The Times (London) columnist Alice Thomson http://inchdeep.blogtownhall.com/2008/10/10/the_upside_of_a_recession.thtml cites a number of studies that show that recession may not be all bad. She says that folks tend to eat and drink more during boom times, and that lean times financially can translate into lean (read healthier) bodies. She mentions that a down economy means we have more opportunity to visit elderly relatives (not, of course, if they live far away) and that we spend more time with our children. Ms. Thomson is just one journalist among many to explore the consequences of the world’s changing financial picture.
In suggesting that we may be moving from a country of the miserable rich to the happy poor, it helps to remember that relative to the rest of the world—particularly developing areas—the average American lives a life of unimaginable luxury and comfort. More important still is to question the cultural paradigm that leads us to refer to our lives as a rat race or a grind, to coin such phrases as same sh**, different day. Could it be that a gathering global economic crisis is revealing to us precisely that truth that we have been seeking to avoid, namely that in locking our step with a consumer society we have enslaved ourselves to corporate masters?
Maybe so, but we can’t blame companies for manufacturing the goods we say we want, nor can we blame advertisers for pandering to those desires with slogans and images that urge us toward more and faster. In fact, for all but the poor and struggling, it may be time to stop blaming anyone but us. An economic downturn may be a turn away from this economic model—which is based on leveraging, gambling, and making goods we don’t need for us to buy with money we don’t have—but that doesn’t mean there are not other good models out there. Might it not be an idea, for example, to apply a chunk of the $700BB bailout to develop the restorative and sustainable technologies the world so badly needs (clean water, alternative energy, efficient food production and distribution), and become leaders again instead of finding ourselves mired in a global morass?
Any economic system is no more or less than a reflection of the people who create it—their values, goals, aspirations and industry. The first step in building a new world outside is to build a new one inside. This means getting in touch with the emotions that drive us, with our definitions of success, and with our notion of “enough”. Certainly there are people in this country who are afflicted by genuine poverty, but it may be that an emotional hole is even more common. If we feel a sense of powerlessness or futility, if our lives lack meaning and we feel out of control, we may not be thinking clearly enough to change things for the better.
Mind/body practices exist precisely to help us out of this hole. Working inside established traditions like tai chi, yoga, and meditation helps us out of the speed-and-greed world we have created for ourselves and puts us back in touch with a natural world we have forgotten, one born of our own biology and our true rhythms and needs. Inside a quieter space we may discover the foundation of a new and better economy, one that might, for example, prize peace more than power, and community and self-sufficiency more than acquisitiveness and dependence.
Given half a chance, we may remember that charity begins at home, industry begins at home, economy begins at home, and home is on the inside. If all this seems hopelessly utopian, good, for what better time to shoot for the moon than when we are rebuilding the gun?
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Multitasking, Stress, and Tai Chi
Conventional wisdom has it that multitasking is the sign of a competent brain fully engaged and meeting the demands of today’s busy lifestyle, but an October 9 NPR story http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95524385 shows that doing too many things at the same time actually causes a “brown-out” of the brain.
The story tells us that simultaneously chatting and messaging and surfing on the Web reduces the depth of our thinking and lessens the quality of whatever work we are doing when compared to simply starting a task, finishing it, and moving on to the next one. The same thing presumably goes for talking on the phone while driving, texting, and wiping up a toddler’s spill—all with the radio playing—or cleaning the house and doing the laundry and helping a child with his homework and cooking dinner all at the same time. Talking to your boss on a conference call while touching up your makeup and checking your e-mail messages, it turns out, is a sure way to miss something important or say something you’ll regret.
What is perhaps most interesting about the story is not that it deals a blow to the multi-tasking mystique (it does avow that brief, occasional multitasking sessions are not too harmful), but rather that it reveals so much about the stresses of modern life. Multitasking is not something we naturally choose to do; it is a response to needing to get a certain number of things done within a certain time frame. The background pressure of the ticking clock causes us to cut corners, thereby reducing the quality of thinking, results, and the quality of living, all the more when we are deluged by negative media messages, an endless train of bad economic news, and an ever-changing landscape of seemingly critical opportunities, options and choices. Our brain responds to this drumming rainstorm of input by putting relaxation and response aside in favor of quick reactions and actions that often prove shallow and ill-advised. We live from day to day in a state of what we perceive to be constant crisis.
Step one in changing our life from stressful to meaningful is to recognize that we are addicted to the short-term rush of ticking items off our to-do list. Step two is to learn to slow down, say no to distraction, and focus on one thing at a time. Mind/body practices help us do this by heightening self-awareness, and so are great tools for improving the quality of our lives, our decisions, our actions, and their outcomes.
Meditation is very effective, but many folks find that when they sit or stand or lie quietly impulses roar in so fiercely that no peace can be found. That’s where tai chi comes in. It’s can be practiced in a quiet, meditative, inwardly-focused fashion. Its movements are sufficiently challenging that full attention is required, but not so difficult as to bring on precisely the anxiety and frustration it is designed to overcome. The antidote to compulsive multitasking, tai chi teaches us to act with relaxed and organized efficiency, and to accomplish whatever needs doing without feeling that much was required after all. In this way the art is both instructor and safe haven.
The story tells us that simultaneously chatting and messaging and surfing on the Web reduces the depth of our thinking and lessens the quality of whatever work we are doing when compared to simply starting a task, finishing it, and moving on to the next one. The same thing presumably goes for talking on the phone while driving, texting, and wiping up a toddler’s spill—all with the radio playing—or cleaning the house and doing the laundry and helping a child with his homework and cooking dinner all at the same time. Talking to your boss on a conference call while touching up your makeup and checking your e-mail messages, it turns out, is a sure way to miss something important or say something you’ll regret.
What is perhaps most interesting about the story is not that it deals a blow to the multi-tasking mystique (it does avow that brief, occasional multitasking sessions are not too harmful), but rather that it reveals so much about the stresses of modern life. Multitasking is not something we naturally choose to do; it is a response to needing to get a certain number of things done within a certain time frame. The background pressure of the ticking clock causes us to cut corners, thereby reducing the quality of thinking, results, and the quality of living, all the more when we are deluged by negative media messages, an endless train of bad economic news, and an ever-changing landscape of seemingly critical opportunities, options and choices. Our brain responds to this drumming rainstorm of input by putting relaxation and response aside in favor of quick reactions and actions that often prove shallow and ill-advised. We live from day to day in a state of what we perceive to be constant crisis.
Step one in changing our life from stressful to meaningful is to recognize that we are addicted to the short-term rush of ticking items off our to-do list. Step two is to learn to slow down, say no to distraction, and focus on one thing at a time. Mind/body practices help us do this by heightening self-awareness, and so are great tools for improving the quality of our lives, our decisions, our actions, and their outcomes.
Meditation is very effective, but many folks find that when they sit or stand or lie quietly impulses roar in so fiercely that no peace can be found. That’s where tai chi comes in. It’s can be practiced in a quiet, meditative, inwardly-focused fashion. Its movements are sufficiently challenging that full attention is required, but not so difficult as to bring on precisely the anxiety and frustration it is designed to overcome. The antidote to compulsive multitasking, tai chi teaches us to act with relaxed and organized efficiency, and to accomplish whatever needs doing without feeling that much was required after all. In this way the art is both instructor and safe haven.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Tai Chi and Relaxation
The vitality and exuberance of the tai chi performance at the opening of the Beijing Olympics did much to dispel the association between the art and elderly folks moving delicately in the park. While tai chi is indeed helpful at any age, the movements in Beijing, executed by hundreds of synchronized “players” were low, fast, and so powerful as to be occasionally explosive.
Any gymnastic or martial practice can be great exercise, but tai chi adds a specific dimension to the cardiovascular workout that is little heralded and often misunderstood—relaxation. In our aboriginal state, strenuous activity was usually limited to the flight or fight syndrome. We ran not for pleasure but because the tiger was after us, the village was on fire, the hyena had our child in its mouth, or a warring party had just burst from the wood. We exercise this way today, motivating ourselves with exciting visualization or pushing relentlessly, and stressfully, toward a goal. As a result stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol attend our pounding heart and bring with them undesirable consequences (hypertension, impaired cognitive function, decreased bone density, lowered immunity and more) once the exercise session is complete.
Because of its relentless emphasis on relaxation during movement, tai chi is that rarest of exercises—the one that gets the heart pumping without stimulating the release of these undesirable chemicals into the bloodstream. In addition to sparing the body stress hormones, it also builds the heart by reducing backpressure, as peripheral blood vessels relax and dilate.
The October 2, 2008 edition of the New York Times featured a “Personal Best” column that explored relaxation in sport. In Before Hustling to Finish, Relaxed Is a Good Way to Start, writer Gina Kolata interviewed leading trainers and athletes. She brings into focus the fact that Michael Phelps and other great athletes go faster without getting tired by being relaxed, by being consistent in their strides and strokes. The article quotes Dr. Michael Joyner, a Masters swimmer and exercise researcher at the Mayo Clinic as saying “At some level… everyone I know who has been a hard-core endurance athlete for many years is a covert religious mystic due to these types of experiences.”
We don’t need to be religious mystics, but we can have a relaxing and transcendent experience while we exercise, and in these stressful times there are few better ways to beat stress and gain fitness. Tai chi addresses tension we don’t even know we have—in the hips, the fact, the back, the jaw—and releases it while building our body with beautiful movement. In writer/director David Mamet’s recent film Redbelt, the protagonist, a martial arts teacher, tells a new student that the first step in training is the most difficult. “What is the first step?” the new student asks. “Leaving the outside world outside when you step in here,” is the answer. Part of tai chi’s magic is that it brings you to a relaxed place and helps you stay there even after you go home.
Any gymnastic or martial practice can be great exercise, but tai chi adds a specific dimension to the cardiovascular workout that is little heralded and often misunderstood—relaxation. In our aboriginal state, strenuous activity was usually limited to the flight or fight syndrome. We ran not for pleasure but because the tiger was after us, the village was on fire, the hyena had our child in its mouth, or a warring party had just burst from the wood. We exercise this way today, motivating ourselves with exciting visualization or pushing relentlessly, and stressfully, toward a goal. As a result stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol attend our pounding heart and bring with them undesirable consequences (hypertension, impaired cognitive function, decreased bone density, lowered immunity and more) once the exercise session is complete.
Because of its relentless emphasis on relaxation during movement, tai chi is that rarest of exercises—the one that gets the heart pumping without stimulating the release of these undesirable chemicals into the bloodstream. In addition to sparing the body stress hormones, it also builds the heart by reducing backpressure, as peripheral blood vessels relax and dilate.
The October 2, 2008 edition of the New York Times featured a “Personal Best” column that explored relaxation in sport. In Before Hustling to Finish, Relaxed Is a Good Way to Start, writer Gina Kolata interviewed leading trainers and athletes. She brings into focus the fact that Michael Phelps and other great athletes go faster without getting tired by being relaxed, by being consistent in their strides and strokes. The article quotes Dr. Michael Joyner, a Masters swimmer and exercise researcher at the Mayo Clinic as saying “At some level… everyone I know who has been a hard-core endurance athlete for many years is a covert religious mystic due to these types of experiences.”
We don’t need to be religious mystics, but we can have a relaxing and transcendent experience while we exercise, and in these stressful times there are few better ways to beat stress and gain fitness. Tai chi addresses tension we don’t even know we have—in the hips, the fact, the back, the jaw—and releases it while building our body with beautiful movement. In writer/director David Mamet’s recent film Redbelt, the protagonist, a martial arts teacher, tells a new student that the first step in training is the most difficult. “What is the first step?” the new student asks. “Leaving the outside world outside when you step in here,” is the answer. Part of tai chi’s magic is that it brings you to a relaxed place and helps you stay there even after you go home.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Mind/Body Investment
Financial investments many of us spent a life making seem to be disappearing in a puff of dark smoke these days, leading many people to wail about a world spinning out of control. There’s a certain amount of gritty truth to objective numbers and certainly there are those folks out there whose food and shelter are in peril. The rest of us, however, might benefit from a change in perspective about what we can and cannot control: we can’t control the size of our 401K right now, but we can control our reaction to seeing it reduced; we can’t control constraints on our lifestyle and our choices, but we can control how we respond to those newly imposed limitations. We can, in short, train our body to react less strongly to stressors, and train our minds to be less attached to loss and more inclined in the direction of a deeper and wider view of life.
Mind/body training helps with precisely these things, and tai chi may be the finest mind/body training around. Tested by time, it has long helped everyday folks improve their health and extended their youth. In days of yore, Daoist mountain hermits bound the art with herbs, meditation and strict diet in pursuit of immortality, and ancient rulers gained a dramatic advantage over their enemies by plumbing its philosophical depths. Tai chi still confers these benefits today, and as such is the best tonic for loss of property and perspective. Strengthening our body raises our resistance to stress and makes us much less vulnerable to expensive-to-treat afflictions, including the degenerative diseases of aging. Training our mind helps us cultivate self-awareness, discipline, spiritual insight, and precisely those mental powers that help us avoid anxiety, depression, and the unwise urges that lead to more costly mistakes.
Think of tai chi as a kind of internal alchemy, a system founded on a set of guiding principles and deepened by a unique study of body mechanics and energetics. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) underpins it, and although that medicine was “sanitized” into “Maoist Medicine” during China’s so-called Cultural Revolution, tai chi still possesses the old system’s zing, the intuitive understanding of body systems that comes from 5000 years of paying attention. Daoist thinking provides another resource to the system, and the more competitive, crowded, challenging, and bereft of wild places the world becomes, the more relevant we find alchemical principles such as use force against force, and follow the flow of nature.
Perhaps tai chi’s clearest benefit is the way it restores wuji, the Chinese word for balance. Physical wuji helps range of illnesses from diabetes to Parkinson’s and stimulates the immune system. Mental wuji makes us calmer, more able to see different angles clearly, and reduces the swings of mood that come when the world around us seems chaotic. If things seem alarmingly out of kilter or scary to you right now, regain your equilibrium with tai chi practice. Experience for yourself how this ancient art helps you take quiet stock of what is really important. Be pleasantly surprised by how it enhances your mental equilibrium and deepens your positive experience of being alive. Wander by the park, the Y, a school or community center and step into the mind/body world of tai chi.
Mind/body training helps with precisely these things, and tai chi may be the finest mind/body training around. Tested by time, it has long helped everyday folks improve their health and extended their youth. In days of yore, Daoist mountain hermits bound the art with herbs, meditation and strict diet in pursuit of immortality, and ancient rulers gained a dramatic advantage over their enemies by plumbing its philosophical depths. Tai chi still confers these benefits today, and as such is the best tonic for loss of property and perspective. Strengthening our body raises our resistance to stress and makes us much less vulnerable to expensive-to-treat afflictions, including the degenerative diseases of aging. Training our mind helps us cultivate self-awareness, discipline, spiritual insight, and precisely those mental powers that help us avoid anxiety, depression, and the unwise urges that lead to more costly mistakes.
Think of tai chi as a kind of internal alchemy, a system founded on a set of guiding principles and deepened by a unique study of body mechanics and energetics. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) underpins it, and although that medicine was “sanitized” into “Maoist Medicine” during China’s so-called Cultural Revolution, tai chi still possesses the old system’s zing, the intuitive understanding of body systems that comes from 5000 years of paying attention. Daoist thinking provides another resource to the system, and the more competitive, crowded, challenging, and bereft of wild places the world becomes, the more relevant we find alchemical principles such as use force against force, and follow the flow of nature.
Perhaps tai chi’s clearest benefit is the way it restores wuji, the Chinese word for balance. Physical wuji helps range of illnesses from diabetes to Parkinson’s and stimulates the immune system. Mental wuji makes us calmer, more able to see different angles clearly, and reduces the swings of mood that come when the world around us seems chaotic. If things seem alarmingly out of kilter or scary to you right now, regain your equilibrium with tai chi practice. Experience for yourself how this ancient art helps you take quiet stock of what is really important. Be pleasantly surprised by how it enhances your mental equilibrium and deepens your positive experience of being alive. Wander by the park, the Y, a school or community center and step into the mind/body world of tai chi.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Origins of Tai Chi
Tai Chi Ch’uan (abbreviates simply as Tai Chi) is the most exalted of the Chinese martial arts, with dynamics powerful enough to both defeat physical assailants and beat back the degenerative diseases of aging. Translated, the name means Ultimate Cosmic Fist and indeed the practice can transform our life and spirit, increase strength and flexibility, boost our energy, improve our awareness, sensitivity and balance, diminish pain and stiffness, lower our blood pressure, help us live longer, and give us a healthier way of looking at conflict and challenge. In many ways, it is the ultimate mind/body practice.
Legend has Tai Chi Ch’uan originating with a Daoist sage named Chang San-Feng at the turn of the last millennium. Historically, the authentic original system was created by Chen Wang-ting (1597-1664), a 9th generation member of the Chen family and resident of a small village in the north of China. Chen constructed the system upon a tripod of Daoist thought, traditional Chinese medicine, and proven martial techniques.
Daoists believe there is a guiding force or intelligence to the universe. They call this force Dao, which means The Way. In the Daoist view, pairs of opposing forces (yin and yang) arose from nothingness (wuji) in much the way the Judeo-Christian creation story chronicles God’s manufacture of heaven and earth from nothingness. Examples of yin and yang include male and female, light and dark, weak and strong. Every Tai Chi Ch’uan movement directly embodies this Daoist worldview. In fact, there may be no system of movement anywhere that more closely obeys metaphysical rules.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) differs from Western medicine in significant ways. Broadly put TCM costs less and has fewer side effects than its Western counterpart, and may be less effective for acute health crises and more effective for chronic conditions. TCM sees the body in terms of systems rather than organs. In the TCM model the body is crisscrossed by meridians, channels through which a life force called qi flows like water through a garden hose. Practicing Tai Chi increases this energy, opens the hoses, and aligns them for maximum flow.
China has a long and illustrious martial tradition. At times China has been little more than a conglomerate of warring states. Conceived by monks, doctors, scholars and warriors, numerous martial systems were derived from the movements of animals and the forces of nature. Early fighting techniques were tested in combat, and were lost if ineffective. The ones used in Tai Chi are many of the very best techniques to survive the ages.
Tai Chi was very nearly lost during China’s so-called “Cultural Revolution” when the armies of Mao Tse Tung gelded, killed, or banished its masters. These days the art is practiced worldwide by people of all ages. In this country the New Age movement has done much to spread the word about this wonderful form of exercise, but rising popularity also means the authentic art is threatened with dilution. Done properly, though, tai chi will bring you flexibility, harmony, strength, peace, insight, and longevity.
Legend has Tai Chi Ch’uan originating with a Daoist sage named Chang San-Feng at the turn of the last millennium. Historically, the authentic original system was created by Chen Wang-ting (1597-1664), a 9th generation member of the Chen family and resident of a small village in the north of China. Chen constructed the system upon a tripod of Daoist thought, traditional Chinese medicine, and proven martial techniques.
Daoists believe there is a guiding force or intelligence to the universe. They call this force Dao, which means The Way. In the Daoist view, pairs of opposing forces (yin and yang) arose from nothingness (wuji) in much the way the Judeo-Christian creation story chronicles God’s manufacture of heaven and earth from nothingness. Examples of yin and yang include male and female, light and dark, weak and strong. Every Tai Chi Ch’uan movement directly embodies this Daoist worldview. In fact, there may be no system of movement anywhere that more closely obeys metaphysical rules.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) differs from Western medicine in significant ways. Broadly put TCM costs less and has fewer side effects than its Western counterpart, and may be less effective for acute health crises and more effective for chronic conditions. TCM sees the body in terms of systems rather than organs. In the TCM model the body is crisscrossed by meridians, channels through which a life force called qi flows like water through a garden hose. Practicing Tai Chi increases this energy, opens the hoses, and aligns them for maximum flow.
China has a long and illustrious martial tradition. At times China has been little more than a conglomerate of warring states. Conceived by monks, doctors, scholars and warriors, numerous martial systems were derived from the movements of animals and the forces of nature. Early fighting techniques were tested in combat, and were lost if ineffective. The ones used in Tai Chi are many of the very best techniques to survive the ages.
Tai Chi was very nearly lost during China’s so-called “Cultural Revolution” when the armies of Mao Tse Tung gelded, killed, or banished its masters. These days the art is practiced worldwide by people of all ages. In this country the New Age movement has done much to spread the word about this wonderful form of exercise, but rising popularity also means the authentic art is threatened with dilution. Done properly, though, tai chi will bring you flexibility, harmony, strength, peace, insight, and longevity.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Spore
In the Industrial Revolution, we designed machines to save us effort. Later, we created devices to save us time. The Holy Grail was to have the opportunity to spend more time with our family, to cultivate ourselves, to contribute to the community—in short to do what we wanted to do not what we had to do.
Early innovations saved us from backbreaking, lifespan-shortening work, but lately our inventions have taken an insidious turn. With the exception of a few miraculous medical tools, they now do us as much harm as good. The demands we make on ourselves in the face of our technology create stresses that literally kill us. The silicon chip, and cutting edge manufacturing have set a new pace for life on Earth, a pace better suited to our creations than it is to us. The machines we inhabit, the bodies we are, have vibrations, harmonics, rhythms and limitations that differ from those of our creations, but we often decide in favor of our creations rather than in favor of us. We have, in short, become slaves where once we were masters.
The solution became clearer than ever to me the other night when playing the new video game, Spore, with my 8-year-old son. Brilliantly conceived, Spore explains the process of evolution far better than I can. It involves creating a creature and helping it grow to meet the challenges of increasingly complex environments—to see it evolve from a single–celled organism in a primordial soup to a space traveler colonizing distant planets. The game reveals much about how the forces of nature act on us, and also the pressures we put on ourselves by letting our population run amok. To secure our place in the sun, we are driven to ever more competitive and ruthless behavior, and to use any tool and weapon we can find to survive.
What is a human being to do to find more meaning, less stress, greater fulfillment, and less complexity and speed? I was deep in the game when it hit me. I could decide against playing, bow out, and simply turn it off! What a metaphor for the world outside the personal computer. So obvious, so simple, so doh! but so few of us do it. Bowing out is an option that comes with increasing consciousness. It means to cooperate rather than contend, to use technology with awareness of its benefits and its costs, to emphasize depth, slow down, pay attention, achieve happiness by substituting spiritual goals for material ones. Be a person, not a bug! Let the spore of you fully flower.
Early innovations saved us from backbreaking, lifespan-shortening work, but lately our inventions have taken an insidious turn. With the exception of a few miraculous medical tools, they now do us as much harm as good. The demands we make on ourselves in the face of our technology create stresses that literally kill us. The silicon chip, and cutting edge manufacturing have set a new pace for life on Earth, a pace better suited to our creations than it is to us. The machines we inhabit, the bodies we are, have vibrations, harmonics, rhythms and limitations that differ from those of our creations, but we often decide in favor of our creations rather than in favor of us. We have, in short, become slaves where once we were masters.
The solution became clearer than ever to me the other night when playing the new video game, Spore, with my 8-year-old son. Brilliantly conceived, Spore explains the process of evolution far better than I can. It involves creating a creature and helping it grow to meet the challenges of increasingly complex environments—to see it evolve from a single–celled organism in a primordial soup to a space traveler colonizing distant planets. The game reveals much about how the forces of nature act on us, and also the pressures we put on ourselves by letting our population run amok. To secure our place in the sun, we are driven to ever more competitive and ruthless behavior, and to use any tool and weapon we can find to survive.
What is a human being to do to find more meaning, less stress, greater fulfillment, and less complexity and speed? I was deep in the game when it hit me. I could decide against playing, bow out, and simply turn it off! What a metaphor for the world outside the personal computer. So obvious, so simple, so doh! but so few of us do it. Bowing out is an option that comes with increasing consciousness. It means to cooperate rather than contend, to use technology with awareness of its benefits and its costs, to emphasize depth, slow down, pay attention, achieve happiness by substituting spiritual goals for material ones. Be a person, not a bug! Let the spore of you fully flower.
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