How to increase physical and mental energy- small steps to meditating and being in the moment

 

" A lion sleeps in the heart of every brave man"

- Turkish proverb

Focus your attention 100 percent, after that, take a break

If you haven't heard already, Air Force special warfare training is long.  It could take nearly 2 years to get through the training; that's if you don't get injured or rolled back.  The old advise that's been around as long as the training itself is: take it one moment at a time. 

Having as much mental and physical energy as possible is vital for success in elite levels of training, which is why we should live more like the elite.

I been looking at how people at elite levels perform, and what caught me off guard is how they approach training or accomplishing tasks. Instead of going through their day constantly working, striving, and trying to reach the next level, they do short bursts of activity with breaks in between.  It's kind of how a lions live there lives. 

 Lions don't hunt all day long, work out, or stay busy giving 50 percent or less of their attention to daily tasks.  They hunt in small windows of time in short, intense bursts of activity.  The rest of the day they relax under a tree or something.

Its seems approaching anything at a higher level should be done in short, intense cycles of activity.

Approaching life is the same, or could be looked at the same way.  That's kind of what my entire blog and focus is all about: living everyday like an operator, reaching for elite levels of performance.

Even if our daily schedule is more activity than it should be, attacking it with half focus, half energy levels, and with constant stress without a break, will keep us average.

I wanted to share a technique that I've recently developed to help me in my own life as a husband, father, and air traffic controller.  A lot of things I learn now can help in almost any situation, including the pipeline.  I've always been interested in reaching higher levels of performance, even after I left the military.

This technique is not mine, but I named it the transition phase because I struggled with these moments in my life for years.  I've always felt that I had a hard time "shifting gears" to the next phase of the day.  I'm sure a lot of other people have this issue, maybe even you.  

An example:

On a normal day, I may work in the morning ( depending on the day) which requires me to leave the house around 6:30 in the morning.  My drive to work is a transition from my home environment, to the place I spend a lot of time, the Pensacola air traffic control tower.  It's a place full of other co workers ( some who are difficult people), supervisors who fall under fraud, waste, and abuse of tax payer's money ( completely useless), and pilots who think they are the only people flying that day.  There's also a lot of positive interactions, but 8 hours of stress from air traffic and some difficult people, takes a lot out of me during the day.

In air traffic, breaks are required throughout the day, so those are transitions from working live air traffic to taking a break in the break room, taking a walk outside, or writing.

And of course the drive back home from work is another transition during my day. 

I'd like to focus on what to do during these transition phases to ensure maximum focus and energy throughout the your day.  Because like I've said before,  energy is one of your most important assets.  We can approach life strategically, instead reacting to our day and getting bogged down and draining precious energy.  I'm talking about physical and mental energy.  The kind you need in training.  The kind you need to maintain so you don't become a glorified government welfare recipient, like some people I work with.

The technique is simple, but I've got to say it's effective, and that's what we want.  We don't need complicated short cuts or magic supplements to make us super human.  We need to protect and conserve our energy.

As a side note, I know I get more breaks than most people do on the job, but as crazy as it sounds, I never took the time to take a proper breaks after getting of the position up in the tower.  Instead, I'd rush to write blogs and books, so I began to feel burnt out by the time I got home.  

The transition phase technique can be done in as little as 5 minutes, so even if you get don't get many breaks at work, or you have an extremely hectic schedule, stepping away from what you are doing is critical for conserving energy.

Stress effects your energy levels

 

One of the biggest killers of energy is stress.   And let me tell you, like most other people, stress has caused major issues in my life.  

Here's a little back story on how CCT training saved me from the crippling effects of stress.   

Before I finally committed to joining the military, I had some issues.  As a teenager I had a problem with attention, and could barely concentrate on anything.  Of course, this caused problems with high school ( 1.9 GPA), college ( never graduated) and even working part time jobs ( I was fired from a few).  I was beginning to think I was just stupid, or that I had a case of ADHD.  Now, I know I have none of this.  I just didn't handle stress well.  As the stress caused more problems, the worse my relationship with my parents and my confidence in life got.

The stress caused me to have actual brain fog.  When I was stressed, my heart rate would increase, and I would start forgetting important details about everything, and I could barely function.  

I remembered in high school ( before I got a stress fracture) how much I enjoyed running.  When I ran, my mind seemed to calm down.   As I was on the verge of literally being kicked out of college and working a job at a warehouse in the evenings, I decided to start running again.  I found a workout plan designed to prepare individuals for Special Warfare and just focused on the running; the rest is history.

Long story short ( I write about this in other articles), starting to run improved my life so much, that I was in the CCT pipeline, focused on getting through it, real focus I'd never experienced before.

While I ran, I meditated. I still do this now.  As I ran, I noticed my  mind seemed more clear, if only for 30 minutes, and  I was able to clear my mind from the anxieties that plagued my young mind.  I was then able to plan and focus on what was on my mind.  The breathing and the movement of my body helped relieve the built up stress in my body.  The more I ran, the better I felt.  I started adding swimming and calisthenics, but the running started it all.

The running created massive improvements in my life.  We all know that exercise has huge benefits, but the amount of improvement was astonishing for me.  I went from having crippling anxiety and feeling trapped, to sorting out my life in a matter of months.

The takeaway from this is: Taking breaks and giving your mind a break is vital for clearing the stress of the day, and becoming more focused and energetic.

This is why running very long distances still pulls at me.  I don't do it for the race, I do it for the therapy I receive from the meditation.

But I've learned more. Running more will not help as much as I thought.  I need to keep these moments of meditation going throughout my day. 

Some people don't like running as much as I do ( even special warfare candidates ) and even as much as running does for me, it's not enough.

Think about the world as it is now. I get stressed just thinking about it.

  I can do a 6 mile run in the morning ,before I work, and feel fantastic.  But, by 2 in the afternoon, that high I received in the morning is usually gone and often replaced with feelings of being burnt out, frustrated, or anxious.  If I ran after work, which I usually do as a transition from work to home in the afternoon, I was still sometimes running on fumes by around 6 or 7 that night.  

Sometimes I'd wish I could run 20 miles in the morning, but even that that fully prepare me for what happens 8 hours later.  I tried this.

I had to look at what I was doing.  Why were the benefits short lived when I felt so awesome during and immediately following my runs.  Like clockwork why did I start feeling burnt out again?  I tried running more, but it only helped a little more, but it wasn't worth the extra time.

The improvements started happening once I started looking at how people at elite levels approach their tasks.  It seems that we need breaks after about 90 minutes of focus on a task.  That's not very long.

When I come down from the tower to take a break, I shouldn't immediately start another task, which I usually do because I'm like a lot of you reading this! I think, " What can I accomplish next?" A better move for me would be to take 5 minutes to breathe deeply and let go of some tension and give my mind a break.

What I discovered shocked me. On a 45 minute break, I could accomplish more in 30 minutes if I gave myself 10 minutes to reset.  I was more focused and had more energy than going the entire day running around trying to do as much as i could; a recipe for burnout.

I know a lot of people that read this blog are interested in being high performers in their own lives; I know I want to be.  

The very nature of these articles should attract those types of people, but if you're not interested in high achievement, doing this practice can help with sustaining more energy, no matter what your end goal is.  I've never met anyone who likes feeling stressed out, having low energy and focus, so this is worth trying because is very simple to incorporate in your life.

How does this relate to special warfare training?  The very nature of any type of special warfare training is designed to stress you.  It's designed to make the next day worse than the present one.  It's one event after the other, just like our everyday lives.  Around every corner, there is a potential slap in the face.

The events of the Air Force special warfare pipeline require you to give 100 percent on everything you do, and it is nearly 2 years long.  There's a few ways to look at this fact.  There's one way;  Almost 2 years of giving everything you have.  

Then, there's the more manageable way.  One event at a time.  Think of how many transitions there are in the pipeline, or even smaller, one day in the pipeline.

 Even during the most difficult events in the pipeline, those that did the best approached the training one moment at a time.  They weren't worried about what was next because the were focused on what was happening at that very moment.  

Then, you had the people that didn't make it, or they struggled big time.  They were always worried about what was next. Eventually this becomes overwhelming because it's too much for the mind to handle.  Most events are difficult in the pipeline, but doable.  It becomes a problem when you are giving 100 percent, but you are thinking about the next month, the next year, or the entire career.

Meditation can help in the pipeline and in life

Some people are naturally better at staying in the moment and taking life as comes than others, but we could all be better at it.  You will never reach a mythical state where you become like a monk and are always tranquil and serene, making life perfect.  In fact, if you found a monk, they'd tell you they know nothing because they understand this approach is like walking; taking each moment as it comes and adjusting.

Taking time to transition between that ruck march that kicked your ass, and the next one will help reset your mind. After that next event, you can do it again.  You can do it on the way to the school house, and on your way to the chow hall at night.  You can even do it before sleep. It will help with the burden that training puts on everyone's mind, just like it does in life. 

Not only will this help with mental and physical energy levels, it will help make you more mindful of your situation because this is a form of meditation.

Meditation teaches you to see your how your life is instead of being caught up in your emotions.  Just like in life, your emotions will be all over the place in the pipeline.  You will be more aware of your emotions, able to see them and process them, not be pulled into a downward spiral of negativity and doubtfulness.  You will be more aware of who you are and will handle stressful situations better.

On top of all this, taking small breaks to reset and have a break makes a huge impact on how you approach the next task. 

 From getting up out of your chair in front of the computer, or taking your mind away from the grueling reality of special operations training, taking advantage of transition periods and incorporating small meditation breaks can have enormous benefits on your mental and physical energy, stress levels, and overall performance and difficult tasks.  

It's worth a try.

Kevin