This post was first published in my monthly newsletter, the Kinsei-Do Fitness Nuggets, in May 2023. If you like this and find it useful, please sign up for the Fitness Nuggets here.

 
"Gee, you're such an idiot, how could you let XYZ happen?"

"Ungh, look at that guy, he must be so lazy / stupid / shortsighted / ...!"

Ever found yourself saying things like this about yourself or other people, be it out loud or just in your head? Beating yourself up about a mistake you made, or (silently) judging yourself or another person for the way they look, dress, speak, move, etc...

For the past couple of weeks, as I already mentioned in last month's Fitness Nuggets, I've been studying the work of Shirzad Chamin and Positive Intelligence (PQ), and while a high IQ and EQ are certainly valuable and very important to be successful in life, it appears that the secret ingredient for being happy in life is your PQ. And surely, as a reader of this newsletter, you're someone who is looking for both, right? 

According to the theory of Positive Intelligence - and using their terminology - all of us have a wise and kind "person", a Sage, inside us, but we also have one or more less savoury characters, the so called Saboteurs, in our heads. The Saboteurs, characters such as the Judge, the Avoider, the Restless, the Hyper Achiever, etc, have developed in us when we were children, and they helped us to understand the world and how it works. You can go to the Positive Intelligence website if you're interested to find out the why and how.

Now, I know that all of this may sound a bit wishy washy, and not very scientific or rational at all, but here's where all of it falls into place: you can train your mind (to make the Sage stronger and the Saboteurs weaker)!

That's right, just like you do sets and reps in the gym to train your physical strength, you can also train and improve your mental fitness through - no surprise - PQ reps.
 
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Your Saboteurs - there are ten in total, but the degree and strength of their appearance is very individualized - typically show up in situations that are associated with negative emotions: stress, anger, disappointment, etc.
Let's say you're in a work meeting and someone says something that doesn't make much sense, or goes against what you want and believe. Your typical reaction will probably be to judge this person for what they said, either out loud or just to yourself. "That guy is so stupid!" or "Why on earth would she say that?"
Often, this happens almost automatically and within milliseconds, and - the research has shown this - will set you on a spiralling path of more negative thoughts and emotions. 

So what can you do instead? PQ Reps!

1. As soon as you realize your Judge Saboteur (or any of the others) has kicked in, reel that bad boy back in by calling him/her out in your head. Simply noticing negative-loop-reinforcing thoughts already greatly weakens their disruptive and destructive powers.
2. Next, focus your attention on the present moment, e.g. on your breath, or an ambient sound, a smell, etc for 10 seconds. This too weakens the impact of the negative thought, as it takes your mind away and brings it to focus on something physical, something neutral.
3. Finally, and this is already somewhat advanced and requires more practice, think to yourself how the Sage, instead of the Saboteur, would have reacted. The Sage is wise, kind and empathetic, what would he/she have said? Perhaps "I wonder why he said something like that, maybe he's having a very stressful day" or something to that effect?

Let this sink in, and I hope you'll give it a shot. Depending on how strong your Saboteurs are, and for how many years you have (unwillingly) trained them, it will take more than a couple of days or even weeks to take hold, but trust me, once it does, its impact is truly astonishing!

Have you ever

💊 watched an ad for a health supplement and thought that this little pill was it, the magic bullet to cure you of all your ailments?

🤸 been to the gym and seen some ridiculous well built guy or gal do a fancy looking exercise you’d never seen before, and thought you need to that that exact exercise to your training routine to get their amazing physique?

😴 felt the need to get the latest sleep gadget to finally cure your insomnia and improve your sleep quality?
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The bad news, if you’ve answered yes to any of these, is that you’ve fallen into the “sand before rocks” trap. The good news is you’re hardly the only one!

Question: How do you fill a glass jar with as many big rocks, medium sized pebbles and tiny grains of sand as possible?

Answer: You put the big rocks in first, then you add as many pebbles as will still fit in the gaps between the rocks, and then - and only then - do you pour in the sand so it can fill up all remaining gaps and cracks.

Try it the other way around - filling the jar up to say half with sand - and you’ll find not as many pebbles and hardly any rocks will fit in.
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The answer seems obvious, right? And yet, when it comes to health and wellbeing, we often go try to go about it in exactly this wrong sequence!

So, the next time you are looking for that magic bullet, that secret little extra, take a look at your jar first, and ask yourself if you've put all the big rocks in place already.

Not sure what those rocks should be? Or feel like you're doing it all already but are not progressing? Well, that's when you reach out to people like me!

Ever wondered why your performance in the gym decreases as your session goes on?

Well d'uh, you'll say, it's because the muscles are getting fatigued from the previous work, and you won't be wrong...but there's more to it, and with today's nugget of fitness wisdom, you may be able to do something about it!

As you move and exercise, and your muscles repeatedly contract to perform work and overcome resistance, they get hot. And it turns out, they don't like that very much. Or to put it a little more succinctly, excessively hot muscles have an impaired ability to produce force.

So, if you can manage to cool your (working) muscles' temperature down (e.g. between your lifting sets), you'll be able to produce more force (i.e. do more work) again in the next set, and in the next, and so on.
Of course you could take a cold shower or hop into a tub of cold water between sets, but that wouldn't be very practical, but actually there's an easier way.

You see, the way your body "gets rid" of excess heat is through blood circulation. The blood in your working muscles takes up some of the heat, and then disperses it to other parts of the body to cool off. Thus, if you can get your blood to cool down, you'll be able to get rid of more heat from the muscles more quickly, thereby recovering faster and working harder again in the next set!

As it turns out, the skin of the palms of your hands has certain vascular structures that make them effective at regulating the body temperature. So if you can cool down your palms (or rather, the blood that is running through the vessels in your palms), that (cooler) blood will quickly help to bring your working muscles' temperature down.

It's important to mention that it's not a case of the colder, the better. Why? Because you don't want your blood vessels to constrict, as then the nice, cool blood won't get to your working muscles.

Rather, it seems that 15-16 degrees would be the temperature at which you get the optimal performance enhancing effect. 

How can you achieve this? Perhaps holding on to a bottle of cold water, or running your hands under the tap of cold water for a couple of seconds is probably the simplest and most cost effective way.

Give it a try the next time you're going for a heavy lifting session, or an interval based workout, and let me know if you feel the difference!