100 Days to Offload: Day 5
Philosophical meditation
Yesterday evening I did something called philosophical meditation, after reading about it on David Cain's blog, Raptitude. There's a 6-minute video about it here:
I started by writing down the things I'm feeling upset and anxious about, and while I was doing that, my new fitness tracker started buzzing. It told me that I may be stressed and asked whether I wanted to do a relaxation exercise.
How about that? It turns out you can sit quietly in a room, and just by thinking about things that make you anxious, you can increase your stress levels so much that the physiological changes can be measured by the cheap sensors in a fitness tracker. In case you're wondering, I recently got the Garmin vivosmart 4, which has a heart rate monitor and pulse oximetry sensor, but links to your phone for GPS.
My mind did feel a little bit quieter after the exercise, so I'll do it again in a couple of days and see if it provides any longer-term benefits.
I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload. You can join in yourself by visiting https://100daystooffload.com.