Here's your October edition of Kinsei-Do Fitness Nuggets, our monthly newsletter that serves you little bites of health & performance wisdom!
Based on your feedback, this edition is shorter and crispier - as a good nugget should be - than previous editions, hope you like it better this way!
Enjoy!
Nugget of the Month
To be the Best, take some Rest
Several years ago, a good friend of mine was working for a large multinational IT company in Singapore, and I had the opportunity to check out their office, which had some - at that time - pretty futuristic features and perks for its employees.
On top of a fully decked out "break room" which included pool tables, bean bags and if I'm not wrong even a Nintendo Wii (complete with Wii Sports), they had two Energy Pods that frankly looked like something straight out of a Sci-Fi movie.
Knowing as much about wellbeing and holistic health & performance as the average IT consultant that I was at that time (read: nothing!), I couldn't quite understand who would want to take a nap at work?!
But as I know now, and as you may recall from June's edition of the Fitness Nuggets, you can think of yourself at operating in three different gears throughout the day:
High gear: complete focus, highly effective and productive
Medium gear: the most common gear for most people, multitasking and jumping from one thing to the next, often getting distracted. Feeling busy and possibly stressed, but at the end of the day, not achieving much of note
Low gear: deliberate relaxation of mind and body, "recovering" from a bout of high gear output and getting ready for the next mental or physical challenge
And that's where naps and specifically something like the Energy Pod comes in. By taking the time during the day to deliberately switch into recovery mode (low gear), you enable yourself to produce better work and better output (high gear), instead of toiling around in medium gear all day, bouncing from your inbox to your phone and back all the time.
Take Action: Get some Deep Rest
I bet by now you are asking yourself (and me): do I have to take a nap at the office?
No, you do not if you don't want to. There are other ways of switching into low gear, and allowing your brain to recover and regenerate, and get ready for more high focus, high output work later on.
Important note: the most common way that I observe people trying to switch off from work and relax, which is to grab their phone and mindlessly scroll through social media, is not one of them!
Introducing: Non-Sleep Deep Rest (a.k.a. NSDR)
Find a quiet place at your workplace (an empty meeting room, a park bench outside your office, etc), sit down, close your eyes and just listen to this 10 minute "script", read by the incredible Dr Huberman (whose work I've already referenced a lot in previous newsletters, so you know this stuff is legit!).
Try it out, once or twice a day next week at work, and I bet you will feel energy levels that you may have thought were a thing of the youthful past!
Quote to ponder
“Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be and he will become what he should be.”
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Most, if not all of you, will be a leader in some aspect of your life. The obvious one is being a leader (manager, supervisor, insert other random job titles) at work, but if you're a parent, a coach of a team, or even just an older sibling, most probably there will be people in your life that look up to you, and that you lead.
Consider these centuries-old words from good old Goethe the next time you interact or communicate with those you lead.
Recommendation
Being busy - or probably, "too busy" - is certainly one of the major downsides of the modern, always connected, always "on" civilised world, but is it even true?
Are you really too busy to take care of your physical health? Are you too busy to spend 10 (or 20, or 30) minutes each day on deliberate recovery and mental energy practices?
Please spare 11 minutes (if you're not too busy ) and watch this video.
Time, like all other finite resources, needs to be managed. Its use planned and prioritised.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to judge. I'm hardly perfect either, and often find myself thinking that I'm too busy to read, or to meditate, or to do XYZ that I know I should do and would be beneficial for me.
But what I do want you to take away is that you acknowledge - for yourself, not for me or anyone else - that when you think and say that you are too busy to do something, what you actually mean is that it's not a high enough priority for you. And as long as you're cool with that, I am too.
What's Jo doing?
If you've worked with me, or follow me on social media, you probably know I'm a big believer in mobility work, that is, doing regular exercises and activities that help your body maintain (or improve) the healthy function of your joints.
I first came across Coach Matt and Primal Mobility back in late 2018, and signed up as a client for a couple of months in early 2019. From that day on, I've been a massive fan of Matt's work, and when he announced (on my podcast!) that he and his team were working on creating a certification program to teach the Primal methods of assessment and coaching, I knew I had to be a part of the first cohort!
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Knowing as much about wellbeing and holistic health & performance as the average IT consultant that I was at that time (read: nothing!), I couldn't quite understand who would want to take a nap at work?!
