Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #123 Slow Down and LIVE!

I am convinced that modern Americans’ being obsessed with speed, the need to get things done and accomplished as fast as possible is out of control! 

Virtually all of us have too much going on, all the time.  We say we don’t have time eat right, don’t have time to exercise, don’t even have time to do our jobs properly, with full concentration.  And this is in spite of rushing through our days, from dawn to dusk- commuting to work as fast as we can, not sleeping enough (because we have lots to do the night before!), no time to prepare healthy meals, and so on and on it goes.  No time to meditate, no time to feel grateful for what we have, no time for play, NO TIME!

This is self-delusion.  If your employer is forcing you to rush needlessly, your results will suffer, and your company will eventually fail, or at least do poorly.  Find another job.  Do it slowly, deliberately, or else just take your time, explain yourself, and take the heat.  You are in the right, know that at least!

Medical Doctors in residency are abused overall- forced to do without sleep, working 100 plus hours per week, and make tons of mistakes because of it.  And this is sanctioned by the AMA, this abusive treatment.  The future Doctors suffer, and so do the patients they treat.  So, our supposed “healers” wind up being some of the worst offenders of one of the basic tenets of healthy living- adequate sleep.

My advice?  JUST SLOW DOWN.  The only time I allow myself to rush now is when I am performing barefoot sprinting in the yard.  This is a deliberate, controlled stress that actually builds my strength and stamina, not deplete it.  It is short, and doesn’t last that long, and it is followed by intense relaxation.

The most likely causes of death are, in order: heart disease, cancer, iatrogenesis- which is a term for death by doctor.  This is dying because of an MD making a wrong diagnosis, a mistaken procedure, or simply caused by following his prescription drug advice!  Often, the “death by doctor” is aggravated by the doctor’s chronic sleep deprivation!

The fourth most likely cause of death?  Transportation deaths, usually car crash deaths.  The number one cause here is a tie: alcohol use while driving, and driving while sleep deprived!  Actually, being sleep deprived impairs your driving ability just as much as being drunk.

It is interesting that our expressways are loaded with folks in a huge hurry to get where they are going, at all times.  Even going on vacation, they rush there, and then sit around, exhausted from the mad rush and stress of driving at high speeds with danger all around.

Myself?  I have learned the pleasure of enjoying the journey, not the destination alone.  I take two lane roads across more rural areas, enjoying the drive, the scenery, the many opportunities to stop without danger.  (Expressways are most dangerous when you need to get off.) 

As the author of Blue Highways, William Least Heat Moon has put it: “On two-lane roads, life happens at the edge of the road, for almost every mile.”  And usually, the journey is less in terms of miles traveled, and is often as fast as, or nearly as fast, as taking a high stress tollway with cars careening at breakneck speeds, and giant semi-trucks that could crush your car with a slight wandering of the drivers attention.   Where I dreaded long interstate trips, I really enjoy leisurely, “blue highway” adventures in travel!

So stop the mad rush to nowhere, now!  Take the time to do things well and thoroughly.  Meditate, exercise, prepare wonderful paleo meals.  Make a daily green paleo smoothie to maximize nutrition.  Sleep a full 8 hours of more per night!    Remember, just because “everyone else” loves to drive as fast as they can on expressways all the time, seeing nothing, they are not paleo people, like you and I! 

They also don’t sleep enough, eat processed, fast food “meals”, rush through life without really experiencing it, don’t exercise, and are riddled with all of the diseases of modern civilization.  Just go through life at a human pace, a paleo pace- now, you are really living!

Check out this episode!

Meditation Changes Your Brain!

We all know that exercise, especially proper, Paleo-type exercise to build strength, actually physically changes the structure of your muscles, i.e.- they get bigger and stronger!  


Now we also know that proper mental exercise, i.e. meditation also makes your brain change physically as well, in a beneficial way.  Check out the video above for a brief overview of the study that confirmed this utilizing M.R.I. brain scans.

Back already?  Good, let's continue:

What meditation truly is is not some hippie sort of "OOOOMMM" in the lotus position while sitars drone in the background... 

Meditation in it's true sense is simply giving your undivided attention to the present moment!

My basic meditation strategy is simply to sit in a comfortable chair, shut my eyes, and, whilst concentrating on my breathing, simply thinking the word "One" over and over, for each breath in and for each breath out.  Nothing else; if another thought comes up, I simply ignore it, and concentrate again on my breathing and my one word...  And other thoughts do come up, like random bubbles surfacing on an otherwise placid pond!  It really takes effort, minimal yet sustained, to keep concentrating only on the present- my breathing, the total relaxation of my body, my "one".  Especially when you are first getting started, this is hard; it is antithetical to our whole modern "ethic" of move, think, accomplish, make money, plan!!

I am sure that Paleolithic people were not like we are now; they rested much more, and lived almost entirely in the present moment.  I also believe that they were much more resistant to our modern mental problems of anxiety, depression, and many other neuroses that result from both our incredibly nutrient poor diets (particularly the Omega 3 and other good fats), and frenetic, overcrowded, and over-competitive lives.

While the actual, formal meditation process outlined here is a great way to get started in meditation and start adding the benefits to your life, there are other ways, once you kind of "get it" and learn to shut down your chimp mind, which is your wandering, thoughts-a-flitting, attention changing every second or so conscious mind, and attend to the here and now.  This is actually a process of tuning in to your right brain, which is the intuitive, feeling, creative part of your brain, and ignoring the ever chattering left brain.  We have over-emphasized the left brain in modern times, ignoring and suppressing what is in reality one half of our identity!  

Some of the other ways you can "meditate" or at least tap into the here and now and into your right brain are with things like forest bathing, or woods walking, with your attention on the present, and not thinking about taxes, or paying the power bill, or-you name it- just the here and now!  Oooom!

In church this morning, I thought about how prayer is a form of meditation- total concentration and attention to God!  We all have wandering minds; I thought about how important it is to really focus on the here and now, especially in church!

And even when driving home in my old truck, if I turn off the radio or the iPod, and simply think about driving- first gear, second, third, fourth... clutch, brake, steering... and simply am there in the moment, 

all the way home, I am the better for it!  My right brain thanks me, my hippocampus thanks me, and my  amygdala is overjoyed!  

Playing music is largely right-brained centered, and present-centered- we all know music is a thoroughly joyful endeavor!  Kind of "musical meditation" in a way..

So meditate!  The benefits are profound- just the increase you will gain in focused concentration alone is well worth it- and the quality of your life will vastly increase!  

J & Zeke