In today’s 24-hour technological society, most of us don’t nap at all, and many don’t nap enough. We all need to start napping more- it would make us less crabby and more productive in the long-run.
Why don’t we nap? Social stigma / false beliefs:
Napping is for lazy people
Napping is a waste your day
Napping is unproductive
In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Napping actually makes us more productive because we wake up feeling refreshed, as if it’s the start of a second day.
Famous Nappers
During World War II, Winston Churchill would nap at least an hour in the early afternoon. Churchill is quoted saying “‘Nature had not intended mankind to work from 8 in the morning until midnight without the refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it only lasts 20 minutes, is sufficient to renew all the vital forces.” Some other famous nappers throughout history include:
Thomas Edison
Leonardo Davinci
Albert Einstein
Skilled Napping Takes Time
If you aren’t very good at napping, don’t worry- it is a skill that can be improved over time. I would have never thought I could nap on public transportation. I would be afraid to miss my stop… But since I’ve started taking the train every day, after some practice, napping has become a habit. I am now able to fall asleep, and wake up in time for my stop.
Give napping a try… What have you got to lose?
Next time you consider making a Starbucks run to keep you awake through the afternoon, consider taking a 20 minute nap instead. You just might wake up feeling more refreshed than you would have felt from the short-term jolt of caffeine.
All we have is the present moment. Too often, we let our thoughts steal the present by thinking about the past or future:
As it is, I would say about 80 to 90 percent of most people’s thinking is not only repetitive and useless, but because of its dysfunctional and often negative nature, much of it is also harmful. Observe your mind and you will find this to be true. It causes a serious leakage of vital energy.
Reflect on the most enjoyable moment of your life. Did this moment involve thinking, or were you completely focused on an activity? Chances are, you were completely focused on an activity. When you become intensely conscious of the present moment, you create a gap in thinking, in which you are highly alert and aware. Those who have meditated have experienced this enjoyable state of consciousness.
There is no off switch for your mind
Our minds are always running automatically, and we are addicted to thinking. So how can we experience this more enjoyable state of consciousness more often, in which we are truly living in the moment? To do this, we must give our normal daily activities the fullest attention, so that they become an end in themselves.
For example, yesterday I was shining my shoes, which is typically a mundane activity for me. But this time, I purposefully focused my attention completely on the activity, ensuring I didn’t miss a single spot and applying the right amount of shoe shine. To my surprise, the activity became highly enjoyable. It had become an end in itself, while in the past, it had been a means to an end.
Stopping your thoughts from stealing the present moment
Your past and future have no reality- your only reality is the present. As you focus on the past or future, your present moment becomes stolen. The more you focus in the present, the more alive and conscious you become.
When you are walking through your house or place of work, notice every step you make, every movement, and your breathing. Focus completely on the activity without thinking. Do this for all of your daily activities. You will begin to feel a level of inner peace that you had never felt before.
Negative emotions come from thinking too much about the past or future
Fear, stress and worry come from too much focus on the future. Guilt, sadness and regret come from too much focus on the past. When your focus is on the present, you free yourself from these negative emotions.
Three tips for living in the present
1) Focus on your daily activities as an end in themselves, without thinking about the past or future
2) Do not judge yourself when you drift between living in the present and the past or future. Do become aware of the times when you are not focused on the present
3) Continue practicing and choosing to focus your consciousness in the present. You will become better at this, until focus on the present moment becomes your predominate state
We humans adapt quickly to new circumstances. Take the lottery for example- do you think you would become permanently happier if you won it today? Studies have found that recent lottery winners are in fact temporarily happier, but soon after, they adjust and are no happier than others. If we are constantly adapting to positive change in our lives, then how can we sustain an increased level of happiness over the long-term? To answer this question, we must first understand what determines our happiness.
There are three major determinants of happiness
1) Your genetic baseline / range of potential happiness
2) Your current circumstances (e.g. health, income, region where you live)
3) Your current intentional activities (e.g. exercising regularly, writing a book, attending college)
Pessimists might read this list and argue that you can never raise your genetic baseline level of happiness. They might say that even with circumstance or activity changes, you will always revert to a genetically-determined level of happiness. This is a fair argument, especially considering the lottery example, but one study completed by Kennon Sheldon and Sonja Lyubomirsky has come to very a different conclusion.
You can sustain happiness above your genetic baseline level
According to the study, activity changes lead to sustainable increased levels of happiness, above your genetic baseline level. Circumstantial changes, by contrast, do not lead to sustainable increased levels of happiness. What does this mean? Winning the lottery or securing a raise (circumstantial changes) will increase your happiness temporarily. Starting to exercise or initiating a new goal (activity changes), will increase your happiness permanently.
This means that as long as you continue introducing intentional positive activity changes into your life, you can sustain higher levels of happiness. To use this knowledge effectively, you must be aware that activity-based changes are those that involve continual effort and engagement in some intentional process. Circumstance-based changes are one-time changes that tend to occur independently of effort and engagement.
Three habits you can start today to become happier and sustain it
1) Stop falsely believing that changes in your current circumstances will lead to sustained increased happiness
2) Start introducing positive activity changes into your life
3) Practice virtues of gratitude, thankfulness, and thoughtful self-reflection
The song played that is easiest to remember will be a hit. The politician that promises the most gets elected. The Youtube video which creates the strongest reaction in the least amount of time will become popular. What am I talking about? Memes.
Meme: Any idea or behavior that can pass from one person to another by learning or imitation. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, gestures, practices, fashions, habits, songs, and dances.
Memes spread through human culture similar to a contagious virus. As the meme is repeated and re-encoded in the minds of other individuals, it evolves. Memes that do the job with the least amount of energy will survive.
Meme evolution is not necessarily to our benefit
Memes have a life of their own, and the means by which they evolve is not necessarily in our best interest- the successful meme is copied and spread whether or not it’s in the interest of the meme creator. A good example of a successful meme is the evolution of projectile weapons, which started with arrows, then bolts, catapulted stones, cannonballs, explosive bombs, and nuclear bombs. The amount of destructive power has increased exponentially over time, but there is no evidence that a new weapon actually enhances the survival of the people who created it.
Memes can **** you up and infect your mind if you let them
Technology is helping memes evolve and spread at a more rapid pace than ever before. Successful memes are more easily copied, while unsuccessful memes are not copied. Due to technology, the modern day man is more vulnerable to being infected by memes. Here are 3 ways this happens:
1) Internet Memes
Dancing baby. The hamster dance. LOLcat. These are all examples of Internet memes. Are they a fun part of Internet culture, or a parasitical waste of your time? To answer this question, you must first ask yourself how much you value your time.
As your time is limited, it is important that you are using it to get what you want out of life, versus letting memes use your time to propagate themselves. If you could look back at your life, how memorable would your time spent on Youtube, Wikipedia, Twitter, or this blog post be? When you follow Internet memes for hours, how much of that time is contributing to your well-being, versus parasitically draining your energy?
Musician and Internet sensation Tay Zonday (creator of Internet meme Chocolate Rain) sings about the time we spend on the Internet:
So every day I swear
I’m gonna go to bed at like eleven.
And all of a sudden its 4AM . . .
And I was just watching Youtube and
reading Wikipedia for five hours.
It’s like MAN . . . you ask me the
next day. I can’t even remember
what I was doin. Crazy.
-Tay Zonday
2) Television Memes
Sensationalism. Sitcoms. Soap operas. With television, memes can be transmitted almost instantaneously to people throughout the world. Generally, television makes viewers feel very relaxed, but also significantly less active, alert, mentally focused, satisfied, or creative compared with other ways of spending time.
Like a drug, television initially provides a positive experience, but research suggests that the longer one watches it in one setting, the worse one’s mood progressively gets. 90’s hip-hop group Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy sing about this in “Television the Drug of the Nation”:
How do you feel after watching television? Was your time spent doing something rewarding, or wasted? Do you use television to get what you want out of it, or do television memes use you to propagate themselves?
3) Materialism Memes
Houses. Cars. Clothes. As man looks on his material possessions, he becomes deluded into thinking he’s a big deal- the objects become symbols for expansion of the self. It is easy for man to spend his whole life accumulating property without end just to feed his ego.
Each of us has needs for shelter, food, and clothing. But this doesn’t explain the houses of today, which represent more of the evolution of memes than to our personal well-being. Similarly, expensive clothing and restaurants are used to make an impression on the minds of other people, versus the simple needs of keeping us warm and replenishing our energy.
A powerful example of a materialism meme is the automobile. After first buying a car, you have positive feelings, such as freedom, power, and pride of ownership. The car becomes a symbol for the expansion of the self. Then the car ownership begins to drain your energy- you worry about payments, upkeep, insurance, accidents, and so on. But still, the meme continues to evolve and replicate, with new car models coming out each year for future owners.
A scene from the movie Fight Club discussing how “the things you own end up owning you”:
Do you use memes to get what you want, or do memes infect your mind and replicate themselves?
Do you use memes to get what you want and meet your personal goals? Or do you become a meme replicator, with hours of your time being wasted as the outcome? Internet, television, and materialism memes are really just the tip of the iceberg- memes can drain our energy in all areas of life. After capturing our attention, memes will continue reproducing themselves whether it is good for us or not. If we are to take control of our lives, we must get out of autopilot mode and use memes for our own ends, versus letting them parasitically drain our energy.
João Gilberto simply is music. He plays. He sings. Without stopping. Day and night. He is very, very strange. But he is the most fascinating being, the most fascinating person, that I have encountered on the surface of the earth. João, he is mystery. He hypnotises.
-Maria Bethânia
João Gilberto has been called many things throughout his ongoing career- a genius, a reclusive eccentric, the father of bossa nova, and the most enigmatic Brazilian alive. But one thing is certain- in 1958, this man changed Brazilian music forever. During this year, João invented bossa nova- a style of Brazilian music which evolved from samba, but is more complex harmonically and less percussive.
João’s signature piece, Chega de Saudade, is universally acknowledged as the song that launched his career and the bossa nova movement:
Here are 5 lessons for following your passion from the creative musical genius João Gilberto:
1) Stay focused
From an early age, João was interested in only one thing- music. He was given a guitar at the age of fourteen, which soon became an extension of his body. João played day and night, often the same chord repeated innumerable ways. Even when João’s family thought that he was mentally disturbed, and sent him to a psychiatric sanatorium, he kept up his musical experiments.
2) Never give up
For seven years, João’s career seemed at a standstill- he rarely had work, was dependent on his friends for a place to live, and was chronically depressed. João did not give up, and eventually, he was helped by friend Luiz Telles, who took him to southern Brazil, where he blossomed.
3) Work on your own schedule
Early in his career, living with his friends in Rio de Janeiro, João was a Night Owl, and would sleep during the day and play at night. Even though his hosts had day jobs, when returning from work, they would keep him company until early in the morning, listening to him play. When João moved to Porto Alegre, he single-handedly altered the city’s nightlife. People who normally went to sleep early stayed up late, adapting themselves to João’s sleep schedule, to hear him play.
4) Refuse a “normal” job
Although João’s family wished that he would consider a “normal”, non-musical job, he refused. Even when João had no money and work, João would not take jobs which he considered demeaning, such as singing in clubs where people talked during the performance, or recording commercial jingles.
5) Isolate yourself to develop your own style
João spent eight months with his sister, where he secluded himself from others, playing guitar day and night, developing a personal style for voice and guitar that would later be called bossa nova.
Are you following your passion, on the verge of creating a “bossa nova” in your field?
João is an inspiration for all of us. Imagine if he had taken a non-musical job, instead of focusing on his passion- would João have invented bossa nova, and been as successful as he is today? What if João had listened to his father, who disliked his songs, thinking João was mentally disturbed? The same songs that João’s father disliked were later considered by music critics to be zen-like, and works of pure perfection.
The most important lesson we can learn from João’s career is to pursue our passion relentlessly, whether or not our family or friends support us. Like João, each of us must focus on what we are most passionate about. We must focus on what makes us come alive:
Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.
-Howard Thurman
Life is like a river. It’s moving, and you can be at the mercy of the river if you don’t take deliberate, conscious action to steer yourself in a direction you have pre-determined.
-Anthony Robbins
Leo Babauta over at Zen Habits recently wrote a very honest post about The Dirty Little Secrets of Productivity Bloggers, and I’ll be sharing one of my own with you in this post. To give you some background, over this last month, I have been on two extremes, and am now back to normalcy. For the first two weeks, I was on vacation. I had lots of free time, and I managed my own schedule and did what I wanted to do. I lived on my own sleep schedule (I’m a late riser). I meditated and exercised every day. I did a lot of reading, writing, and relaxing.
When I came back to work, I was immediately placed on an intense project, which involved long hours and weekend work for 2 weeks. I went from 100% free time to 100% structured time. Was I able to maintain my positive habits when my routine changed so significantly? Nope. And this explains my dirty little secret- I wasn’t able to follow my own advice.
I ended up building sleep debt due to long work hours. I was unable to maintain my exercise routine due to getting home so late from work, I ate unhealthy food (catered into our conference room at work), and I stopped meditating.
Why couldn’t I maintain my daily positive habits when my routine changed?
I love being challenged and pushed to extremes- this is a way to personal growth for me. I dedicated myself to the success of the project at work, and gained a lot of experience from it, but in doing so, I also adopted the norms (eating and sleeping habits) of the team, and temporarily lost my positive habits along the way.
I wasn’t able to follow the advice of my blog post about living like a sprinter (having a healthy balance between stress and recovery), versus living like a long distance runner (no balance/time for recovery, leading to burnout). During these past two weeks, I have been confronted with how difficult living like a sprinter can be. How do you maintain positive habits when routine changes, and the nature of your work can be so chaotic?
Your routine will change, that’s a given- plan for it
I’m learning that routine changes will happen to you and I many times in our lives, but the important thing we need to have in place is a a backup plan. A back up plan is your pre-determined way of handling drastic routine change and maintaining positive habits. Why come up with a backup plan early on? If you have to come up with the backup plan while you are in crisis mode, it’s already too late:
Changes to routine have a smaller impact on your positive habits when you use a backup plan
Here are several examples of creating a backup plan:
Routine Change: Working long hours, unable to work out at gym
Backup Plan Options: If long work hours are going to be a long-term occurrence, you will want to find an alternate work-out time, such as early in the morning or over lunch break. If it is only short-term, you can simply cut back on your daily caloric intake, and plan to get back into your workout routine as soon as your work hours go back to normal.
Routine Change: Unable to leave work for lunch break due to deadlines, unhealthy snack options in the office
Backup Plan Options: Bring a bag of trail mix or nuts with you to work, use this as a meal replacement when you are unable to eat a normal lunch. Otherwise, you may end up eating unhealthy office snacks, or even worse, you will be starving by dinner time, and overeat to make up for the missed lunch.
Routine Change: Unable to get enough sleep during the week
Backup Plan Options: Take a mid-day 20 minute nap at work. If you have you own office, this will be easier to do. If not, you will have to be more creative with napping at work.
It’s Your Turn to Share
It’s much easier to maintain positive habits when your external environment and routine stay the same. But when the situation suddenly changes, are you able to adjust? Do you maintain your positive habits, or do you revert back to the way you were before you acquired the positive habits?
I’m still working on my backup plan, and experimenting with the best ways to maintain positive habits when my routine changes. I’d love to hear your experience with maintaining positive habits through routine changes- please leave a comment!
You must daily have the courage to risk making mistakes, risk failure, risk being humiliated. A step in the wrong direction is better than staying “on the spot” all your life.
-Maxwell Maltz
There are some activities and jobs in which people must fail every day in order to succeed. Think of the insurance salesman who is turned down 9 times in a row, just to have one success. Or the skateboarder who must fail at performing a new trick many times before he is able to perform it successfully one time. We can learn a lot from these extreme failing individuals- they seem to view failure as a temporary setback, or a learning experience.
Learning from Extreme Failing: Skateboarders
As a high school student, I loved skateboarding. The nature of skateboarding involves a lot of failing- my skater friends allowed themselves to fail much more often than I did, and in doing so, they became great. I’ve pulled together some footage from my high school skateboarding days to give you a visual of extreme failing:
What if a skateboarder fell one too many times, and thought of his failure as a defeat, wallowing in its permanence and pervasiveness? What if he decided he wouldn’t try the same trick again, for months? I can tell you that he wouldn’t get very far in skateboarding with that mindset. To be successful at skateboarding, you must pick yourself up after a failure and immediately start trying again. You must look at a failure as a challenge, or a temporary setback to achieving your goal.
The Extreme Failing Mindset Can be Applied to Any Type of Setback
The extreme failing mindset isn’t just for insurance salesmen and skateboarders- it can help anyone overcome a setback in their life. One example would be if you recently broke up with someone- If you tell yourself “This is only temporary, I will find someone else”, you will be on your way to a fast recovery. But if tell yourself “This person meant everything to me, I’ll never find someone else like them”, you are setting yourself up for depression and pain.
Similarly, if you recently lost your job, and explain it to yourself as “I lost my job because I am lazy and incompetent- no other employer will want to hire me”, you most likely won’t recover and get a new job for a while- the negative mindset will be self-fulfilling. By contrast, if you tell yourself “The economy is not doing well right now so my employer had to make some cutbacks- I tried my best, and now I will find a new job even better than the last”, you will be on your way to finding a great new job.
Three Dimensions of Explaining Setbacks to Yourself
Based on years of research from psychologist Martin Seligman (explained in his book Learned Optimism), there are three dimensions of explaining setbacks to yourself: Permanence, Pervasiveness, and Personalization. On each dimension, you can explain a setback with either the extreme failing (optimist) mindset, or the pessimist mindset:
Permanence: Do you believe the cause of the bad event is permanent or temporary? Extreme failing individuals believe the bad event is temporary.
Breaking up example: Tell yourself “I will find someone else”
Pervasiveness: Do you believe the cause of the bad event is universal, or specific? Extreme failing individuals believe the cause of a bad event is specific.
Breaking up example: Tell yourself “My relationship was only one part of my life”
Personalization: Do you believe the cause of the bad event is your fault (internalize), or other people’s fault (externalized)? Extreme failing individuals believe the bad event is external to themselves.
Breaking up example: Tell yourself “My ex was not the right person for me”
Do You Have the Extreme Failing Mindset? Take the Test
How do you perceive failures in your own life? Take the test to find out how well you handle setbacks, and how much of an extreme failing individual (optimist) you are.
Taking Responsibility
A comment was recently posted by Brandon (see below), with concerns over how the Martin Seligman’s optimism test, and the Personalization dimension of explanatory style. The test seems to encourage us to not take responsibility, and instead blame external events/people. Here is a quote from Dr. Seligman’s book to help answer Brandon’s concern:
I am unwilling to advocate any strategy that further erodes responsibility. I don’t believe people should change their beliefs from internal to external wholesale. Nevertheless, there is one condition under which this usually should be done: depression . . . We want people to change, and we know they will not change if they do not assume responsibility. If we want people to change, internality is not as crucial as the permanence dimension is. If you believe the cause of your mess is permanent, you will not act to change it. If, however, you believe the cause is temporary, you can act to change it. If we want people to be responsible for what they do, then yes, we want them to have an internal style. More important, people must have a temporary style for bad events- they must believe that whatever the cause of the bad event, it can be changed.
According to Seligman, we should use the external explanation only in situations where we are at risk for depression. Additionally, the Permanence dimension (temporary/permanent) is the key to change, not Personalization (internal/external).
photo credit: Bert van Dijk
