The greatest irony of modern life is that the two things we need more of are movement and stillness. Our bodies and minds evolved to live a life of balance between activity and rest, but modern lifestyle seems to prevent us from doing either very well. Modern conveniences and technology, for example, have stifled our […]
I wanted to hit the ground running in 2015. Instead, I feel like I just hit the ground. I spent the first ten days of the year laid out flat on my back with a fever and a hacking cough. It is not like me to do literally nothing for a week. Even if I am […]
“Life is pain . . . anyone who says differently is selling something.” This is a quote from the “man-in-black” in the movie The Princess Bride, and it’s not too far from the truth. Pain is part and parcel of the experience of living and try as we might, we can’t seem to avoid it. […]
“Counterclockwise” was the name given to a research study from the 1970s (and later a book by the same name) by psychologist Ellen Langer in which she tries to turn the clock back for her research subjects. The subjects (a group of men in their 70s and 80s) were invited to a retreat where they […]
“Small Choices Change Everything” —Tom Rath Welcome to 2014. In some ways, the transition from one year to another is fairly meaningless. You flip a page on a calendar and move on. You are the same person you were before. Yes, there is this cultural habit of establishing new goals or “resolutions” for the year […]
I was recently dealing with a nasty case of medial epicondylitis (otherwise known as “golfer’s elbow”) characterized by tender pain just inside my right elbow. Those who know me are probably thinking, “but you don’t play golf!” And they’re right. I don’t. But apparently you can get golfer’s elbow from doing too many pull-ups and […]
There has been a lot of talk lately about the “commoditization of mindfulness” in corporate America. Invariably, when I post an article that talks about using strategies of mindfulness or positive psychology to improve employee satisfaction or engagement, I get a mixed response. There are some who believe that by promoting these strategies, I am […]
“I don’t do fitness my friend. That’s not what I do. I talk about movement. Fitness is a small, small, small world, within the universe of movement. I view it as a limited world. A world with many problems. A polluted world. Gymnastics and yoga and boxing and mind-body methods and other martial arts […]
Strategies that don’t work: 1. Diet – Diets in and of themselves rarely work and cannot be sustained indefinitely. The longer someone is on a diet, the harder it gets. Dieters tend to stretch their willpower too far and eventually end up caving in to temptation usually ending up right back where they started. […]
Britt-Marie Sohlström via Compfight Willpower is a limited resource. When you expend it, by exerting your self-control, you are left weaker. Eventually it replenishes itself, with rest, time for recovery, and nourishment (glucose.) Everyone has a fixed quantity of willpower that they can invest in regulating themselves to work towards the goals that are most […]
