Brienne writes

From James Nestor's Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art , “Finding the best heart rate for exercise is easy: subtract your age from 180. The result is the maximum your body can withstand to stay in the aerobic state. Long bouts of training and exercise can happen below this rate but never above it, otherwise the body will risk going too deep into the anaerobic zone for too long. Instead of feeling invigorated and strong after a workout, you’d feel tired, shaky, and nauseated.” I have been working out and never knew if I've hit my best heart rate. Would be interesting to know what is the maximum heart rate I hit every work out.  --- Do you know your maximum heart rate? Do you think the formula for the best heart rate is a good gauge?  Let me know! Take care, be well, see you tomorrow!

Listening to Sadghuru on The School of Greatness, Sadhguru: The Truth about Karma, Identity & Purpose, Episode 1117 and I like this phrase he mentioned. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam . It means, the world is our family.  "From young, the children in India are taught that your identity is not about people who gave birth to you or the people around you but it's about the air you breathe, your environment, your surroundings, everything. And if we identity with the air that we breathe, everything is you." "If everything is you, your intelligence, your competence, your capabilities, your everything is a gift to the world. But if your identity is small, all the wonderful things that a human being has becomes a curse." --- Do you identify with what he said?  Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam , I wish you well. See you tomorrow!

Anaerobic respiration versus aerobic respiration. From James Nestor's Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art . Anaerobic energy is generated only with glucose (a simple sugar), and it's quicker and easier for our bodies to access. It's a kind of backup system and turbo boost when the body doesn't have enough oxygen.  But it is inefficient and can be toxic, creating an excess of lactic acid. The nausea, muscle weakness, and sweating you experience after you've pushed it too hard at the gym is the feeling of anaerobic overload. This process explains why the first few minutes of an intense workout are often so miserable. Our lungs and respiratory system haven't caught up to supply the oxygen our bodies need, and so the body has to use anaerobic respiration. This also explains why, after we've warmed up, exercise feels easier. The body has switched from anaerobic to aerobic respiration. These two energies are made in different muscle...

I have been breathing through my nose the entire day. It takes conscious effort but I am determined to reap its benefits.  In James Nestor's Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art , Dr John Douillard shared an experiment he conducted. Dr Douillard was a trainer to elite athletes. He gathered a group of professional cyclists, rigged them up with sensors to record their heart rate and breathing rate, and put them on stationary bicycles. Over several minutes, he increased the resistance on the pedals, requiring the athletes to exert progressively more energy as the experiment went on.  In the first trial, the athletes were told to breath through their mouths. As the intensity increased, so did the rate of breathing. By the time athletes reached the hardest stage of the test, peddling out 200 watts of power, they were panting and struggling to catch a breath.  In the second trail, the athletes were told to breath through their noses. As the intensity ...

A while ago, I listened to a sharing where  Klavs Jørn Christensen and Martina Lindsay Veloso were invited to discuss performance psychology.  Klavs was asked for one advice he would give to everyone listening and he mentioned that all of us should learn how to breathe. He said it was something that could immensely improve one's daily life. I got curious.  I asked a friend whom I recognise was into holistic well-being and she recommended a book.  Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor I am currently reading this book and curious about what it can teach me.  Have you read the book? Let me know what you think! --- Stay safe, be well, see you tomorrow! 

Today I took some photographs of some lovely flowers at a conservatory.  Other than writing, I love taking photographs and editing them as well. Shall upload them here (after I am done editing them) for your viewing pleasure. --- Sending love~ Take care, stay safe, be well! 

I like discovering new things and today, I learnt that one way to increase our productivity is to have a to-don't list ! (Thanks to Haikal ) A to-don't list is a list of things you don't do. It is a list of things that will prevent you from doing your work. However, similar to a to-do list, the aim is to cross off as many of them throughout the day. A to-don't list could consist of checking your phone while working, browsing Instagram whenever you hit a slump, or checking social media pages all the time.  It could be written on a separate sticky note as you write your to-do list. To be a visual reminder of the things you wish to not do. For example, for tomorrow, my to-don't list would look like this: Don't go the whole day without some form of movement Don't use the phone right when you wake up Don't spend your time mindlessly such as browsing social media without purpose We often think about getting things done, adding more tasks to our to-do list.  P...

Most of us have heard about deliberate practice.  "I t entails considerable, specific, and sustained efforts to do something you  can’t  do well—or even at all. Research across domains shows that it is only by working at what you can’t do that you turn into the expert you want to become." The 10,000-Hour Rule has also been used widely after Malcolm Gladwell published his book Outliers: The Story of Success . Though there were many criticism of the 10,000 hour rule, I thought it was a good benchmark for anyone wanting to try their hands at something. Then today I read this .  The Helsinki Bus Station Theory. It talks about a photographer,  Minkkinen  giving a speech to graduating students.  He reckoned creative life to hoping on a bus after choosing one of the platforms at the bus station. Each bus stop interval represents one year of the life of a creative. At the third year, a photographer could have come up with a series of photos and realise that w...

... according to Ryan Holiday 1. Rise and Shine I especially love this quote he put up in the article. “On those mornings you struggle with getting up, keep this thought in mind—I am awakening to the work of a human being. Why then am I annoyed that I am going to do what I’m made for, the very things for which I was put into this world? Or was I made for this, to snuggle under the covers and keep warm? It’s so pleasurable. Were you then made for pleasure? In short, to be coddled or to exert yourself?”  —Marcus Aurelius,  Meditations ,  5.1 2. Prepare Yourself for Negativity 3. Clarify your Principles To know our principles, Ryan Holiday gave us some questions to answer.  What are your flat-ass rules? What are your principles? Your epithets? Don’t wing it. Life is chaotic and confusing enough. Give yourself some clarity and some certainty. 4. Be Ruthless to the Things that Don't Matter This quote sums it up.  “How many have laid waste to your life when you weren’...

Notes I gathered from the 5 Steps to Designing the Life You Want | Bill Burnett | TEDxStanford Youtube video .  Design thinking: Start with curiosity, lean into what you are curious about Reframe problems  Radical collaboration because the answers are out there in the world with other people. That's where your experience of your life will be.   Mindful of the process because there are times in the design process when you want lots of ideas and there are times in the process where you want to converge, test, prototype some things.  Biased action. No plans for your life will survive first contact with reality as reality often throw at us good things and bad so just have a biased action, try stuff.  People have dysfunctional beliefs. Dysfunctional belief 1: What's your passion?  Less than 20 percent of the people have any one single identifiable passion in their lives.  Dysfunctional belief 2: You should know where you're going by now. If you don't know, ...

Key points I would love going back to to remind me of how powerful our minds are. To hear the full episode, click here .  #1 "Role function purpose." Often, if our physical symptoms such as a headache, serves an intended purpose to benefit a person (example giving the person a day off from a stressful job), then the symptom will not go away.  #2 What do we do with our feelings?  Marisa Peer says we should feel them until they no longer require to be felt.  #3 "If you don't earn it, it has no value." Lottery winners who have been broke their whole life often lose the money as quickly as they won it.  ---  Only completed half of the episode today. Will continue the list tomorrow.  Stay safe and enjoy the week ahead! 

I took a break and it's been four months since my last post.  Shall update my new goals here and get back to posting more consistently. My aim was to be a better writer and through my process, inspire others to start writing and share their knowledge too. -- In post #17 , I talked about what Marissa Peer shared on a podcast. Post #26 shall be an update on other key points I took away from that podcast. Post #27 will be about what I have learnt from a Youtube video: Designing your life. Post #28 will cover Ryan Holiday's article on How to have the best week and another article about Routines versus Practice.  -- Shall aim to consistently write everyday once again. Follow me on my journey.  Keep safe and be well.  See you tomorrow! ;)