CHAPTER 18
Mindfulness—Tidy Up Your Mind to Stand Taller
“It is the mind itself which shapes the body.”
—Friedrich Schiller
We’ve spent a lot of time looking at the various ways the body affects the mind, but in truth, they are indivisible processes. You can just as well come from a top-down approach by saying the state of one’s mind shapes their body and be equally correct. Some people will experience greater change from a bottom-up (focus on the body to affect the mind) approach and others from a top-down (focus on the mind to affect the body); this is for you to determine for yourself. If you’re not sure what works best for you, try it from both sides!
Lao-tzu famously said, “If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.” Wise words, although he left out the postural association to thinking forward or backward. University of Aberdeen psychological scientist Lynden Miles and fellow researchers have shown that mental time travel (chromesthesia) is actually represented in the sensorimotor systems that regulate movement. They found that thinking about the past or the future literally moves the body: Focusing on the past swayed study subjects backward, while those pondering future events drifted forward! “The embodiment of time and space yields an overt behavioral marker of an otherwise invisible mental operation,” explained Miles and his colleagues.1
This suggests perhaps the unsightly forward head posture (aka text neck) so many modern people experience could be a bigger issue than just a tight neck. Becoming more mindful creates a host of beneficial effects, ranging from pain management to releasing chronic tension, and, as we now know, improving your posture. Put simply, gaining control of your mind will allow you to become a more physically capable and resilient human being.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ALIGNMENT
“Happiness is not a matter of intensity, but one of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.”
—Thomas Merton
Earlier, we touched on the link between our mood and how we carry ourselves. I’d like to return to this topic for a moment because it also pertains to this chapter’s main focus: mindfulness. When you are physically aligned from head to toe, you’re able to move more gracefully and powerfully. You inhabit your body more effortlessly, like what Taoist philosophers would refer to as Wu-Wei, which literally translates to “non-doing” and feels like effortless action.
But there’s more to it than that. How we’re aligned physically also has a profound impact on our mental state. We commonly think of the word “attitude” as our emotional approach to a situation, but that’s a relatively modern usage. The term actually used to refer to one’s physical posture. Charles Darwin, for example, described an attitude as a collection of movements such as a specific posture that depicts how a person is feeling at a particular time. Conversely, it’s still common for us to talk about our “posture” toward an event in a non-bodily way, i.e., our attitude toward the event.
This isn’t just a question of terminology, but also psychobiology. As discussed in to Chapter 1, such findings are backed up by the work of San Francisco State University professor of psychology Richard Peper. One of his studies found that skipping for two minutes versus walking with a slouched position noticeably changed participants’ energy and hormone levels. “Emotions and thoughts affect our posture and energy levels; conversely, posture and energy affect our emotions and thoughts,” Peper explained in an interview with Fast Company.2
This is why it’s essential we pay attention to our physical positioning and thought life with equal care and intention. If we let either one become slouchy, it will have a significant effect on the other. When both are aligned and dynamic, we feel and act more positively. Simply put, if we want to unlock our physical potential, we must first change our minds.
EVERY MOMENT IS AN OPPORTUNITY
“Our bodies know they belong; it is our minds that make our lives so homeless.”
—John O’Donoghue
It’s all too easy to become stuck spinning our wheels, obsessing over what we’ve done and said or projecting what we’re going to do next. In doing so, we fall into the trap of neglecting the value of presence, because we’re stuck in a time-traveling tug-of-war between past and future. Then we clutter up any remaining space with constant social media updates, texts, and checking everything from the weather to sports scores to the news. The million-dollar question is whether we chronically check these updates because we actually care, or could it be that we’ve lost touch with how to be alone and present with ourselves?
Let’s face it, to be completely present with yourself free of any distraction (hold that thought, I just got a text) can be uncomfortable and even scary for the uninitiated. In his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig doesn’t just explore what it’s like to devote himself fully to fixing up an old bike. Rather, he argues that we should be fully present in everything we do, including the way we move and think. “The past cannot remember the past. The future can’t generate the future,” Pirsig writes. “The cutting edge of this instant right here and now is always nothing less than the totality of everything there is.”3 Think of inhabiting your mind like a training session in a gym—your thought patterns are a product of the level of care you’ve taken in crafting them. Each moment you practice presence by simply bringing your attention back to the here and now is like a single repetition. With time and repetitions, your presence muscle will be strong enough to sustain any distraction.
YOU ARE THE SUM OF YOUR THOUGHTS
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
—William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Florida State University researchers found that when participants read a couple of lines encouraging them to be mindful of every element of dishwashing—like the temperature of the water and fragrance of the dish soap—they reported a 27 percent decrease in nervousness after the task and a 25 percent increase in inspiration. You can begin doing this right now: Pay attention to the pressure of your body upon whatever it may be in contact with (chair, floor, couch, pillows, etc.). Notice the temperature on your skin, the ambient sounds, the smell of the air, the quality of light perfusing through the room, and the thoughts passing through your mind. Any time you’re feeling stressed, bring your attention back to these points, and you will begin to feel calmer in your mind and body.
I’ve heard it said it’s physically impossible to be anxious and completely present at the same time. Lessons on how to occupy the mind with ease to feel less nervous and more inspired are rarely taught in school, and the effects are evident. For example, the number of people under age twenty receiving Medicaid-funded prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs tripled between 1999 and 2008, according to an analysis by Mathematica.4 Our thoughts are powerful and, if left unattended in the modern world, can grow out of control.
You could think of the mind like a garden with the power to yield a spectacular harvest so long as you pay it adequate attention by regularly plucking the weeds (meditation/intentional movement and breathing) so they don’t choke out the nourishing plants (health/happiness/clarity). The catch with the mind garden is that it will produce whatever seed you sow, and every moment you’re planting seeds that may not show themselves until next season. We think we can get away with negative self-talk and a lack of presence because we don’t always see a drastic immediate change, but we don’t realize the harvest of our present reality is the product of our thoughts from last season.
ALIGN YOURSELF
Pick a project for yourself and commit to a time to get started. Try to eliminate optional distractions and fully focus both body and mind on the task at hand—whether that’s rebuilding an old motorcycle like Robert Pirsig or simply catching up on all those overdue household chores. And take joy in the fact that you likely have hands to wash dishes in the first place; count your blessings regularly, and the momentary magic begins poking its head out to be noticed. Realistically, you and I will both be worm food sooner than we think, so let’s just consider every moment from this point forward to be extra credit; it’s like icing on the cake, so enjoy it!
CLOSE OPEN LOOPS
You may have heard it said that nature abhors a vacuum. Well, it doesn’t like open loops, either. Yet the attention economy we’re now all part of is conspiring to open a can of loop-ass on us every single day, bombarding our brains with more new information than we can possibly hope to keep up with. Your attention is an invaluable commodity to advertisers of all kinds, and those endless notifications on your digital devices are preying on exactly that.
Every distraction grenade lobbed over your mental wall by marketers and advertisers explodes and starts a fire, as do the work-related ones that mean most white-collar workers spend 50 percent of their time receiving information rather than actually putting it to use.5 When we let dozens, hundreds, or thousands of these blazes burn, it’s no wonder we feel mentally fried at night.
Mindfulness can be the water that quells these fires and closes all those pesky open loops. As can the simple act of deliberately doing nothing. We keep buying into the delusion we have to do more, even though we know athletes who follow this dubious prescription end up injured and burned out. So just as you wouldn’t do the same hard workout seven days a week, you can also give your mind a rest to process the information it’s already saturated in.
UNLEASH YOUR INNER ANIMAL
Have you ever found it interesting that humans are the only creatures on the planet that “practice” meditation? We’re always trying to “out-human” ourselves with hacks, shortcuts, and health fads, and yet rather than seeking man-made complexity, it could be argued that what we need to do is look to the comparative simplicity of nature for answers. One of the reasons animals don’t meditate—other than their lack of intellectual development—is that the way they live every day is conducive to relaxation. Sure, they’re able to trigger a self-preservatory fight-or-flight state to evade capture or to prey on food, but then they immediately down-regulate into rest-and-digest mode (not least the male lion, which sleeps up to twenty hours a day).
A single identifiable issue modern people have in relation to stress is a sincere lack of purgative tools to let go of life’s daily stressors. Stanford professor and world-renowned neuroscientist Dr. Robert Sapolsky discusses the accumulative tendencies of stress in Western culture in his book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. He points out that a distinct difference between wild animals and human beings is acute versus chronic stress. When a zebra just barely escapes the grips of a lion’s jaws, it goes from full stress response, complete with a juicy cocktail of stress hormones including epinephrine (adrenaline) and cortisol, to total relaxation in a matter of moments.6 Zebras have learned to not only accelerate their nervous system like a Tesla, but also decelerate quickly. However, we humans tend to only do the former, while neglecting the latter. As a result, we get stuck in the “on” position and never fully wind down.
This hormonal geyser we set off when we get stressed is extremely beneficial in the short term to recruit the strength and energy to react to a stimulus by increasing the heart rate, increasing blood pressure to push blood into the muscles to run, opening up the small airways in the lungs to take in as much oxygen as possible, and sharpening senses such as sight and hearing. It’s like taking a race car to the track to open it up and see what it can do, a totally healthy and natural experience for the engine (occasionally). The problem arises when the gas pedal gets stuck on redline and you’re attempting to pump the brakes while the throttle is still partially (or wide) open.
When we get stuck in a chronic stress state, we hold too much tension in the neck, shoulders, and upper back, often leading to headaches or migraines. We are also coiled tightly like a spring, ready to attack physically or verbally at the slightest provocation. Our vision narrows because, from an evolutionary standpoint, this stress response was engaged when a predator was nearby and our forebears had to either flee or fight. We’re primed and ready for action, but often there’s no outlet because we’re just stuck in meetings or traffic—so we get tenser and tighter.
Perhaps the key lesson human beings can learn from animals is the subtle art of releasing the gas pedal. Wild animals gracefully fluctuate in between the sympathetic (gas) and parasympathetic (brake) with their natural attention to their movement and survival in nature. We possess the superpower of thinking ourselves out of a homeostatic (balanced) state. Humans tend more to sit in place and ruminate on what once was or could be. But your movement purges the stress from the body, and your attention reduces the space for it to return. We only have so much mental bandwidth; if your attention goes to mastering the way in which you pour your water or wash your car, you won’t be feeding the stressful strain of thought seeds.
ALIGN YOURSELF
The next time you’re feeling like you’re stuck in a stressed-out state, try sitting in a sauna for twenty minutes and then taking a cold plunge. Don’t have these facilities nearby? Then combining a hot and cold shower will do just fine. This will give your body a powerful reset through the autonomic nervous system and also help to clear out whatever junk is clogging up your mind.
SOUL SELF-CARE
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
—Rumi
I’ve spent a lot time and energy flaying aching muscles on foam rollers, pounding them with percussion therapy guns, and rolling around on strangely shaped mobility tools. Yet I was able to resolve chronic tension I’d been poking at for years with a more inside-out approach during a Vipassana meditation retreat doing not much more than sitting in place.
When translated from the Sanskrit, vipassana means “to see things as they really are.” The retreat involved a lot of seated meditation and focused breath work, during which we were encouraged to “scan” our bodies to discover any points holding tension and patiently allow time for them to release.
This opened my eyes to the reality that many of the chronic pains I had experienced over the years would stop flaring up if I’d just give my nervous system some time each day to quiet down. Combine this with efficient movement mechanics, along with the other principles outlined in the book, and your body is on its way to once again feeling youthful and pain-free.
This isn’t merely anecdotal. Science shows us meditation can have a potent impact on reducing pain and resolving structural dysfunction. In his book Aware, Dr. Daniel J. Siegel cites a 10,000-person study that found those who used the Wheel of Awareness model of mindfulness reduced their chronic pain, while researchers Elizabeth Blackburn and Elissa Epel have shown that mind training boosts immune function, enhances cellular repair, and reduces inflammation. Siegel states that one of the ways practicing quiet, still self-awareness daily heals is that it puts pain back in the proper emotional context, rather than catastrophizing it. He adds that meditation is useful in “finding a way to reduce anxiety or fear and replace that with a sense of clarity or calm.”7
ALIGN YOURSELF
Begin observing the connection between your mental state and the physical tension present in your body. Notice when you’re more stressed out: Do your muscles get tighter, do your shoulders creep up to your ears, does your sphincter clench up? Is this sensation mental or physical? At what point exactly does the mental/emotional experience split from the physical, or is it all just one experience? Ponder this question for homework…
MIND YOUR BREATH
“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” So said Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. His point is that no matter what he feels in response to the shifting sands of circumstance, he can always re-center himself by simply becoming aware of his breathing pattern. A lot of physical practices require you to be in a certain place to perform a set activity (like playing tennis on a court, say) or have prerequisite equipment (a basketball or soccer ball). But part of the beauty of breath work is that it’s always available, you can do it anywhere, and you don’t need anything other than yourself and a little self-focus.
Whether it’s your mind, heart, or both surging away from you, controlled breathing provides the opportunity to play physical and cognitive catch-up. A study led by Stanford biochemists and published in Science showed that a certain group of nerves is in direct contact with the region of the brain that regulates arousal. There was a direct correlation between breathing depth and rate and the level of calmness or anxiousness at the neurological level.8
“If we can slow breathing down, as we can do by deep breathing or slow controlled breaths… these neurons then don’t signal the arousal center, and don’t hyperactivate the brain. So you can calm your breathing and also calm your mind,” study co-author Mark Krasnow told an interviewer for Time.9
ALIGN YOURSELF
Try this breathing exercise to combine touch, breath, and mindfulness. Use the index and middle finger of your right hand to take your own pulse on your left wrist (you can find the radial artery just under the pad of your thumb on the inside of your wrist). Feel your pulse under your fingertips and begin noticing how it speeds up slightly when you breathe in and slows down as you breathe out. Simply observe this connection of your breath to your heartbeat for two to three minutes and check in with how you feel. A greater contrast in the speed of your pulse between inhalation and exhalation is an indication your body is in a balanced state.
TECHNIQUES AND RESOURCES
If you are still on the fence of all this meditation stuff and just want to dip your toes in, that’s great: there are options! Here are a couple easily accessible apps I’ve found helpful:
Head Space
Waking Up: Guided Meditation with Sam Harris
Apps not your thing? No problem; let’s explore a screen-free introspective practice. Chapter 13 has information on the body scan practiced upon waking in Vipassana meditation. Here is a bit more information on the actual sitting part.
VIPASSANA STYLE MEDITATION
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
—Joseph Campbell
Typically, practitioners of Vipassana will sit for two total hours each day. Thankfully for you, that’s not what I’m suggesting here. We’re just going to borrow the basic techniques from the style and leave it up to you how long you prefer to practice. Let’s try to start with setting a timer for a ten-minute sit before bed and/or upon waking.
During this time, you’re going to assume a comfortable sitting position (refer to Chapter 4) and do nothing but notice the air moving through your nostrils. Focus on the subtle sensations of the cool air moving up your airways and the warm air moving out. If this feels easy after some time, you can begin noticing any subtle sensation throughout your entire body, starting with the top of your head and slowly scanning all the way down to your toes. If that becomes easy, you can begin scanning the inside of your body for sensation. When your mind wanders (It will. A lot. That’s OK.), just softly come back to the breath, free of judgment or disappointment at your mind wandering yet again.
There is a lot to this style of meditation, but that’s where I’ll leave it for now. Remember you can incorporate these meditation principles into your daily life, including your movement practice or gym time. Take time as often as you feel compelled to during your day to notice the sensations throughout your body and the breath moving through your nostrils (refer to Chapter 5)—you’ll likely find it surprisingly calming.
For those of you interested in exploring this style of meditation in a deeper way, take a look at www.dhamma.org to read more deeply on the practice and possibly even schedule a ten-day sit for a deep-dive introduction to it. I found this experience to be invaluable and would recommend it to anyone eager to explore the uncovered nooks and crannies of their subconscious operating system (i.e., the mind).
Alignment Assignment
Make a mindfulness date with yourself to practice one of the techniques in this chapter for a few minutes every day; remember your own mindfulness spans beyond incense and meditation cushions. Start incorporating it into your movement as you walk through the world. Notice the contour of the ground under your feet, the air against your skin, and the cadence of your stride. While you’re at it, start actively taking notice of the eye color of each person you come in contact with throughout your day. There are some beautiful eyes out there; enjoy!