Want to hear one thing we all have in common? We are all breathing.  But there’s way more to it, did you know that our breath has the ability to dictate the way our body chooses to interpret certain situations? Dr. Jen Esquer shares about how we’ve been breathing wrong this whole time! Have a listen.

“Think about a breath cycle. We have the inhalation state and the exhalation state. I inhale and I exhale right? Well that inhalation phase, even if you were to hold your breath, that's your sympathetic fight, flight, freeze response.Your exhalation state, or we're even holding after your exhalation state is more of that parasympathetic rest, relax, digest state. Now, if we can tap into that exhalation phase, then we can start to shift and we can start to stimulate that vagus nerve and activate that parasympathetic system”.

That’s really good information, especially when you think of what we have been told to do our whole lives to calm ourselves down. Take a deep breath right? Well the better piece of advice might be, take a long exhalation. There’s a reason your heart speeds up when you breathe in and slows down when you breathe out, it’s your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system at work!

Keep your phone away from your bed at night. For years, I have kept my phone plugged in, sometimes even on loud, not too far from where I sleep. It was necessary in my last job because I was on call, and the habit continued until recently. I liked the flexibility of being able to address anything urgent or stay aware of people trying to get in touch with me, but I didn’t realize the cost that it all comes at. That cost comes in two main ways.

First, keeping your phone near your bed likely means that it is the last thing you engage with before you go to sleep. The blue light on our phones throws off our circadian rhythm and actually makes it harder to go to sleep. Keeping your phone away let’s you wrap up a few other things before bed, helping to restore your circadian rhythm and improve the quality of your sleep.

Second, is when your alarm goes off in the morning it forces you to get on your feet. I never snooze my alarm, but I do have a tendency to wake up slowly and rest my eyes for about 5 more minutes before I start my day. If I wanted to continue with that in my new practice, standing up and getting on my feet brings all of my attention to the times when I do decide to slide back into bed. This worked so well that I only did that once in the last 3 weeks. Because of that, I find myself starting my days 5 minutes earlier with the same amount of rest.

So, I’d encourage you to try it. Keep your phone away from your bed tonight and see how you feel in the morning. My guess is that you fall asleep quicker, wake up faster, and start your day sooner.

It’s about using the law of least effort. I know what you’re thinking, good things come to those who work hard! I completely agree, but I would argue that better things come to those who work hard and work smart.

Historically, humans have a predisposition to prefer minimal activity and effort. This comes back to the days when we actually needed to secure resources to survive and reproduce. Things are different now, but our DNA is not.

The law of least effort is exactly that predisposition, but instead of using it as an excuse to be lazy, we can leverage it to be more efficient.  This is best understood in an example presented in the book, Atomic Habits, by James Clear. You want to eat healthy, but when it comes down to it, taking the extra 10 minutes in the morning is just too much to actually do it. There’s friction. What you can do, is prepare healthy meals in advance, which reduces the friction of acting on the healthy choice and allowing you to easily receive the benefits of that decision.  

The best thing to do is understand what positive choices you want to make, understand what the limiting factor is, and find ways to reduce that friction either by preparing in advance or making intentional choices. Even choosing a gym that is directly on your commute to work instead of 5 minutes out of the way could make a world of difference. It’s all about reducing friction!

There are so many great things happening around us, we need to make sure we keep our eyes open to them.  It could be something big, like a breakthrough or a connection or a new spin on a project. You’d be surprised to find that there’s more of these than you’d think.

To continue, some days you have to look a little harder to find something positive. It might be hidden behind or blended in with something bad, but know that it is there. If I’m looking for some positivity in my life, I try to add perspective, and that’s where I practice gratitude. The underlying force of gratitude is a positive appreciation for your life, and when you take that approach to positivity, there is no shortage of things to be thankful for. 

For example, you get laid off from your job. Not trying to spin that into a positive, but what that might mean is you get to spend more time with your roommate, partner, or child.You build a deeper relationship and maybe help them through a challenge they are experiencing. I hesitate to call it a silver lining, but it is a positive element that came from the negative situation. It is always there, some days you just have to look a little harder.

“Keep it simple stupid”

The core of it is all about reducing complexity. The more moving parts that are involved in a decision, add a layer of complexity that makes it more difficult to reach the intended destination. But, having a special focus on keeping things simple, you can have a more defined direction and easier path toward what you are trying to accomplish.

This philosophy applies in so many different areas. When building out a new system at work, strip the task down to its fundamental components and address them at face value. When hoping to go on a date, be clear about your intentions and ask for their phone number. When trying to get healthier, focus on the areas that contribute to your health, like exercise and nutrition to optimize your results.

The same goes for productivity. Throughout our days, we are presented with things to do that fit somewhere on a difficulty spectrum. It’s the difference between deciding what to wear, which is a low difficulty task, and finding a clever way to make an introduction, which is a high difficulty task. A great tip is to quickly move through the low difficulty task so that you have more time, energy, and will-power to apply to the high difficulty tasks. The easy things don’t need to be over complicated. Keep it simple stupid.

This message is a snippet from someone who is very inspiring, Ms. Mel Robbins.

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Isn’t that so true? We just assume the worst of intentions in others when they do something that negatively affects us. But, what it comes down to, is anything they do is out of our control, so why does it deserve to be so influential in the way we internalize it?

Not only is choosing to be optimistic in negative situations, and choosing to see the good in others, a decision that benefits us, but it is very contagious and affects those around you.

I jumped on a Masterclass call put on by Garrain Jones, Emile Stenveld, and Joel Brown. It was all about uprooting the barriers you’ve placed on yourself and stepping into your freedom, because from freedom comes our greatest joy. We made a ton of progress in a short amount of time, and heard some inspiring stories, but then Joel asked a question at the core of the entire conversation. What is your definition of freedom?

In the Masterclass, what was interesting to see was the diversity in the responses. Some people spoke specifically about how freedom would come from solving the biggest challenge in their life or career, but I came from the opposite end of it with a very broad and general answer. To me, freedom is doing whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it.  

Joel alluded to this again later, and he made an important distinction.  Joy isn’t always a celebration. It isn’t always the big reward and the extravagant lifestyle. He talked about something that I identify with, which is that a balance between responsibility and fun is where he finds his joy.  

So, it’s the freedom to work hard on the things that excite you and energize you. It’s the freedom to take care of yourself and invest in yourself knowing that it’s a requirement of who you want to be. So, now I ask you this, what is your definition of freedom?

You have the key to your own prison, it’s time to let yourself out.

This technique is something that totally changed my perspective on how to spend my time. It is called time boxing, and I was introduced to it by Nir Eyal, a habit formation and behavioral design expert, in his upcoming book Indistractable. Let’s go straight to the source and learn more about why time boxing works:

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So basically, time boxing is all about allocating time for things that are important to you. And by planning, or time boxing your schedule, you establish what it is you want to be doing, which will help you follow through on it.  This is a great opportunity to prioritize important things in your life by setting the intention to do it in advance.  

We talk about time boxing much more in our upcoming Self Improvement Sit Down, which I am super excited about!  But if you can’t wait until then, you can get a pre-release digital version of the book Indistractable on Amazon today.