Meditation

         In an attempt to manage my stress better I’ve been doing daily meditations.  I’ve been using Headspace for its catalog of guided meditations and courses.  Been currently going through the course on stress, which has a list of guided meditations that start off with beginner in which they have a lot of prompts, to advanced which has fewer prompts.

        I started this in May, and as of now I have logged 104 sessions and 980 minutes worth of meditation.  Through my smart ring (Oura), I have been able to track certain metrics like my daytime stress which is broken up between: restored, relaxed, engaged, and stressed.  It also tracks my sleep and readiness scores, as well as my activity levels.  The metrics I care about the most have been my daytime stress, sleep, and readiness.  Having an almost daily meditation practice has improved these metrics.

        Daytime stress is a measurement based on heart rate and heart rate variability.  Restores means you’re giving your body good rest to be banked for activity later.  Relaxed is pretty straight forward.  Engaged, heart rate is slightly elevated.  Stressed, means your heart rate is high and something is taxing the nervous system.  Before meditation I would spend most of the day in engaged and stressed.  Now I’m seeing a lot more restorative time and even have days where it is mostly restorative and little to no stress time.  

         Readiness score is based off of heart rate, HRV, sleep (balance and regularity), activity (previous days and balance), body temperature, respiratory rate, and recovery index (based on heart rate at rest and sleep).  This metric has been on a steady trend upwards.  Still have some bad days, but overall my average has gone up 7 points.  Was averaging a score of 77, now I’m averaging a score of 84.  I am much better at balancing activity and rest.  Before meditation I was having a hard time settling into relaxation. I felt like I always needed to be doing something, even when there wasn’t anything to do.  Now I can actually enjoy relaxing.  Same with sleep.  I’ve noticed I am falling asleep faster, less brain chatter before bed, and my quality has improved- feeling rested.  Having these metrics is a nice reminder that things have been improving, especially on those days where it feels like they haven’t.

        My Kung Fu has benefited for these very same reasons.  I’ve been able to be more relaxed while going through my forms.  My mind has been more clear and receptive to learning.  I’ve been having more “aha” moments and connections being made in my training.  My mood has been a lot more level.  I feel like I’ve been able to enjoy my training again, and it is not feeling like a chore.  When I was really stressed, even a few months ago, my at home training just felt like one more thing I had to do.  Now it is feeling “good” again.  Training at the Kwoon has always been good for me.  I love the community we have there, and it has always improved my mental and emotional status when I step on those mats.  Nowadays I would say I feel more connected.