that you are sitting in.  The air around you.  The wind on your face.  The sound of the traffic in the distance.  Become in tune with all of those sounds and finally focus on your own breathing and see how your breathing interacts with all of the sensory input that you are feeling around you.  This is a deliberate exercise to get into the present moment.  As you can see, no stress is present in that moment.  It’s physiologically impossible for cortisol to be secreted when you are in your present presence.  However, staying in that moment will help you accomplish nothing for the day.  Know when to activate your present presence and when to turn it off.  You don’t need to be constantly doing something.  That should be your battle cry for the new year.  Take it from my daughter, it works.

Dr. N 

Change

Change is a word and concept that has been used throughout the ages.  Many songs have been written about it; it has been used in science with the greek symbol “delta,” and even has been the recent center piece for campaign slogans.  Unfortunately, recent economic shifts and in certain cases climactic conditions have caused us to use the word even more than before.  But what exactly is change?  Do we resist it and loathe it or do we use it to our advantage? 

Characteristics of Change

The word change actually means to make or become different (in verb form) or the instance of becoming different in noun form.  Change can take many forms, such as the change in the seasons or the change of water from  solid to a liquid.  Change can be physical or psychological. Change can be internal or external, and can be both positive and negative. However, change is very dependent on one’s point of view, perspective, or even coping mechanism.  If we view the world in a negative light, then all change is for the most part bad.  If, however, we see the world through the eyes of the “glass is half full” lens or the even better "I am just happy to have a glass at all," then change becomes a challenge that we take on with hunger and drive.  We accept change for what it is and even embrace it, thriving in the adventure of it all.  Once again, gratitude rears its head, yet again, in the kernel that makes all change a good thing.     

Accepting Change is a choice that we make

We really have not choice in the matter.  Change will come.  And when it does, it’s our choice whether to accept it and look at the bright side, or wallow in self pity and remember the “glory days.”  The choice is predominantly yours to make.  Having the will to see change in a positive way is what differentiates us from animals that are predominantly driven by instinct.  Your prefrontal cortex helps you to adapt to changes and reprogram yourself to see change in a positive light.  However, as you probably suspect, this takes work on our part. 

Grow through change

My wife always says, “change is inevitable, growth is optional.”  That is so true.  The option to grow lies deep within our own souls.  In the place where FEAR (False Events Appearing Real) resides.  We may be able to put on a facade for most people, but the person in the mirror never lies to you.  To be able to truly embrace change is very, very difficult, but it can be done.  Viewing change as a challenge is the first step.  We all like or even love competition.  Don’t let change get the best of you.  Plan for it and be organized and ready to embrace it when it happens.  Visualize what it will be like after the change.  For example, if you are switching jobs soon actually attempt to put yourself in the shoes of the new job; anticipate what it will feel like.  This will moderate any negative effects that may come your way.  Finally, get out and exercise both your mind and your body.  A strong immune system is fairly resilient to change. a weak immune system will succumb to it.  

One final note on change.  Most of the time, change is a good thing.  When change does not take place in our lives, we become complacent and stagnant.  Complacency and stagnation can degrade your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual states.  That is why it is always good to “change things up a bit” in everything that you do; your diet, your workouts, your relationship with your spouse, the trips that you take with your kids, the route that you take when you go for a walk with your dog. 

Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks

Speaking of your dog, the old saying is not true.  Aging people can learn new things and should.  Adapting a “child like” fascination when you get older will keep you young.  The term neuroplasticity is a fairly recent descriptor to our capacity of the human brain to adapt and learn new things, even as we age.  The fact is that our neurons NEVER stop changing and adapting.  This is both a good and a bad thing, and we need to understand why.  Our brain’s capacity to quickly learn new things also makes us vulnerable to traumatic events, bad habits, or mindless activities such as channel surfing or Facebook surfing.  Limiting these mindless activities will retain our capacities to learn new things and engage in meaningful activities with other people.  When you teach an old dog new tricks, make sure that the tricks are beneficial and stimulating and not destructive.  

Assignment

Look at the routines in your life.  Look at ways that you can change things up a bit.  This will help you to deal with real change when it happens.  Think of it as training for the real thing.  When you learn to adapt to change on a weekly/daily basis, your brain becomes more pliable and when real change happens, you are conditioned for it and it does not affect you as much.  Do something completely different this week with your spouse or with your friends.  Don’t do the same old thing.  That same old thing is contributing to your complacency and neurological calcification.  

I hope that reading this article has brought you more in tune with change and how to deal with it.  Sometimes just thinking about things and communicating with someone alleviates some of the anxiety that we feel with change. 

Just remember that change is the one constant in our lives!

Dr. N

What's Old is New

What’s Old is New 

I have been surfing for 30 years now on and off, and the sport never gets old.  To paraphrase one of my favorite surf movies; surfing is a place where you lose yourself and find yourself, a true spiritual experience…We are lucky if we have passions such as surfing in our lives.  These can be anything, from cooking to photography to relationships with our significance others.  All of these passions require one thing in common.  They require work.  Without work, these passions soon become stagnant and eventually fade away into memories of what once was.  But what does “work” consist of?  What are the ingredients that we need to keep our passions alive and well, whether they are the passions that we sometimes call hobbies or the very threads of our friends and families?  The methodologies are the same.

Start with a goal

Do you want to become a better photographer this year?  A better dancer?  How do you define the term better?  Make sure that the goal that is associated with your passions passes the SMART test.  The goal needs to be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.  What is it exactly that you want to accomplish with the relationship with your spouse this year?  Be specific.  How can you measure the improvements that you will make in your schoolwork this year?  Is getting a B average good enough for you?  Is becoming a world class surfer attainable for you this year?  Or should you make an incremental goal of competing at the professional level only in the State this year, and making plans to expand to the National level in three years?  Do you have the time and energy to dedicate yourself to opening your own business this year?  Set a realistic goal based on your own capabilities in the now.  Finally, what is your timeframe for completing this goal?  Should you have weekly meetings with your spouse to make sure you are reaching your short term goals of spending more time together in the hopes of rekindling a relationship that has been ravaged by work stress?  All of these SMART factors need to be in place for your goal to be real and not just a pipe dream.  Everything that you do should have a goal attached to it, including your work and personal passions.  If you don’t know where you are going, then how can you expect to stay motivated in what you are doing?  Feeling calcified or bored with what you are doing?  Set a goal using the above guidelines.

Hold Gratitude in Your Vision

Without gratitude, our passions can quickly turn into frustrations.  When we are frustrated with our own passions or are unable to partake as much as we want to in the things that we like to do, we grow resentful and often undermine the very things that we wish to practice.  Keeping a grateful mindset deflects any negativity that you may hold towards your passion.  For example, if you concentrate on the negatives of how you are not able to perform on the shooting range, you will not be able to shoot well the next time your go to the shooting range.  If, however, you decide to be grateful for the fact that you know how to shoot and that you are improving your dry fire techniques in order to maximize your time doing live fire, then you turn the negativity into a more positive outcome.  When you get frustrated with your spouse, remember why you got married in the first place and the first time you fell in love.  Be grateful for the fact that you have someone that loves you unconditionally and has been there for you through thick and thin.  Holding gratitude in the forefront of everything that you do will fuel your passion to higher levels than you ever thought imaginable.  

Try Something New

Rekindling and old relationship with something new breathes new life into passion and keeps your brain from becoming stagnant and calcified.  Making new pathways is possible, even with old relationships.  Back to surfing.  I recently decided to upgrade my surfing to a more high performance board that I was not sure if I was ready to ride.  At the advice of one of my more experienced surfing friends, I tried surfing on a shorter, wider, and more volumetric board than I had done in the past.  Although I loved to surf, I had become stagnant and set in my ways when it came to riding boards.  I hesitated to ride anything shorter than 10 feet in length (we are talking stand up paddle surfing here, so for those that are pure surfers I know that 10 feet seems long to you).  When I finally rode a board that was 9’5” I was blown away by the performance, stability, and my ability to pull some pretty radical maneuvers almost naturally (30 years of experience finally pays off!). Trying a new board was all it took to do that.  Rekindle your passion with something new.  Perhaps take a class that is related to your passion.  Read a book.  Go on a new vacation.  Cook a brand new recipe.  Whatever your passion is, try something new with it.  

It Takes Work

Lastly, work drives your passion to fruition.  We often think that passions just happen.  That is not the case.  Passion and work work in a circuitous way, where work drives passion and passion causes us to work.  The two concepts drive each other for the passion to be successful and rewarding.  Loving your spouse with all your heart takes work.  Period.  Becoming a great surfer or photographer or pick the hobby requires work.  Yes, the passion of a relationship will drive you to work hard; but, your passion alone will not help you through the down times when you don’t feel like putting the effort in because you are tired or distracted.  In those cases, hard work will drive you back into your passion and help you to succeed or get into a better position regarding your relationship.  

Assignment

Make a list of the passions that you have this week.  What are some of the goals that you wish to accomplish for each of them?  Remember the SMART concept and apply it here.  Are you willing to put in the work that you need to succeed?  What kind of work are you willing to put into your relationships?  These, without a doubt, are the most important elements in your life and will help you to achieve other passions.  Remember to inject new elements into your passions to keep them interesting and fresh.  Are you willing to put in the work?  I think you are.

“Lean into it!”

Dr. N

The Edge

The Edge

In my experience and research, I have found that the phenomenon of stress is necessary for our survival.  Without stress, humans would not be able to live on the planet.  Stress motivates us to act; you would most likely not get out of bed in the morning if you did not have stress nagging at you go to get up.  In that respect, stress is a good thing.  Stress is also necessary for our survival in that, during life threatening situations, it activates our fight or flight response.  Think about the last time you reacted quickly and effectively in traffic to avoid a collision; this is the fight or flight response at full throttle.  We were designed and hard wired for this type of stress.  However, if left to its own devices, the same stress that can save your life can kill you if you allow stress to enter (and stay) in your life.  Everyone has their capacity of stress that they can deal with.  Building resilience in the form of effective coping mechanisms can not only allow you to deal with the stresses that you have, but able to take on more stress and make it through what others may consider insurmountable situations.  Just like anything else, this just requires the necessary training and application of that training to make a stand against the more chronic stresses.  The build up of these chronic stresses in our lives can leave us on the edge of a breakdown at any given time.  One seemingly innocuous stress may push us over the edge.  We can, however, build resilience by following some simple directions and mitigating the stresses that we can control.  

Stress as a Challenge

One of the firs steps in controlling those chronic stresses is changing the way you perceive or look at the stress.  Seeing the stress as a challenge or a game is the quickest and easiest way not to let the stress get the better of you.  When we see something as a challenge, we activate our competitive instincts and figure a way to vanquish or “win” against the stress.  This gives your brain something active to do instead of sitting down and feeling sorry for yourself and giving up.  Also, if you do this long enough, you won’t feel stress anymore and actually start to feel excitement instead.  You start to feel as though you can conquer anything that gets in your path; this becomes a habit that will surprise you; all you need to do is start practicing, and it doesn’t matter how small the stress is, just practice this new philosophy.  

Getting Organized

We are all bombarded by things that we need to get done.  These tasks can cause a huge amount of stress.  Getting (and staying) organized is one of the best ways to be in control of your stress.  Remember that stress comes from undecided tasks and not undone tasks.  When you place a task into an efficient system that works for you, then even tasks that are not done don’t pose a threat to you because you know, eventually, that you will get them done.  Organization also becomes a habit.  Once you get organized, you crave that organization.  You may have not linked being organized to stress until now.  We may not be able to control all of our stresses, but being organized is certainly something that we can control.  

Getting Physical

We are all physical beings.  We were designed to move around, explore and manipulate our environment for survival purposes.  Our bodies response to movement, and so does our stress response.  When we exercise, we release endorphins in our bodies which simultaneously reduce pain and increase sensations of pleasure.  Also, when you are in physical shape, you are able to take on more physical stress and sleep become more effective.  Eating the right food, or fueling your body, is an essential part of getting physical.  You are less resilient and more prone to diseases if you don’t fuel your body correctly.  

Helping Others

Another key ingredient in staving off stress and building resilience is helping other people.  However, this should not be at the expense of helping yourself first.  Remember when you are on a plane and the flight attendant says to put your oxygen mask on first before helping you child’s mask on?  Why do you think they tell you this?  Because you cannot help your child if you are passed out on the seat because of low oxygen.  Help yourself first and then help others.  I think that is where many people get it wrong.  When you take care of yourself first with the intention of being there for others, this is not a selfish act.  In fact, it is a smart thing to do because you won’t be around to help others if you don’t take care of yourself first.  The buzzword in recent years is compassion fatigue, often describing individuals whose job it is to take care of others.  I firmly believe that compassion fatigue would be diminished if these individuals had a firm regiment of self care BEFORE they took on the task of helping others.  Put on the mask first.    

Being Grateful

Being grateful is a hidden characteristic of being resilient and reducing your stress.  By being grateful, we take attention away from all the negatives in our lives and we focus on the positives.  No matter what negative things happen to use, there is always a way to find a positive spin and find gratitude.  When we see events from a positive perspective and feel gratitude, we open our minds to the perspective that things are not as bad as they first appear.  In many ways, gratitude is the first step in living in the present moment as we take everything around us into our consciousness; this happens specifically when we are engaged in nature.  There is nothing more awe striking as watching a sunrise or sunset on the ocean and being grateful for the fact that you have sight.  This is just one example of how gratitude can affect our consciousness level happiness and help us focus our minds on what truly matters in life.  

Assignment 

How full is your cup of stress.  Recognize that if your cup fills up too much with stress, you may be headings for a breakdown in your performance.  We all have our breaking points and we may be closer to the edge than we think.  Taking a good account of all of your stresses is the first step in taking control of them.  Write down all of the things that are stressing you out on the left hand side of a piece of paper.  On the right hand side write down what you are going to do about it or what the next step in dealing with this stress will be.  Remember that ultimately, you are in control of your own destiny.  You are the captain of your own ship and you control the speed, the steering, the engines; everything about the ship is your responsibility.  Whether you let yourself fall of the edge, or navigate your way safely around it, is entirely up to you.

“Lean into it!”

Dr. N

Distracted Living

Distracted Living

Recently, a gentleman pulled up next to me in a vehicle at a stop light and I noticed that he had one cell phone in each hand, texting away on both of them at the same time.  Make no mistake about it, he was driving and when the light turned green, he pulled away still holding both phones!  I am sure you have witnessed something similar (or worse) in your experiences, either driving or perhaps walking down the street.  People are more and more distracted as they navigate their ways through life.  We often want to blame technology; however, just like anything else, we need to look into our own minds and see what is going on before we blame an artificial product that should not have control over us.

 Smart Cell Phones

2007 was the year that changed everything.  In 2007, Apple launched the iPhone, a revolutionary communication device using touch screen technology and had access to the Internet, hold all your music, and could make a phone call.  When it first came out, iPhone only sold on the AT&T network and sold 1.39 units.  In 2015, iPhone sales were 200 times what they were in 2007.  And the competition from other manufacturers is clear, with all the major companies having an iPhone life device in the mix.  Needless to say, everyone has a smartphone now.  The consequences to our distraction is amazing.  People carry their phones with them, usually in their pockets.  Whenever a notification comes in, you either get a vibration in your pocket or a beep; this constant distraction activates our dopamine system in our brains and we are compelled to look at our phones.  How often does this happen to you in a day?  When this does happen, do you break contact with the person that you are with to answer the call or look at the notification?  Perhaps you look down for a second while driving?  Or worse, pick up the phone and start texting or responding to a notification?  Being distracted is not only dangerous while driving, but it also sends an important message to other people that are in the room with you, “my phone is more important than you are.”   Think about that the next time that you look at your phone in the presence of someone else.

 Television and Movies 

While television can be a useful device, it can take control of your life and, in a sense, be even worse than a smart phone.  The images that one sees on television can affect us, both consciously and subconsciously.  Have you ever felt tired after watching a long movie?  Movies are so realistic and sometimes fast paced that they can leave you physically and mentally exhausted.  I remember feeing adrenaline flowing through my body after I saw the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan for the first time in the theater.  I’ll never forget that experience.  Subject yourself to that too often and for too long, and your brain will start to flash back those images while you are going through your normal life.  Again, you will be distracted or get triggered by graphic memories of the recent movie of television show that you watched.  Remember that at the end of the day, we are tuned to see movement and focus in on it.  That is why television is so mesmerizing and addictive.  Our brains are drawn to keep watching, even though we may not even be that interested in what is going on.  The more movement the better; and our thoughts get hijacked as a result. 

Internet and Social Media

By having constant access to information at our finger tips, and having access to a network of thousands of our closest “friends” at all times, our brains are once again distracted by various software programs designed to keep us focused and staying online.  Social media programs such as Facebook make money by having us stay on their sites.  Getting and keeping our attention is their primary objective.  And they succeed at the expense of the real people around you.  Whether you are on a phone or compute is irrelevant.  The fact that you spend time on one of these sites, even it is in 10 second increments all day long, is helping accomplish the mission of these social media companies.  Remember that your brain does not multi-task.  That is a physiological impossibility.  You can only do one thing at a time.  While seemingly doing multiple things at once (checking a website or social media platform while talking with someone) you are rapidly switching back and forth and consequently burning energy in the process.  It’s no wonder that we are mentally exhausted at the end of the day.  Being distracted has a mental toll in that we burn energy every time we switch from one thing to another, and having readily available distractions at our finger tips does not help.

Speed

Years ago, we used to have Lay Aways at stores, where you choose a product, leave it at the store, and pay towards it for weeks and sometimes months before taking it home.  This was a form of delayed reward and taught us to wait and anticipate something in the future.  In today’s super fast paced world, the Lay Away concept has given way to getting Amazon to deliver your product the next day (I hear Amazon is working on speeding this up with drones soon)  and run up your credit card balance.  The speed the we do business is sometimes mind blowing.  I believe that this has had a direct effect on our personal lives.  We speed through conversations, dinner, phone calls, text messages, or any kind of activity that we engage in with others at the same speed that we expect Amazon to deliver our packages.  We have become habitually distracted  because we expect things to happen faster and faster, and what’s worse is that this is creating artificial stress when speed does not happen as we expect or want it to.  How often do you get to the end of the day and forget what you did at the beginning of the day?  Are the days blending together as you forget some of the important details and conversations that you had with the people that matter to you most?  That is the result of the distraction that occurred because you are going too fast. 

Thoughts 

The most significant impact is that all these distractions have a direct effect on our thoughts.  When our thoughts are affected and swayed by technology, we are thrown into either the future or the past.  Our thoughts are taken away from the present moment, whether that present moment is simply driving a car, talking or spending time with your significant other or child, or observing a sunrise or sunset. Remember that our brains desire to be fully engaged.  Dopamine is what makes this possible.  We enjoy an engaging conversation or even an engaging thought process.  Unfortunately, this engagement mechanism can be manipulated.  Hijacking and controlling our thoughts is what advertising companies and now social media companies are designed to do, often without us even knowing it. What you think about is very important and can directly affect your physical health.  Don’t let technology distract you into a state of unhealthiness, or worse, unhappiness.  

Assignment  

What is your screen time this week?  My screen time on my cell phone last week was 1 hour and 32 minutes.  Unfortunately, I spend a long time on my computer because of my job; however, making a conscious effort not to spend time on my computer in the presence of others is my goal this week.  Make a similar goal for yourself.  Refrain from using technology while driving or while in the presence of other people.  Remember that what you watch on television or in the movies has a direct effect on your thoughts and can distract you from what is really important, the relationships that you have with other people.  Spend less time engaged with technology and instead engage with others around you, even if those people are strangers, waiting in line somewhere or in a doctor’s office, for example. Technology can be a useful tool if used wisely, and you can learn a lot from watching certain programming.  However, don’t let technology become such a distraction to you that you forget what is most important in your life.

“Lean into it!”

Dr. N

Rough Seas Ahead

Rough Seas Ahead

It doesn’t take rocket scientist to see that we live in a stressful world.  No matter who we are, we are exposed to hardships and turmoil almost on a daily basis.  Some people definitely have it better or worse than others, but we all are exposed to various aspects of stress.  How we deal with that stress, defines who we are as fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, workers, brothers, sisters and human beings. The way we deal with the stress is known as a coping mechanism.  Coping mechanisms can be healthy or unhealthy.  They can be effective or ineffective.  The issue is that coping mechanisms that we think are effective may not be effective after all.  As it turns out, very few coping mechanisms are truly effective.  

Effective Coping Mechanisms

Most stress reduction classes talk about deep breathing and massages as being effective coping mechanisms against stress.  Although everyone loves a massage, coping mechanisms that don’t deal with the root of what is stressing you out are only temporary relievers of stress.  Understanding the underlying psychological underpinnings of your stress are the keys to effectively coping with the stress.  Developing cognitive strategies that replace negative, self defeating thoughts with positive, uplifting thoughts help us to take stress head on and conquer it.  Obstacles that cause us stress become challenges that we overcome instead of something insurmountable or scary.  This coping mechanisms is called cognitive re-training.  You can practice this technique everyday, but you need to work at it just like any other type of training.  

Non-Effective Coping Mechanisms

The trouble with traditional coping mechanisms is that they don’t work.  But even worse, they trick us in to thinking that they do work.  Even the so called healthy coping mechanisms like going for a run or getting a drink to relax, only mask and delay our effective coping mechanisms from working properly.  If a child is scared of monsters in the dark, you don’t go into her room and make her do jumping jacks or give her a shoulder massage to relieve her stress.  You turn on the lights and cognitive re-train her brain into seeing that there is nothing that is gong to hurt her.  In a similar way, you must do this in your own life.  You must re-train your brain into seeing stress for what it truly is, a self-manufactured entity that needs to be dealt with systematically and without emotion.

Despair Disillusionment and Over Driven Reward Systems

 We have come a long way as a human species.  As I mentioned in previous articles, around 70,000 years ago, we underwent a cognitive revolution that propelled us well beyond the scope of any other animal on the planet.  This cognitive revolution was both a blessing and a curse, because it allowed us to believe in systems that did not visually exist and gave way to our modern technological society which has virtually eliminated infectious diseases and child mortality in most of the civilized world.  However, with this advancement came a disillusionment of our own biological selves.  We have lost touch with what we truly are s humans, and our bodies have paid the penalty. Our technology in the form of television, video games, social media, instant gratification through shopping, has put our reward systems (dopamine) on overdrive.  We constantly need new and more exciting stimulation because we never have periods of rest and recovery.  As a consequence, we are constantly stressed and pushed towards a state of wanting more and more.  Moreover, life style diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, suicides, alcoholism, opiate addiction; all these types of illnesses have made it to the forefront of human evolution.  Couple this with an insatiable appetite for media consumption which over drives our brain’s reward system, and you have a recipe for disaster.  It’s no wonder that our Nation’s life expectancy keeps decreasing in recent years.  For the first time in history, our children are slated die sooner than we are.  This should be a wake up call to us all that something needs to be done.  The research suggests that an overwhelming majority of humans are in a state of despair, or what I call a chronic stress response.  This leads to the above mentioned conditions and and worst of all, leads to a degrading quality of life that we pass on to the next generation in perpetuity.  Something needs to be done.

Resilience 101

Basic Underwater Class 89  made famous the SEAL motto, “The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday.”  If I had to name a motto that would sum up what resilience is all about, it would have to be that motto.  Resting on your laurels should never be part of resilience.  Humans always are looking for a challenge, that’s what we do.  That’s how we got to where we are today.  Think of the resilience that was necessary to cross an uncharted ocean back in the 1400s on a wooden ship.  That was the norm back then.  No satellite navigation; no Sea Tow.  Adopting a resilience posture and knowing that rough seas will always be around the corner sets us up for a challenging and rewarding journey into the unknown.  By building ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually on a daily basis, we are ready for whatever life will throw at us.  We learn from our mistakes and use effective coping mechanisms to navigate through the perils of our lives.  

Assignment and Reflection

Take care of yourself this week.  Use your technology wisely and judiciously.  Spend time with your family without technology, in the presence of pure nature.  Remember that 99 percent of stress is self manufactured.  If the stress is not going to kill you instantly, such as a bus about to hit you, then you are hurting yourself by letting your emotions get the best of you.  If you feel like you need stress in your life, take up an activity that will naturally challenge you in a healthy way instead.  Remember that whatever you do and plan to do, life will always throw you a curve ball.  Remember that making lemonade out of lemons and always being prepared for rough seas is the key to being resilient.  Easier said than down but “Leaning into it” is the only way to truly live your life to the fullest.  

Dr. N

6 Perspectives from the Eyes of a Child:

6 Perspectives from the Eyes of a Child:

Discovery

True Passion

Boundless Energy

Living in the moment

Simple Happiness

Embrace the Boredom!  

Discovery 

I remember a long time ago I was on a flight to Paris on a 777. It was an Air France flight and everything was in French. It was really neat to hear all the different sounds and I really got a kick out of it. As I sat there, really getting into all the new experiences, I realized that the person sitting next to me (French) was getting a little annoyed or was really surprised that I truly found this otherwise common situation interesting.  I remember speaking to him (in French) and he told me in a sarcastic way something like, "You are truly amazed at all these things, aren't you?"  The message here is to always continue to be curious about things. Take interest and fascinate yourself with the simple things.  The miracle of life itself.  The way your spouse looks at you.  The sounds of the rain hitting the roof.  By the way, this attitude is contagious.  Don't let the "adults" in your life tell you otherwise.  Try to get as many "grow up" looks as you can throughout the day.  You will know that you have accomplished the discovery mission.  I can’t tell you how many times my daughters have looked at me with excited huge brown eyes (with the exception of Elena whose picture is on this blog) at a letter in the mail box addressed to them or a frog found in the backyard. Make discovery a part of your life.

True Passion

My kids are very dramatic.  They will tell you about something that happened at school or at gymnastics and and the raw, innocent passion flows from their bodies.  The kind of passion academy awards are given to.  You see, Passion runs in my family and my wife’s family. The kind of passion that you see in busy Italian restaurants.  The "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" type passion.  You get the picture.  What stops passion?  Fear.  Fear of what people will say or think about you.  Passion is the closest thing you will get to literally being on fire.  It is the fun in being human.  Passion is closely linked to our emotions and our emotions both affect other people and affect ourselves as well. Passion has been known to ignite people, movements, entire countries.  The power of passion must be harnessed and practiced on a daily basis.

 Let yourself go; let yourself be a kid again.

An example of passion in my kids: the passion in the eyes of my son as he tells me “I am the fastest runner!” He then takes off (in the house) running at full steam. This type of passion is never lost. It lies in the deepest corners of our spirit. Tap into it. Let yourself really feel it!

Boundless Energy

My uncle once told me while looking at my velociraptors (that is what I call my kids), “if we ran around like them we would be dead tired.” The reason that kids have that much energy is that they don’t know any better. Ever notice how soundly they sleep at night?  Part of it is youth but from experience I know that the energy cycle is a circular one. The more we consciously do more active things the more energy we get.  And if you tell yourself that you are "too old" or "too tired" then you are.  Your body will believe whatever your mind says, so change the way you talk about your energy.  Proper nutrition as well as plenty of rest helps as well. If you have less energy than you want, change your lifestyle and be more active.  Free yourself from the mind crippling thoughts of things you MUST do or the negative feelings and get outside.  Maybe a series of activities throughout the day that are less intense will do the trick?

Living in the Moment

My son wants me to build legos with him all the time. When I tell him that I will come upstairs after I clean the kitchen he replies, “But that will be in a long time!"  Kids lack the concept of time. They know that things will occur in the future but they seem to have an unbelievable way of living in the present. You can see it in their eyes. Living in the moment ties to true passion. The sense of pure excitement when eating a brownie (what did he say?) The total concentration of pouring a make believe tea in a my little pony tea cup. The extreme joy when conducting the perfect canon ball into a pool in the summer.  Pure, in the moment type joy.  No past or future to bog them down.  No external thoughts or complications. Total concentration. I can learn from this. I really can.  Some of my clients tell me that children have the advantage of not having responsibilities.  This may be true but using adult experience and wisdom we should be able to mindfully practice the "smelling the roses" metaphor of living in the moment.  Right? 

Simple Happiness

My kids have a lot of toys. Not an overabundance but a lot of them. Some of the toys have over a thousand pieces in them, like some of the lego sets. Some of them are electronic master pieces, like the Wii. The most fun that I ever saw my kids have, however, was with a large cardboard box from the store. The kids immediately began playing with this box and pretended to be monsters coming out of the box. The simple fun that they had lasted for days and days.  They still gravitate towards cardboard boxes even now at the old age of 10!  So the "things" in our lives don't really bring us happiness.  It is what we do with the people around us that does.  Now "things" are great if they bring us closer to people.  But concentrate on the things and you are destined for an empty, unfulfilled life; that's an HPC guarantee.  This simple happiness mantra leads us to our final perspective, imagination.

Embrace the Boredom

“I’m bored”, is the joke that we tell our 18 year old daughter. The reality is that you want your kids to be a little bored, if not a lot bored. Boredom stimulates motivation and motivation stimulates creativity. Creativity sparks the imagination into gear.  With creativity and imagination, the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that is responsible for cognitive thought and is what makes us human) is working out during this time.  So if boredom leads to this in my child; let them be bored!  Always having something to do or a place to be will create confusion and a whirlwind in a child's brain as well as an adult brain.  It will also overstimulate the stress response because your brain will constantly be orienting towards a stimulus that it feels it should try to face and control.  Stimulate imagination instead through periods of reflection (even young children do this when they are allowed to come up with off the wall questions about certain subjects.) Embrace the boredom!

Assignment

If you have access to children, this assignment will be fairly simple.  If not, you will have to use your imagination.  The next time you are with a child, observe what they do.  Look at the wonder in their eyes and the boundless curiosity and amazement that they bring to the world.  Think of a time when you were a child and imagine yourself observing the world un the same way.  Look at all the marvelous patterns and colors.  Be amazed at the simple things in life: the way the web of life works and unfolds itself in front of you. Observe the smells, the sounds, everything around you.  Don’t think about complicated issues and let yourself be bored.  Write down the various perspectives in a notebook for a week.  If you need an outline, use the 6 perspectives listed at the beginning of this article as a guide.  Feel free to add more child perspectives as well.  

Until next time, take care, and look into a child’s eyes. You will be surprised at what you learn.

"Lean into it!"

Dr. N

The Journey

One of my favorite workouts of all time, The Journey, consists of the following:

Armenian ball walk 25 yards 

Tire flips 25 yards 

25 HPC kettle bell flips

Tire flips 25 yards

Dumbbell walk 25 yards

25 HPC kettle bell flips

Dumbbell walk 25 yards

Armenian ball walk 50 yards

50 pull-ups

Armenian ball walk 50 yards

Dumbbell walk 25 yards

25 HPC kettle bell flips

Dumbbell walk 25 yards

Tire flips 25 yards

25 HPC Kettle bell flips 

Tire flips 25 yards

Armenian ball walk 25 yards

The neat thing about this “Journey”, is that you end up where you started, at the beginning.  We call this, “full circle”, and ironically, it happens quite a bit to us in life.  We go on trips, only to return home.  We pursue happiness by taking on more and more responsibility at work, only to find out that happiness comes from simply “being happy” and has nothing to do with our jobs.  The journey, in that instance, may become elusive, or even pointless.  Understanding the various journeys that we undertake, both big and small, helps us to enjoy them just for their own sake, and has nothing to do in how or where we end up.   

Cherish the Journey 

Often, when we begin a journey, we anticipate and sometimes look forward to the end.  Believe me, after doing the above workout with many individuals, we definitely look forward to the end.  But is this something that we should do?  No.  Looking forward to the end of the journey takes away the enjoyment of being in the moment, of being bored, and of being tired.  What we fail to realize is that all of these feelings are the benefits of being alive.  Being alive and feeling the life flowing within you are two of the most important elements of the journey.  Once the journey is over and you realize your goal, it’s over.  You feel a sense of accomplishment but then you look for another journey.  Craving the end of one journey and moving onto another journey without enjoying the ride builds frustration, impatience, and negativity.  

Applying the Journey in Everyday Life

Taking everything as a journey can benefit you in the long run.  Even when going to work, cherish every moment of the trip.  From the roar of your engine to the way the sun hits your windshield; take in all of the elements of your trip and bask in them.  Stop light?  Not a problem, focus on breathing techniques to lower your heart rate or listen to that audio book.  If you start feeling negativity or impatience creep in, apply a dose of gratitude and awe and those feelings will subside.  The two bundles of feelings, negativity and gratitude, cannot coexist together.  When on the second half of the journey (the workout), your body starts to get really tired, especially during the middle sets of tire flips and pull-ups.  Instead of feeling sorry for yourself in that instance, focusing on the positive notion that you are still alive and still moving forward (even if others are moving faster than you) can help you get through the pain.  Moreover, being grateful that you are still alive and kicking is another way to conquer the pain and doubt that you get when you feel like you cannot go on.  This applies to life as well as the workout above.  

When the Going Gets Tough

When you wake up every morning, you begin a new journey.  Thinking of all of the things that you need to accomplish throughout the day can be overwhelming if you think about them all at the same time.  However, if you focus on one thing at a time, using an organizational system to keep you on track, the journey becomes easier since you are using a one step at a time process instead of looking at the entire day all at once.  This applies to the many journeys that we undertake, from workouts to losing weight.  Look at the individual steps instead of the entire elephant.    

Taking one bite at a time and enjoying each step of the journey is what it’s all about.  Make sure you enjoy and savor each bite.  That’s the difficult part.  Our insatiable appetite for more and more drives us to want to eat the entire elephant all at once, and then start on another journey to eat another elephant, and yet another.  Slow down and smell the roses.  This may sound easy, but it’s not.  It takes work, planning, and most importantly, self awareness.

Assignment for the Week

If you are going on a long journey this week, perhaps to visit relatives or friends, you can practice the art of enjoying the journey.  When you are on the road, take everything in that you can.  Observe as much as you can and become fascinated with it all.  If you are a passenger, this is easier to do.  If you are on an airplane, this is very easy to do because just the fact that you are flying thousands of feet in the air should be enough to spark some sort of awe, and gratitude!  Be grateful that you have the means to travel at will around the world.  Some people do not have that luxury.  Be grateful for the family and friends that you are visiting this week.  Enjoy the entire journey and try not to think of the end of the journey.  Practicing this type of deliberate enjoyment will have compounding effects on the rest of the smaller journeys that you take, including the journey of life itself.

Enjoy the ride.

Dr. N