Going to try this. I have a breathing clock gif as default page on my browser. I use it while I am passive in meetings.
Resonant breathing has been great for me for IBS
This saddens me. I recently started psychology of human misjudgement.
Someone in thread asked what’s big deal about him. what did he achieve
My answer would be I never tried to look into his achievements or did care about them. The man was genuinely curious, humble and a geek. He constantly published his ways of thinking. I enjoyed how he thought about things, how i could relate self correct based on it.
The book also mentions that people who had built a habit switched back to old habits under stress. It looks like author had this situation.
Multiple parallel things led to an overwhelming routine and he fell off the waggon.
Meditation helped hi. apply breaks and re think on every day decisions
In my experience in order to build or break a habit you must be able to tie the action to its immediate results. It can be placebo but in your mind that association must settle in.
Meditation for a lot of people creates a state of calm afterwords. Mainly if you breathe at a lower that 6 breaths per minute.
The calmness likely leads to better decisions and helps that way.
It looked like the author has been overwhelmed with stresses of life. Meditation helped to apply breaks and steer the wheel.
the question is 'what is serious?'
generally one can go about every piece of code with a mindset that if it fails the sky will fall, or on the other extreme 'let it fail' philosophy.
I like to take a mix of slow and fast approach. While some cases demand test-driven development, in other scenarios the test cases can follow the user demand.
I like to build test coverage slowly depending on most used parts of the code. So they coverage catches up slowly but at the same time i am not spending time on test cases for things that don't get used at all.
This means, I would prefer releasing features in small batches and as the features start being used, I start improving the coverage.
While this may not work for all the teams or environments, it is one approach to build early stage products. which I mostly do.
Agree, you wont get exact numbers but ignoring the absolute values one can see differences over time to see whats working.
When it comes to these numbers i have learned that you dont focus on absolute values but watch them change
My recommendation will be to track HRV (1) and do the high intensity only when you are on or above your baseline. This is to avoid unexpected side effects of HIIT. If you can't get a hrv tracker then best to keep track of your heart rate recovery. It is common to see heart rate stay high after the exercise, it should return to normal in a few hours (3-4 hours). if not then you are over doing it.
1 - Apps like Elite HRV, hrv4training or Devices like Garmin (watch), CoreSense (Elite HRV), Scosche Rhythm+, polar or garmin chest wrap.
such an important point here. The benefits of exercise are maximum when you start from a sedentary life. You will hit plateau at some point and then one has to re-think the plan.
I am doubtful that just 10 min exercise over a few years will get you in a better shape.
Another factor greatly ignored is HRV as key indicator of recovery and response to an exercise. Andrew Flatt (1) is a researcher and has been studying his cardio fitness through HRV for over 10 years. His observation is 10 sec high intensity + 50 sec break in between for 10 minutes improved his hrv. He also thinks 15000 steps contribute to better HRV as good as athlete level.
While there are plenty of questions about 10k steps, what if 15k steps do the trick?
In general, I think since HRV and VO2 max are trackable using hand-held and would be best parameters to track usefulness of an exercise over time. It is always likely that an exercise works at some point and doesn't at other. Possibly because you are more fit now or you have other life stresses dragging you down.
In my experience, a lot of these studies are not reproducible. Because every person is different and context is different too. Genetics add another layer to this. Best is to keep track of your own parameters and try things out.
I had a similar experience when I joined a team. The architect was highly opinionated and wanted things to be done in certain way.
The problem however wasn't with him.
The management would usually pin all technical debt and issues on this architect. He was supposed to be answerable for anything that goes wrong.
Which made him a control freak. He wanted to know anything and everything in detail.
It's more of a culture problem.
When I realized this, I started sympathizing a bit with him. Made sure he understood what I was trying to achieve and comfortable with the code base. He was reluctant to accept new ideas but I pitched them anyway.
This is the nature of the job I realized. And it brought peace to me. I did however consider new opportunities with more freedom. But the controlling nature of the team did not bother me
I was in a similar boat. I turned to books. Read all that I could find in philosophy, leadership, and science of life in general.
I also spent lot of time studying other startups and what they did differently to win.
The founder fatigue is natural especially when we pour our heart into it. Failure hits hard. I read an interesting discussion between kapil gupta and naval. We attach our 'self' to much with the startup.
While most literature focuses on avoiding thoughts, my learning after last couple of years is - the only skilll that can help is patience. Being able to wait is the primary skill I now focus on.
Good luck.
Some book recommendations:
Anything from JD krishnamoorty, why zebras don't get ulcers, extreme leadership, charles duhigg both books, power of now (mindfulness), and most important why we sleep.
My dad lived in a small town in India for most of his life.
When I come across stoicism and read about it, I realized he has been living like a stoic his whole life. His way of approaching life is so aligned with the concept. And yet he has never read or heard about Epicteus.
I have been reading a lot of books about philosophy lately, but I realise the most you can learn is from people around you.
The books are often contradictory. In the exact same situation, a book titled why zebras don't get ulcers, the author claims venting out is much healthier to reduce stress. There was a study done which indicated people who vent out on the spot are less likely to be stressful (less stress harmone).
Observing how others deal with situations and picking the best out of them works out well for me.
When I come across a friend who managing a heated argument and is calm after ward, I try to learn from him. Understand why he is able to do so.