I’m a mad scientist when it comes to personal development, and that’s kept me engaged with the process for decades. On one level I ALWAYS feel that “the Perfect Program” is just out of reach…it’s a game I love to play. Tananarive or Toni or Nicki could tell ya. Notebooks full of plans.
Been percolating a notion for about a month. It has to do with the cross-referencing of several things.
- 5MM. The fact that if you take 60-second “breathing breaks” every three hours, you transform your relationship with stress.
- According to Pavel, the perfect number of reps for an exercise is 5: after 5, you cannot focus total concentration.
- Synaptic Facilitation suggests that a skill is best learned by practicing it in short sessions throughout the day, rather than all at once.
- There are Five Tibetans
- Islamic prayers are practiced five times a day
- The more often you remember your primary outcomes and motivations, and check where you are, the easier it is to maintain focus, and the more you accomplish.
What if I combined these? Not “more time” spent meditating, exercising, renewing, but distributing and coordinating that time differently? Can you see where this is heading?
I have longer blocks of time for some things, but that “Five Minute Miracle” every day…what can I do with that, as sort of a separate “track” of action? Well…
WHAT IF YOU COMBINED THESE? Here’s a sample protocol:
- Every three hours perform 5 reps of one Tibetan.
- With each, focus on the breathing, with a “cat vomiting” “be breathed” style exhalation/compression built into the rep.
- As you do, think of the Most Important Outcome for the day.
- Feel gratitude for the health to do this activity. Remember: one day you will NOT be able to. Enjoy your body while you have it…remember it is just on loan.
How long would this take? Five minutes a day. What would the next level be?
- Increase the number of reps. What would happen if the 21 reps of five exercises were distributed through the day instead of “clumped”? Well..you’d lose the mild “cardio” effect but raise the amount of focus on structural integration. If you focus on the breathing, you are accelerating the rate of re-programming the body-mind for extraordinary function. SERIOUS intervention. Imagine a night’s sleep where you have to get up five times to pee. How restful is that? YOU CAN INTERRUPT THE “WAKING DREAM” state exactly the same way.
- Add another action (like practice three minutes of martial arts or a yoga asana)
- Extend meditation/focus time.
Minimum investment? Five minutes a day. But I could add a yoga asana AND a minute of Kali/Escrima, for a total of Fifteen minutes a day. That is an AMAZING amount of re-programming.
I don’t know for a fact that this is an effective protocol. It is a theory, and the experiment it suggests is obvious, and exciting to me. I’ll letcha know!
(p.s. This is NOT to replace the block of morning exercise time. There are aspects of fitness/wellness that require extended engagement (triggering the neuro-immuno-endocrine response requires 12-15 minutes of steady-state activity to enter “second wind” which is great for a whole host of reasons, especially managing fear) But in an emergency…its an amazing five daily minutes, providing basic integration and mobility, focus, energy, motivation, positive emotions, discipline, centeredness, and much more.
A great little “Hack” for you to try!)
Namaste
Steven Barnes
Steven Barnes 