TOW#579 — Transitional pause
Last Thursday, during our weekly sales training with the team, a colleague came to the meeting who was clearly a little all over the place. I felt that his mind wasn’t where his body was, and I asked him what was wrong. He said he was thinking about an Excel spreadsheet he was preparing, that his head was full of numbers and that he needed some time to come to his senses. I hope that this week’s tip will help him to calm his thoughts and focus more easily on work. Of course, I also hope it’ll be useful for all of us, who often find ourselves in situations when it’s difficult to focus on a task because we’re doing or thinking about a 100 other things.
Now, let’s have a look at what can be done when you find yourself in similar situations, i.e. when you need to move from one task to another. It’s worth noting that this technique is good to use for any job, task or activity, whether at home or at work, whether large or small.
The technique is called Transitional Pause or Meditation (if someone has an aversion to the word ‘meditation’, feel free to use the term ‘pause’). When you’ve completed a task (e.g. written a long and complicated e-mail), don’t immediately redirect your attention and start a new task. It’s enough to take a short break in between, and I can’t even explain to you how much it’ll contribute to improving focus, thoughts, productivity, stress and your health in general. It’s very important to know, before doing the technique, that you mustn’t carry the problems, burdens, thoughts from the previous task to the next one. If you don’t leave your thoughts behind and focus on the next task with a clear mind, you’ll have done nothing. Thus, the task itself will suffer (because you won’t be fully focused and concentrated on it), and your health too will suffer (because you’ll be worrying about something you have no control over at that moment).
As soon as you finish a task (and leave those thoughts behind), take a short break before starting a new one. It need only be two to three deep inhales and exhales:
1. STOP! — Stop! Leave your thoughts behind;
2. BREATHE — Take a deep breath, filling your stomach first and then your lungs. Hold your breath for a bit and then exhale more slowly (2–3 times);
3. CONTINUE with the next task.
Those who know a little about Eastern practices or breathing techniques are familiar with this type of breathing. Very similar techniques are the basis for the methods of some of today’s famous ‘Super People’, like Wim Hof aka Iceman (an extreme athlete known for enduring very cold temperatures) and Stig Severinsen, who holds the records for swimming underwater (200m) and air retention (22mins).
So, what happens when you do this simple technique:
• Firstly, simply by stopping you’re breaking the flow of the ‘river’ (storm) of thoughts that contaminate your mind from previous tasks. Just for a moment, you’re clearing your mind of negative thoughts and worries.
• By taking a deep breath, filling your lungs, holding and then slowly exhaling you:
Fill the body and blood with oxygen. Although they’re constantly working, our lungs are never truly filled to capacity. Normal breathing is with the abdomen (the way babies breathe). Notice how you breathe with your chest — this is due to the stress that presses down on you every day;
Stimulate one of the most important nerves in our body — the VAGUS nerve, which essentially connects the brain with all the organs in the body. The most important thing here is the connection it creates between brain — lungs — heart;
Activate and nourish the para-sympathetic ‘rest and digest’ nervous system, putting the body and mind in a calmer state.
• By focusing your thoughts and following your breathing, you’re putting yourself (at least for a moment) in a state of super-awareness.
The other day, while writing this tip, a friend called me and I told her what I was writing about. I explained the technique to her, she liked it a lot and said she would give it a try. But I provoked her a little at the end by saying “you’ll do it for 2–3 days, and then you’ll forget about it”, and she got angry with me! Now I’m saying the same to you, hoping that you’ll get a bit angry too, that your determination will kick in and that you’ll use this technique every day.
Wishing you success with the implementation,
Petar Lazarov
Member of the Team
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