Maintaining peak condition (Part 1)

There are eight primary areas we must manage to keep our bodies and minds in peak condition:

• Moving
• Breathing
• Eating
• Drinking
• Sleeping
• Charging
• Thinking
• Self-monitoring

In each case, there is a minimum and an optimal ‘dose’, the former being the minimum amount that you need to perform well. To ensure that you have at least this dose, there are several actions you can take in each of these areas.

Moving

Since most of us these days have a sedentary lifestyle, it’s vital to keep moving and stay flexible. Otherwise, our minds and bodies can become stiff and lethargic. Make sure you move for thirty consecutive minutes every day. If you have a sedentary job, get up and move around every thirty minutes – and don’t sit with your legs crossed.

Breathing

Most people have shallow, chest-focused breathing, often through the mouth. This can cause tension in your core and neck as well as create a state of excessive arousal, where a more relaxed state is preferable. To address this, note how many breaths you take in one minute when you are in a normal, relaxed state. The ideal is six to twelve. If your number is more than this, focus on breathing slowly and more deeply. Breathe through your nose and use your abdomen to force the air in and out of your lungs. When exercising, try to breathe through your nose; eventually, you will be able to do this instead of breathing through your mouth.

Try the CO2 test and see if you need to increase your CO2 tolerance through breathing work. Then, whenever you feel wrongly charged, do a set of box breathing. These exercises are described below:

BREATHING EXERCISES

CO2 test

Sit or stand comfortably. Breathe through your nose three times, normally. Then, breathe in as much as you can. As you begin to exhale through your nose, start your timer. Exhale as slowly as you can, for as long as possible. Stop the timer when you have no more air to exhale, or when you swallow or hold your breath. The number of seconds on the timer is your score. A score below twenty means there is a lot of room for improvement. Do your best to work up your score above forty or higher.

Breathing more effectively

Breathe through your nose throughout the day and night and try to reduce the number of breaths you take per minute, try to get this down to ten.

Box breathing

Box breathing is rhythmic breathing and consists of four stages of equal length: inhale, inhale hold, exhale and exhale hold. Both inhaling and exhaling should be through the nose. It’s called box breathing because it’s like going around a square where all the sides are the same length; for example: inhale for two seconds, hold for two seconds, exhale for two seconds, hold for two seconds. Choose the number of seconds according to the state you want to be in. If you want to increase your breathing capacity, choose a higher number that is challenging but doable; if you want to get into a more relaxed state, pick a number that feels comfortable.

Eating

We all know the importance of a good diet, but how and when we eat are just as important as what we eat. Some good rules of thumb are to:

• Put your fork, spoon or knife down after you have taken a bite
• Chew properly before swallowing
• Eat until you’re 80% full
• Not eat within three hours of going to bed

Drinking

When we are dehydrated, both our physical and mental functions are impaired. You can calculate how much you should be drinking each day based on your size, and should make sure you get that amount. A good practice is to drink a glass of water first thing in the morning.