physical - Be The Better Dad

Qi Gong – The Best Exercise For Busy Dads

Caelan Huntress — Tue, 05 Jul 2016 13:47:54 +0000

Lee Holden jumped into the air to smash a soccer ball with his head.

Before the young varsity athlete from UC Berkeley could make contact, another player swept his legs out from under him. Lee missed the ball and crashed down painfully on his tailbone.

For a week, he could hardly walk, stand, sit, or lie down without horrible pain. His doctor said he was done playing for the season, and Lee refused to give up. He remembered an old martial arts teacher, a man who once broke through 15 stacked bricks in one mighty blow, and suffered no injury.

If there was some ancient healing wisdom from the East that could prevent this master’s hand from becoming injured, maybe it could cure his lower back, he thought.

Desperate to get back on the field, Lee tried Qi Gong, a series of breathing and movement exercises. His injury healed quickly, he made it back into the season, and he was so impressed with the results that he continued studying Qi Gong for the rest of his life. Now he teaches it to others, on PBS specials, on DVDs, and through online video courses.

“There is a lot more to Qi Gong than meets the eye. Like an iceberg, what you can see and witness in a Qi Gong practice is only the surface of a much deeper and potent internal power. Qi Gong is simple: it requires no equipment, little space, and can be practiced in a short amount of time. Yet simple as it seems, Qi Gong brings an incredible amount of healing power to the practitioner.

– Lee Holden

Qi Gong is the best exercise for busy Dads.

Every year, our joints become more delicate, our bodies don’t heal as fast, and the sports of our youth may not even be good for us anymore.

I’m a good case in point: Parkour is a young man’s sport. I discovered Parkour when I was nearly 30, and today, I’m often twice the age of the kids I run with. They can do tricks easily that require my full dedication and training – I’ve got to work really hard just to match an 18-year-old PK rookie.

As much as I love Parkour, I know that I have to retire soon. My joints need to last for decades, so I can hike into the hills with my progeny. I owe it to them to take good care of my body. I owe it to them to stay fit.

When I first tried one of Lee Holden’s videos, I was surprised at how much clearer I felt in my own body. The tension that I always carried in my neck and shoulders was gone. I felt more centered and balanced throughout the day, especially at bedtime – the kids would be exhausted and grumpy, and I could stay calm and even because I felt relaxed in my body and calm in my mind.

Qi Gong has been called “the Art of Effortless Power.” I think that’s one of the reasons I like it so much; as an athlete, I’m so used to pushing, straining, and exerting effort in order to get results. Qi Gong is a wonderful counterpoint to this, because the more you relax, the more energy and vitality you get from the practice.

The slower you move your body, the more you can relax.

Best of all, the exercises were so simple and easy to learn, it was as easy as pushing play and standing up.

Parents Don’t Learn Very Well

Right now, Dads, you’ve got more obligations than at any other point in your life. Time is your most expensive commodity. If it takes time to learn something, it’s easier to do without it.

Learning new things sucks when you’re a parent, because you don’t have any free time. The learning curve is much too scenic for the get-there-now-before-somebody-cries speed of parenting. Learning a new type of exercise now, at a time when it’s really hard to prioritize our bodies or education, means it’s got to be super easy.

Qi Gong Is Easy To Learn Online

Thirty years ago, if you wanted to learn Qi Gong, you had to go find a teacher and study with them in person to learn the practice. Three hundred years ago, you may have had to journey across a significant portion of the globe (which was not very easy at the time) just to find someone who could teach this to you.

Today, in the Internet age, you can learn Qi Gong at your desk. Type in a few keywords and you can get a world-renowned master teaching you whenever you like.

Watch Qi Gong {2:34}

The practice of Qi Gong isn’t very difficult – it’s just a series of simple movements and patterns that anyone with even modest mobility can follow.

It’s easy to learn, and doesn’t require much time or equipment or exertion. You can learn this online just by watching a video, standing up and moving around.

[wpv-view name=”quote-rotator” wpvposttag=”physical”]

Qi Gong Benefits

Lower stress in your daily life
Deeper breathing helps you relax
Reduced tension in your neck and shoulder muscles
Ease of pain in joints and lower back
Greater stamina at the end of the day
Enters you into a state of flow
Clarity of mind
Deeper sleep

The benefits of doing this practice become more apparent over time. Like acupuncture, a related form of Chinese medical wisdom, greater benefits can be seen with regular, ongoing treatment.

I was shocked at how well Qi Gong worked for my aging dad body – but only after I dedicated a few weeks of short, regular practices every day.

Spending 7 minutes doing Qi Gong every day for a month has a much greater effect than taking a weekend workshop intensive for six hours. Or, as Warren Buffet says, “No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

Try Qi Gong and see what it does for you

Like pickles, cayenne pepper, or My Little Pony, you’ll never really know if you like Qi Gong until you try it.

I recommend trying it for 30 days, and see for yourself if you experience any of the benefits.

[wpv-view name=”quote-rotator” wpvposttag=”physical”]

How To Start A Qi Gong Practice

Sign up for the Free 5-Day Mini-Course
Decide on a time where you can devote 10 minutes to moving every day (is it at your desk? after you get out of the shower? before you go to bed? decide when and where)
When that time comes up, don’t do anything else but Qi Gong for 10 minutes
If you like the first 5 days, sign up for the full 30 Day Qi Gong Challenge
If that works, get Qi Gong AM/PM and practice once a day for 45 minutes.

Qi Gong AM/PM – Online

http://www.leeholden.com/qi-workout-ampm-online.html

Qi Gong AM/PM – DVD

You will know if this is right for you. Your body will tell you.

Practicing 30 days of Qi Gong AM/PM transformed my life. It was just 2 DVDs, one for AM, and one for PM. They are both about 45 minutes long, which is a big commitment for a dad; but since I was able to be completely flexible on when I devoted these 45 minutes to Qi Gong, I would simply watch for the opportunity, and pounce whenever it arrived.

For 30 days, I tried to do one of the routines every day. If I missed the morning workout, I tried extra hard to make time for an evening workout. I think I probably got to 27 or 28 of those 30 days . It’s not important to practice every. single. day. Because, seriously, there’s no gold stars over here. Instead of aiming for perfect attendance, I just practiced regularly for a month, and found that I handled stressful situations much better, felt more relaxed throughout the day, and was generally calm and happy most of the time.

[wpv-view name=”quote-rotator” wpvposttag=”physical”]

Physical stress relief and Mental clarity

This is a type of exercise that works exceptionally well for dads, because we’re getting older, our bodies are deteriorating, and we don’t have a lot of extra time. The reason you see so many old dudes doing Qi Gong is because it becomes more valuable to your creaky joints as you age.

Start now, and by the time you’re a grandfather, you’ll be that cool old dude that gets all mystical with his body every day.

Qi means “life force” and Gong means “practice,” as in a daily practice. By working with Qi Gong you are mastering your own life force energy.

In short, you become a Jedi.

Get started here.

The post Qi Gong – The Best Exercise For Busy Dads first appeared on Be The Better Dad.

One Simple Exercise To Strengthen Your Willpower

Caelan Huntress — Sat, 02 Apr 2016 22:22:00 +0000

Cold Showers

“Your supply of willpower is limited, and you use the same resource for many different things,” say Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney in their bestselling book Willpower.

Every time you exert your willpower – making a decision, handling a crisis, or avoiding a temptation – you are drawing on limited reserves. Studies have shown that if you find yourself exerting extra willpower, you have a greater chance of giving up on something else later in the day.

Baumeister created an experiment where participants were brought into a room with 2 plates, a plate of cookies and a plate of radishes. Some participants were asked to eat the cookies, and some to eat the radishes. After a brief wait, they were then given 30 minutes to solve a complex geometric problem, a problem that was actually impossible to solve.

The ones who ate the radishes, and had to exert self-control to keep from eating the cookies, gave up an average of 8 minutes later. The cookie-eaters persevered much longer, for an average of 19 minutes.

When that study was published in 1998, it laid the groundwork for a theory called Ego Depletion.

Using your willpower to make a decision, the Ego Depletion theory goes, reduces your reserves of willpower. This makes it more likely that you will not make good choices later, and this is precisely why Steve Jobs wore the same outfit every day: black turtleneck, blue jeans. By removing the need to make any choices about what he was going to wear that day, it left him more willpower to draw from later.

Parenthood Naturally Drains Willpower

Kids are a constant supply of unexpected stresses. No matter what you happen to be doing, at any moment, you could be interrupted by a crash from the other room, screeching demands of justice, or a puddle of vomit in your lap.

Keeping your cool in every new crisis is the hallmark of the Better Dad.

Even if you can’t respond with patience every single time, you can try to respond patiently more often. With stronger reserves of willpower, your chances of patient success increase dramatically.

Improving your willpower is easy, and it just takes one simple, uncomfortable habit.

Do you want stronger willpower? It just takes a deep breath and a decision: get in the water.
Click To Tweet

Taking Cold Showers Will Strengthen Your Willpower

Your body has an automatic response to freezing cold water: Get the heck out of it!

Getting into a cold shower early in the morning is not easy. And that’s the point.

Taking a cold shower is a difficult (but minor) challenge that you fully experience in a physical way. Your entire body will react with spasms, and your brain will tell you many, many reasons why this cold shower thing is a bad idea.

The man who can face that discomfort, and overcome the objections of his body and his mind, is a man with a will stronger than other men.

HARDENING – The Real Benefit of Cold Showers

The physical health benefits of cold showers are all great, and make a cold shower experiment worthy of your time.

But the real superpower that you get from taking a cold shower every day is called Hardening.

“Cold showers appear to have improved my stress tolerance,” says Todd Becker, “by buffering emotional reactions. What I mean by this is that bad news, surprises, arguments, or events that would have previously caused a brief surge in adrenaline or an emotional flush, no longer have that effect, or at most have a very attenuated effect.”

Todd writes about Hormesis, the idea that the right kinds of stresses help make us into stronger people. For Dads that are into self-improvement, personal development, or physical fitness (you know, you guys) Hormesis is something you definitely want to know about.

You can really see Hormesis in effect after the first week or two taking cold showers every day. You can handle stress easily, and when the unexpected happens – you don’t panic.

Every morning, you are actively tempering your panic response by taking a cold shower. Your body freaks out when the cold water hits your skin, and your daily training enables you to breathe through the panic, and intentionally do what you have decided to do, without being distracted by the sensation barrage happening in your brain.

During your next family meltdown – projectile vomit, shattered glass, or an unexpected tantrum – whatever happens, you will find yourself more likely to breathe deep, steel yourself for the discomfort, and endure it with patience.

Hardening is the bedrock of your willpower. Cold showers will test how hard you are, and every day, you can rise to the occasion and endure physical discomfort, so long as you have made the decision to endure.

This decision doesn’t stop at the shower. It stays with you, and all the livelong day, you will stick to your decisions, because you have the strong willpower of someone who takes cold showers every morning.

– Pro Tips on Taking Cold Showers for Hardening –

Sean Russell – Cold showers build massive will power.

Doing something you are so resistant to, every single day, right when you wake up, takes a lot of mental strength. And over time, this mental strength and discipline will become an automated habit that echo’s into every area of your life.

Phil Drolet – Building our mind is like building a muscle

The more we work it out, the stronger it gets. Once our mind gets strong enough, we can take on any challenge, or handle anything life throws at us, without getting flustered. We keep our emotions under control, and we choose the most empowering course of action. Then we do whatever needs to be done, and crush it. Boom.

Jason Shen – Cold showers are like pushups for my self-discipline.

Cold showers suck, but every time I do one, I grow stronger. I can feel my self-discipline increasing. To be successful as an entrepreneur, I know I will have to make hard decisions, do things that are uncomfortable and work under stressful conditions.

Stefano Ganddini – If you want to achieve anything great in your life, you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

By willingly putting yourself into an uncomfortable situation every day for 30 days, you condition yourself to fearlessly take on new challenges, get out of your comfort zone, and master your mind.

Jesse Jacobs – By intentionally exposing yourself to discomfort you disarm anxiety and fear.

Every time you turn the shower dial to cold, you are flexing your courage muscles, building confidence in your ability to confront uncomfortable situations. As you become more comfortable in the cold shower, you become more comfortable facing adversity with courage.

Rik Panganiban – Just taking small steps, one day at a time, keeping my eye on the prize.

Really the most important result is a boost in my self-confidence, having confronted something that I thought was ‘impossible’ and beaten it. The next obstacle I face that seems ‘impossible’ I’m going to remember this episode.

Joel Runyon – I use cold showers as a litmus test.

They cause the attitude and character of the person taking them to evolve. Even the people who don’t take them reveal their characters through the excuses they give.

Do you want stronger willpower?

Can You Take A Cold Shower Every Day For 30 Days?

All you gotta do is step in, son.

The shock of a cold shower is not something you can easily forget. Once you get the endorphin rush, you will want to keep doing it…but your discomfort will always warn you against it. That’s why spending 30 consecutive days moving through this discomfort will harden you.

Are you willing to do commit to 30 days in cold showers?

Here is the minimum requirement for this 30 day challenge:

Spend 30 seconds in cold water for 30 consecutive days.

That’s it.

You can download Joel Runyon’s Cold Shower App to track how many days you can go. If you’d like some encouragement and reminders, register for the BeTheBetterDad.com 30 Day Cold Shower Challenge here:

YES! I'm taking the 30-day Cold Shower Challenge.

The post One Simple Exercise To Strengthen Your Willpower first appeared on Be The Better Dad.