Tag Archives: focus

ONE – An Intentionally Aware Study

ONE. It’s a concept that’s quite loaded. When I think of that word, I think of a Yoga studio here in Vancouver that I attended the opening of, filled with stylish yogis doing much better down dogs then me and having much longer hair then me. I think of airy hippies floating around a circle with magic beads encouraging us to become one with the world, our thoughts, others, and roar like the lions (or tigresses) we are. I think of Bob Marley bouncing around with his Rastafarians on a stage with big amps, one love man. I think of one more cup of coffee, for the road. I think of the feeling of walking through the forest with something I cannot call by name tingling up my spine like a vine.

You see, I’ve become conflicted with how ONE can be ONE in our current world’s trajectory, a marketed ONE. It seems to me it’s conflicting. We’re encouraged to get more followers on social media, because when we do, we’ll get more people interested in our images, reading our messages, which means we might make it big or get that big sponsor, you know, become ONE, find our ONE truth. Mo’ money cause this hustler is ONE. We’re given slogans reminding us to get out more, explore more, see more of the world, meet more people, connect with more people… all of this shouted loudly and vibrantly and from hip tongues by society’s climbers, and believed – or perhaps regurgitated – by many more. I’ve believed them for so long, reworded them to explain to others. Moreso, I respect the concepts. Continue reading →

Concentration Trainging from the Art of Manliness

Leave a reply

I’m a very big fan of the Art of Manliness. Not only does this blog promote being manly, it also promotes very positive humanity things to benefit ourselves and our loved ones. I highly suggest reading some of their articles, or subscribing to their maillist and starting there.

This article I really appreciate because it touches on a few subjects I am very concerned with here at Exercise and Mind.

Exercising the body is a very important practice for us humans, it increases our abilities as humans to withstand much more stress, not to mention increases our well being. But the same practices are often overlooked with exercising the mind.

Hopefully you’ll gather some great tips from this article.

__________________________________________________________________________

Your Concentration Training Program: 11 Exercises That Will Strengthen Your Attention

You’ll never get big muscles from sitting on the couch all day, and you’ll never develop amazing powers of concentration from exclusively reading Buzzfeed and watching Tosh.O. Your mind muscles, just like your physical muscles, need resistance; they need challenges that stretch their limits and in so doing, grow their focus fibers. Below we outline exercises that will beef up your focus so that you can start lifting heavier and heavier cognitive loads.

1. Increase the strength of your focus gradually. If you decide you want to physically get in shape, but are starting at ground zero, the worst thing you can do is to throw yourself into an extreme training program – you’ll end up injured, discouraged, or both, and you’ll quit before you even really get started. Continue reading →

Productive Procrastination

Leave a reply

A lot of time is spent procrastinating about events that are on the ‘to-do’ list. I know, I’m guilty as charged, and I’m sure some of you are too, after all, were all human. Unless you’re an alien from a far away galaxy that’s monitoring our inter-waves like some galaxial cowboy tracking my reports because your trying to flatter me, then yes, indeed you are human.

Now, as procrastination sticks in, my thought process goes, what is it that I’m getting tired or bored of doing, or just annoyed at having to do? Then I also find myself with thoughts going through my head of other things that I’d rather be doing, not necessarily unproductive thoughts, just not productive in the current task undertaken.

So I go ahead and get distracted; clean the fish tank, write a blog, order some pizza, have a cup of tea, or clean the washroom.

A revelation I’ve had now is that this is productive procrastination. This isn’t bad in the traditional sense.

Yes, it’s a distraction, but it’s still getting things done. I have a to-do list most days out of the week, and with this kind of procrastination, it’s getting done! I’m finding that all my tasks are getting done, and I’m staying sane at the same time. It’s hard to stay focused on one topic, subject, or medium for one great length of time, so it’s always good to get a break.

I find that it helps me focus better when I come back, I feel refreshed and alert and awake. It is really healthy to get the blood moving regardless of if you are changing your focus or not. Sitting in one place for to long, you will find that your blood starts to pool into your ass and legs, and your brain starts to loose its freshness (bad things).

In fact, I’m not sure if its rumor or not, but one of my university professors told the class that studies have been made, showing that if you exercise for 15 minutes your ability to learn, process, or test is heightened by at least 15% capacity.

So what I’m saying is to get up and walk around even if you aren’t looking for a distraction. Even pace around the room, stretch your legs, do some favorite yoga moves, whatever it be, just get some exercise and blood flowing through your veins. But remember, procrastination is something that nobody can ignore, it happens even to the most focused of people, but if you procrastinate in such a way that you can productively be moving forward in your day, then there is no need to feel any kind of regret or mal content with what your doing, stay positive!

Effort & Attention

2 Replies

Effort is something that a lot of people tend to take for granted.

Let me start by defining what I mean by effort: effort is the amount of personal interest, thought, and attention that a person puts into a movement, idea, plan, and/or activity.

Basically what it is, is your commitment. Often times you will hear somebody say: “Everything happens wrong for me,” or you will see carelessness, or slacking. These are all by-products of little effort. When you train yourself to put forth an effort with every ounce of energy in your body, you will find that every activity is performed right, efficiently, effectively, and with the expected results you had when you began the activity in the first place.

You always hear of somebody pulling a muscle lifting a box, or shoveling the snow, but what you don’t hear is how they were attempting to do the effort. Have you ever had this happen to you? I know I have run into situations where I have reached around something to grab an item, but because I was lazy, I didn’t want to get out of my chair to put forth a proper effort to get that item, so I end up straining to reach that item, and tweak my shoulder or my back leaving me with a slight strain for a week.

This is a by-products of lack of effort. Sure you did actually get it, but the effort you put into it was a small portion of what you have inside of you.

Aside from getting hurt, you can also hurt other people. Think of the last time you had a conversation with somebody and only gave them 1/2 of your attention. They can always feel that you are giving them that lack of attention, which is lack of effort, and you hurt their feelings.

Some people, if they receive that kind of attention for long enough, will eventually stop giving you their effort and attention and move onto somebody or something that gives them full effort.

I also find with myself that I feel better after I have done something with all my heart; giving a 100% effort. I feel like I couldn’t have done any better because I couldn’t have put any more effort into the thing that I was doing. Its one of those kind of things that you can be just doing whatever your doing and catch yourself taking short-cuts and forgetting things because you are not really giving it your full attention.

Sometimes, I know I have parked my car at home and suddenly realized I cannot remember the last 10 minutes I just did driving. Have you ever done this? This is because I’m either in a zone, or I’mfocused on something else taking away from my driving.

Repetitive habits like this can easily bypassed with very little effort which can in turn, turn into something extremely hazardous for not only yourself but the people around you.

So next time that you are cleaning your car, or washing your dishes, chatting with friends or even driving home after work, make sure that you give it your full effort and just wait and see the kind of rewards you can get out of giving it your 100% effort.

Balance

1 Reply

Life requires balance. No matter which way you look at it, too much of a good thing is bad.

To me, this translates to too much indulging and not enough committing is a bad thing. And vice versa: too much commitment and not enough indulging will make a person go crazy as well.

The secret is to balance life’s pleasures with its pains to gain the balance we all need to succeed, to stay positive, and enjoy oneself in this journey.

To create three pictures of these lifestyle choices, let’s start with the funner of the evils.

Take for example if you choose to spend all your time going to the club, socializing with friends, placing aside your bills and family for a life with total spontaneity; randomly taking trips to exotic destinations, and staying committed to no one in particular.

Yes, as a fairy tale; a sort of Alice in Wonderland luster-lust relationship, is very appealing at first glance. After all, a story that fills dreams of young children’s sleep is by no means a distasteful existence, but in reality, even Alice was getting a bit confused and muddled by the end of her journey.

Does this path provide sustainability?

It does require a lot of positive thinking , but it really doesn’t allow the journey’er to hold a balance in one’s life. However, who am I to say whether one way through life is better than another? For most of us, we do not come across larger than life creatures and queens with giant heads in our days; we are faced with grocery bills, the boss, and parents.

Then there is the overtly tight, narcissistic, OCD riddled humanoid that simply must have a strict regime and daily tasks in order to go about their day with the least amount of restraint on their mind as possible.

Although this does require a lot of focus,which nobody can argue, it does require a lot of restraint on the creative mind; what about letting the wind to run through your hair (what about the sunscreen, and a hat to protect the scalp, and are we going the right speed). Flash-backs of a recent picture I’ve seen of an office completely covered in tin foil appear vividly in my mind (yes it was a prank).

Can a happy balance be found, taking the good from both of these polar opposites?

Can a person find some serenity in having certain tasks that they perform every day methodically imprinted in exact order?

Some simple things like taking a shower every morning, coffee, the same blend for breakfast, and the same route to work are all methodically imprinted in ones routine that it’s hard to realize that they are an actual routine. They seem rather something that is more necessary than choice.

But then there are things that one does in their day like lunch-time. Where shall we go today? Somewhere new? How about a walk in the park? Or what about tackling the day’s work in the opposite order than usually taken? Does work offer such a luxury?

I think that it’s hard to get one’s mind out of sub-conscious programming of daily monotonous activities, and challenge the mind to think of new, creative ways to take each step forward; but I task it to you, the reader, and myself, the writer, to analyze these supposed standard routines and see what we can do to provide some excitement to them, but still hold a balance to the routines that we as humans crave.

Maybe this mere fact is what truly makes us individuals in the end: to become victims of monotony, but I like the challenge this norm. Every once and a while it is fun to add a little excitement to the day!

Do any of you have any tips on how you find balance in your life?

Short Spurts

1 Reply

There are many schools of thought about how to exercise. Depending on your lifestyle, various fun activities will fit in, others won’t feel as comfortable, but it’s up to you to decide which ones work best for you.

I’ve been trying to focus on the short, relatively frequent exercises. This works best if I’m trying to focus, and in one place for a long time, like on my computer for the evening.

NOTE: This does not mean immediately get up from 5hrs of sitting idle to do 75 pushups in a row and go back for another 5hrs of idle sitting. No. Don’t do that. We’ve all heard of the person who goes out to shovel their driveway and has a heart attack or breaks their back because of the immediate strain. No, this isn’t good.

What this means, is that every 30 min to 1.5hrs or so, the motivated one gets up, loosens limbs with a nice stretch, grabs some rubber bands for a routine, or sits on the Swiss ball (exercise ball) and does some sit-ups. Even lift the bar or dumbbells for a rep or two.

After you finish this, you will feel your heart rate up, maybe even break a little sweat. This is good. This is what you want. You do want this feeling more than less, but any is better than none.

Keep in mind it is important when you’re doing this type of workout, your body is not completely warmed up, so one shouldn’t attempt to push their body to the max it can do, straining every muscle in the body.

Since your body isn’t totally warm, the motivated one will quickly find that this causes uncomfortable strain on muscles, or even pull muscles.

Another way to avoid this is to add a little more time to the beginning of the routine to do a longer warm up, really getting the muscles loose.

Ideally, however, as well as doing these short spurts, the fit person should look to get their blood pumping for at least 20 min at a time, at least once a day. This really isn’t long: a walk around to the park, 2 routines in the gym or 1 routine of yoga will all give you 20 min of exercise to keep you strong. Now go get em!

Distractions

Leave a reply

How do you stay focused? Seriously, sit down at a computer and monitor what you do first.

Today, this is how it went.

Log on.
Open up firefox.
Log on to class website, and open up lecture slides.
Read the first few slides.
Open wordpress, comment on a few freshly pressed.
Open hootsuite to see what the twitter crew is doing.
Read a few more slides.
See what twitter friends are up to.
Open tumblr to follow a few new friends tumblr’s.
Start writing this post.

I don’ t think this is productive, is it?

It’s turning into summer time, and that means long grass, bare skin, sunny days, and photography opportunities galore! Nice blue skies and beaches! But it makes me think about how I’m spending my time, which is a usual worry for me.

Many people have been telling me that I worry too much, or think too much. I usually embrace the fact that I can think, and enjoy this facility as a human being, but sometimes going with the flow is a very fun thing to do. The problem lies, however, in my duties. I have a duty to focus on work/school to get it done. To pass, to accomplish, to succeed, to make my parents proud; so how can I do this all, when I’m getting distracted with so much?

Some people enjoy spending their time watching TV, or stalking on Facebook, or lamenting on Twitter, but I like to think that I do these things for slightly different reasons (which work out to be the same in the end I guess), but am I just justifying it to myself? Must I cut it all out to focus on one or two areas? Do I feel like I have a obligation to complete what I’ve started for my ‘fans’ or ‘friends’?

What do you think? Would I loose some people in my life if I stopped? Would anybody even notice? Would I be able to sleep at night?

How do you deal with this?