Silence of Mind...

Nigel Taylor 0

@nigel-taylor-0
i think that part of it is to do with our current situation - in that lots of people are working from home where the distractions are fewer and or very different. You don’t have to get up from you desk to attend meetings, you probably don’t have a variable lift desk, I doubt your chair is as ergonomically comfortable, and you don’t have people coming up disrupting your workflow (instead they PM now), so yes I think we tend to forget to get up, change position, take a breather, like a disruption at work would encourage us to do, and due to this these apps become more popular.

As it happens I’ve worked from home since 1999 as part of a change in working practices in preparation for the then upcoming “Millennium Bug” (which had zero impact on my customers but I did collect a big £££ for working through midnight on 31st Dec 1999!) - and through multiple role and account changes have never had to go back in other than a meeting every couple of months, so I’m well adapted by now!!

But yes, I get this point that there is probably a new focus on “being reminded to look after the self”.

Nigel Taylor 0

@chrisa said in Silence of Mind...:

I spent years with masters from asia (and other parts of the world) practicing meditation and breathing. As a typical ‘western guy’ I had not the faintest idea how deep you can get into that topic and how superficial my knowledge about breathing as a whole was. When modern trackers measure HRV metrics they can visualize the ratio of parasympathetic and symphatic activity, but in Asia this concept is known for thousands of years in the form of “yin and yang”. When you are stressed or working out your body gets “yang” and if you keep going like that, your whole system will get “too yang” which will lead to physical and psychological problems. Almost everyone in our modern, western society is too yang nowadays. Meditation and mindful breathing, bringing awareness into your body are “yin” practices and help to balance those yang lifestyle. So if people use trackers or watches to get started to become more “yin” and get back into balance, this is a first step and IMO the right way to do. Sadly, most people are not even aware of being completely out of balance, thinking that going further or working out harder will make them stronger but everything in nature that does not stay in balance will eventually perish.

I think the ‘Resources’ metric is proving insightful to me on this topic, and has even more colour now you’ve mentioned yin & yang.

I don’t typically adjust my behaviours based on data such as ‘recovery hours’ or ‘resources’, but I do like to look retrospectively at data after the fact, to “Quantify My Self” (to half steal someones platform name!) and reflect that there is quantifiable data that reflects my perception of where I’m at and that I continue to “understand myself”…that my Watch gives me a low resources score and tells me I had low quality sleep pretty much every night is a reminder and reflection of what I know - that I typically drink too much alcohol and eat too late to be ‘the best runner I could be’. (this is fine, I don’t want to be the best runner I could be all the time, as I like eating food that is bad for me and I like drinking wine and beer!).

It will be interesting when marathon schedules kick in in June, that comes along with gradually reducing alcohol, eating better and sleeping earlier (without really thinking about any of them, they’re just an outcome driven by increasing running miles) - when I would expect to see my resources closer to 100% most days, and my yin and yang more balanced!!

ChrisA

@nigel-taylor-0 I was really amazed when I first heard of things like Garmins Bodybattery or Suuntos Resources and realised that those were some kind of “scientific” metric showing you how good you recovery is. I actually knew about the importance of keeping balance and practiced this for years but I never knew that you can measure it. Being into martial arts for decades I was never aware of all those sports tracking and metrics you will get from Polars, Suuntos, Garmins etc. until I started running last Spring when practicing martial arts was no longer possible (at least with partners). I really appreciate now having the possibility to monitor my resources and see what influences them and I was really shocked how strong the effects of even only two beers before bedtime were on me and how practicing “inner martial arts” like Qi Gong or Tai Chi actually raised my resources when I did them right and managed letting my thinking rest for some time. Hence I fully agree with @cosmecosta and @Bulkan: In the end it’s just You being fully aware what you do. Running in the “silence” or cycling or climbing up a mountain, feeling the aliveness comes first and it’s awesome 🤩 (before your mind kicks in again and your ego asks how fast you did it this time )

ChrisA

When I was running today, I remembered a saying I heard from another master I attended a workshop some years ago. He told us, that he teaches is advanced students (who are not yet blackbelts) : “…first to learn it all, but then to forget it all and then to “hear the soundless” and “see the formless” but not to name it”. He then laughed and told us, that most students first don’t get it but he means that first there is the mind that needs data, metrics, methods and processes to learn what needs to be learned for a certain level you want to achieve. But once you’be reached this level there is another level you will only achieve when you don’t use your mind but when you are fully aware with you consciousness. Then you will “see” the formless and “hear” the soundless. And as soon as you start thinking about it (that’s when your mind wants to “name” it) it’s gone 🤪. I think people can reach this in everything they do and I know (though I never had it really) there is something like the “runners high” or “runners flow” where you are completely into running, not thinking of your pace or your heartrate and I think it’s then when runners reach that level too and I believe there are others, like the mountaineer reaching the peak of a mountain and watching the panorama of the mountains around him is in that “flow” too or the surfer who rides inside the wave… and that’s the awesomeness of doing all all this things with our Suuntos

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@chrisa do you know John C lilly ?>

ChrisA

@dimitrios-kanellopoulos No, just googled - a scientist ?

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@chrisa yes. One of the first western people to find “higher grounds”. He created the isolation chamber and wrote some fascinating books.

He teached many western people.

ChrisA

@dimitrios-kanellopoulos just read some articles on his website. Very interesting, thanks for the information. The experiences he made in this isolation tanks sound familiar to experiences to the ones you can make in traditional meditation.

Jamie BG

@chrisa
I know what you mean - used to reach it occasionally when racing dinghies - its a high like you can’t believe and it seems as though you can do no wrong as you integrate with the waves, wind, hull and sails.

Very hard to reach though, especially when racing in multiple crew dinghies/yachts. Can also not be too good sometimes too, as I go into a mini habit of switching off when I had a really annoying crew who never shut up. Both learnt a lesson the one day - me not to switch off/ him to shut up and save talk for important stuff, not drivel - when I boat came in through our side (he had been distracted talking drivel and had seen it very late as had been hidden by our sails, and thus warned me very late, I was ignoring his drivel and didn’t pick up on him freaking out until it was too late…

Nigel Taylor 0

Difficult to demonstrate silence of mind if you’re using the watch to navigate a route (offloading from your mind having to think about where you’re going and just following prompts as and when they alert you) - when you get THREE notifications for every turn!

This remains my biggest bugbear with the S7. Small problem but annoys me no end (and probably has a significant impact on battery time when following a route).

isazi

@nigel-taylor-0 interesting, yesterday I was thinking about the same after my hike, but with opposite conclusions!

Using TbT from Komoot I actually looked at the map much much less, knowing I would get a vibration 100 meters before each turn I didn’t have to look at it at every intersection, I know that if it didn’t vibrate I could just keep going

sky-runner

@nigel-taylor-0 said in Silence of Mind...:

THREE notifications for every turn!

I agree. I get incredibly annoyed by notifications too. They distract me. I much more prefer to have a permanently visible next turn arrow at the bottom of navigation screen. Then I can just glance at it from time to time and be aware of when my next turn is. That is possible with a Garmin watch where it displays next turn at the bottom of map and all notifications can be individually configured.

ChrisA

@jamie-bg I always admire you guys cruising on the sea! As exciting (as you describe) I always find the oceans to give one so much peace (assuming there is no storm coming in ). Just watching and listening to the waves - it’s mesmerising

Nigel Taylor 0

@sky-runner said in Silence of Mind...:

@nigel-taylor-0 said in Silence of Mind...:

THREE notifications for every turn!

I agree. I get incredibly annoyed by notifications too. They distract me. I much more prefer to have a permanently visible next turn arrow at the bottom of navigation screen. Then I can just glance at it from time to time and be aware of when my next turn is. That is possible with a Garmin watch where it displays next turn at the bottom of map and all notifications can be individually configured.

Oh, I prefer notifications - but just one per notification please!

Although - I do like the idea of a stat that is “distance to next RoutePoint” that I could choose to put as a data item on a screen.