I love my startup job but, since starting it, my jaw clench has become bad enough that my front teeth are shifting. Does anyone have some good tips on how to stop that?
2) The rewards are immediate and gradual, but clearly noticeable.
3) It's relatively cheap, though you can't cheap out on shoes if you are going to run on cement. A good pair usually costs over $100, but you can get them for half the price online if you know your size for a particular model.
4) It's convenient. However, you do need access to a shower afterwards.
5) You can do it alone or with someone else, at any time you want.
That being said, I found taichi to work just as well in clearing the brain, but you don't get the endorphin rush or the cardiovascular improvements as much.
It's FAST too, in terms of calories burned per minute.
I love cycling - but any bike ride under an hour isn't really worth the time, unless you're doing hard intervals or climbing a really steep hill. If you have 30 minutes, there's nothing more efficient than running.
I'm sure many people will disagree, but long-term I found running absolutely wreaked havoc on my knees. And studies I've read say that modern shoes are part of the problem.
I enjoy yoga but it always leaves me wanting more.
Yoga, tai-chi, kung-fu, swimming, water polo, running, skating, skiing, snowboard, surfing, windsurfing, kite-surfing, dancing, push-ups, sit-ups, breathing exercises, shower (especially cold one) are all things that I personally try to do as often as my time allows. I start my day with yoga and try to do at least one other of the above mentioned activities during the day. Any of these will do. Even just getting off the computer for a while will also help a little.
Alcohol, coffee, online porn, energy drinks, drugs, cigarettes are all bad ideas.
If you choose to believe ayurveda (the ancient Indian medicine) you need to have equal amounts of "Sun" and "Moon" activities during the day. Sleep, computer usage, reading are all Moon activities. All of us here do way too much of them. To stay in shape we need to counter-balance them with some team sports, interacting with people, running, jumping, playing, etc. BTW, meditation, although it's very effective, is also a Moon activity.
Try meditation. I do it though not as regularly as I should, but it helps to calm you down. You start to notice more around you, mainly because you stop analyzing everything to the 'T'.
Read "The Power of Now" for a better (and lengthier) version of what I just said.
To add to this, there's several different kinds of mediation. The one you're looking for helps you relax your body in a way that doesn't fuzz your mind, or burns up your focus.
Some of the meditation methods overlap with deep breathing. You breath deeply by expanding both the bottom of the lungs, the sides of the lungs, and the top of the lungs. You make sure the bottom ribs are expanding. You don't try to force the expansion to the point where you're trying to hold air in like a puffed up balloon, greedy for more.
You cannot force yourself to relax. Consciously relaxing requires you to relinquish control over the muscles that are tensing up while still observing it.
In your case, I would also work on clenching and then relaxing your toes. There's connective and control tissues going from your feet to the jaws and temples.
If you're going to learn how to do this though, you'll need to set aside definite time where the startup cannot intrude. Supposing you set an alarm clock to buzz in fifteen minutes, then within the fifteen minutes of meditation/relaxation, you must allow all of the concerns, worries, thoughts, obsession, guilt with the startup to drift away. Otherwise, this won't work very well. There are people who develop superlative levels of skill in relaxation and meditation; these folks spend as much time and energy dedicated to it as you would to a startup ... so the least you can do is respect it during the fifteen minutes you are cultivating calmness.
I agree completely, except to mention that 15 minutes may not be sufficient at first. I wasn't even doing a startup, and 15 minutes was barely enough for me to let go for the first time I tried.
Very true. I experienced the same thing when I first practiced.
I didn't want to discourage anyone from picking up the practice, though. I wanted to point out it isn't a magic pill with an insta-cure, and it will take some time with daily effort before it starts working. Besides, the very first time, I had trouble sitting still for even five minutes.
I recommend Yoga as well. I asked (almost) this exact same question to another forum back in January. I got a variety of good recommendations, but the best was definitely Yoga and Meditation, followed by organizational/time-management ideas. Exercise wasn't a problem as I was already exercising hard 4-5 times a week. Sleep wasn't really an issue either, but sleep is basically a prerequisite for any of these ideas. If you aren't getting enough sleep, you won't be able to focus on anything.
Just as a sample, try this:
Find a quiet, clean room with a hard floor that you can still lie down on and be comfortable. It should be softer than a hardwood floor, but harder than a mattress. I used a throw rug on top of a carpet. Get a small blanket or a pillow for your head. I used a $5 fleece blanket from the drugstore.
Lie flat on your back, with your arms slightly away from your body, palms-up. As you relax, your feet should dangle away a little, and your fingers should curl up a bit. Take a deep breath in through your nose by expanding your diaphram. Exhale slowly, and listen to your breath. Continue breathing easily. You should settle into a rhythmic pattern eventually. Keep listening to your breath. Eventually you'll notice that your arms and legs are getting heavy, as the tension drains out of them. Your mouth and eyes and face should relax too. Your mouth will probably hang open. It can take a long time. The first time I did it, it was 20 minutes of lying on my back and breathing before I was really relaxed.
Decide in advance how long you will permit yourself to meditate. I recommend 30-60 minutes. While you are meditating, do not think about anything else at all. If, while you're trying to relax, you begin thinking about your startup, or any other problems, stop and go back to listening to your breath.
The advantage of meditation and Yoga over guns or sports or even martial arts is that you can meditate almost anywhere, and mental discipline is useful for virtually everything.
I like doing complex things that require your full attention or you die. Stuff like rock-climbing (although I'm too out of shape to do that) Strenuous hiking is great -- wish I did more of it. The trick is that if you have an analytical and goal-intensive mind, like I suppose many of us do, you may have to try some unusual things to beat it into neutral gear.
I've found that even out of shape old farts like me can get the same results by simply raising your pulse to about 80-90% of max for an hour or so. If you do this using smart exercise equipment, it does all the work of figuring out how hard you should be working. Somewhere around minute 20 or so I find myself relaxing mentally, although the physical part is a little painful. Your mind begins to wander. At this point, once you're used to it, you can easily slip into a very meditative state. Focus on a point, recite a mantra, relax your mind. This reminds me of the same feeling I had when I ran, except you don't get the great feeling of being outdoors. On the good side, you don't have to worry about dogs, traffic, or slippery roads.
Best thing about all of that is that you get a great endorphin rush when you're done for the next few hours.
My problem is that I'm always trying to hack my way out of relaxing -- using less time, gulping a Red Bull instead of doing my workout, etc. I'm slowly learning that this isn't something you can take shortcuts with, but it's a lesson I have a hard time with. I guess my mindset is that if you can make a computer do something really cool in ten minutes you should be able to hack your body-mind the same way, but it doesn't work like that.
Try a little book called "The Calm Technique" by, I think, Paul Wilson (?).
Simple, excellent introductory meditation.
But that takes time to build momentum. As at least one great yogi said "water will clean the mind faster than the mind can clean the mind."
Hot tubs and swimming, particularly in natural water (not a chlorinated pool) will get most of the junk that meditation will take care of eventually in a much faster and more expedient way. Oh, and consider a mouth guard when you sleep, so you don't grind your damn teeth away!
Martial arts - get out and start fighting yourself, people, and bags. You'll not only de-stress but you'll also learn to defend yourself - physically and mentally. I wouldn't have made it through grad school without 6 - 8 hours of practice a week.
I guess it just depends on your approach. I learned to put less effort into each technique with more training - I used to muscle everything. In the process, I learned to calm myself until the point of impact. 2 hours of that 3-4x a week made all the difference in my personal sanity. It become a moving meditation with practical applications.
The strategy I was taught was to be completely relaxed, yet I was not able to do that until as recently as six months ago. This is after four years of training. I've finally figured out how to inflict damage while being relaxed even during the point of impact and following through. I'm still not completely relaxed
I've made it a point to never train when I'm angry or distressed. (People get the wrong idea when they see bruises on my fists and I mention they are from working out on my punching bag). Anger is my default coping mechanism for stress. It is foolish, yet that is what it is. I once did a 3-mile repetition of kata while I was angry, and it destroyed my skills. It took three months to rebuild it back up from the basics.
I did finally find an effective technique for dealing with anger. It requires me to drop everything else in the world and immediately deal with the anger -- that nothing in my life is more important than dealing with it right at the moment. That's a huge investment of time, though it was eventually worth it when I got less angry and required less interventions.
I can see how, if you're deliberately training yourself to relax during martial arts training, you de-stress yourself during training. You also learn how to stay relaxed while stress is applied to you (during free-sparring). And in fact, for this person who asked the question ... the skill in being able to drop into being physically calm and centered would let him unclench his teeth and keep going.
However, as I mentioned in the other reply about meditation -- there are people who dedicated their whole lives to just meditation and relaxation. It is difficult enough to continue training wen you're exclusively dedicated to martial arts, let alone dedicating yourself exclusively to a startup and you happen to use martial arts with the expectation that it will de-stress you ... so that you can continue the startup, rather than developing martial prowess.
I will say this though. I might have learned how to relax from meditation practice, but I learned how to persevere from martial arts. "Keep going, keep playing." That was definitely worth the price.
Yes, yes, during free-sparing absolutely. You get that flood of adrenaline and have to learn to control it. And perseverance, I agree completely - to keep going when you think you have nothing left to give.
I'd say it took me three to four years to really start to understand the power and force of relaxation. But even then, people practice these skills for a lifetime and I still have a ways to go.
For me, practice became a solace and timeout. Just stopping from thinking about work for those 6-8 hours a week was extremely helpful. By focusing on the techniques, it became a meditation.
Never tried yoga, but meditation is fantastic and not just for relaxation. I haven't meditated for awhile but I did very frequently for a few years and it taught me a lot about myself.
See a therapist? If you don't have any underlying issues that need to be addressed, they can teach you relaxation techniques better than a Google search for "relaxation."
You could also see a dentist to get a mouth guard made.
It may be a sign that you need to have your wisdom teeth out. I used to use the pressure from my wisdom teeth as a measure of stress, and then eventually got them taken out.
Also, I find when I get that pressure before going to bed it's a sign that I'm going to grind my teeth. I sit up, give the jaws a relaxing rub, maybe prepare myself for some reading and the expectation that I won't be at work early next day, then have a good sleep.
Massage your jaw under your chin with your thumb before you go to bed and/or when you catch yourself clenching.
Also use your fingers to massage the outside of the chin at those times.
Find out the source of your worries and destroy your fear by making those tough choices that you may be avoiding. What are you worrying about if you love the startup? Would you rather be somewhere else? Do you sense something bad?
Has anyone tried Transcendental Meditation? I'm really interested in learning meditation, but if I have to buy into some spiritual or New Agey mumbo-jumbo it'd kill the mood for me and I won't be able to get into it. I basically want some kind of relaxing empirical approach to studying one's own consciousness, awareness, etc.
Yoga, meditation and all those are great, but for simple quick fix I recommend breathing deeply, slowly and comfortably. When you get tense, or feel like relaxing, focus for a moment on your heartbeat and breathing, and give a little part of your brain to slowing both down a bit. Repeat as necessary.
Generally, strenuous physical activity is very good for concentration and relaxation. Sports are good. Chopping wood is lots of fun. Competitive Timberman Challenges are probably the best option.
I play Floyd songs on my guitars or ride my Ducati - when the lousy weather here in Norway allows it. Actually, I have also found that listening to bineural beats a la Holosync really helps me take a powernap when needed :)
Guns. Seriously. Marksmanship is a simple thing that takes a lot of focus. Concentrate on the front sight, mind your breathing, squeeze gently .... it's like meditation, only less sissy. (j/k!)
yoga works wonders for me. Started it 5 months ago and the mental side has been amazing. Sure I am not super flexible, but its not competitive - give it a go and remove any preconceptions you may have about it
Some people experience alertness, relaxation, and a refreshed sense of well being. Ask your doctor if Sleep is right for you.