Reflecting, De-stressing, and Alpha Brainwaves
Key Points:
1. Alpha brainwaves are the brainwave pattern that is associated with metacognition - i.e. being aware of our own thoughts.
2. Being reflective of our experiences is important to then be able to move forward in life.
3. Over the next few weeks, we’ll cover 4 keys to help you make this shift towards being reflective.
“Self-reflection entails asking yourself questions about your values, assessing your strengths and failures, thinking about your perceptions and interactions with others, and imagining where you want to take your life in the future.”
As part of my passion for travel and adventure, my family goes to Nicaragua to get some downtime and to disconnect from our daily lives. We surf and ride horses in the jungle and hike. One amazing day I was off by myself on a trail and I came to a beach that was surrounded by cliffs. There was one trail down to the beach, and I decided to go exploring. The trail was sketchy and had a steep gravel section that required 100% of my attention to get down. My brain was totally focused and firing on all cylinders, and I’m sure that if we had an EEG machine to measure my brainwaves, I would have been in beta, which is the alert and focused mental mode. I was in full-on focus execution mode to get down the trail to the beach safely.
Then, the coolest thing happened. When I got down to the sand and walked out onto the beach, I saw that there was only one other person there off in the distance—a local who was line fishing. We waved and then I sat down to take in the scene. The Pacific Ocean was spread out before me. There were cliffs all around. The waves were crashing on the rocks. I looked out over this incredible vista in front of me. It was just beautiful and mesmerizing.
I stared off into the distance. I could sense my mind calming and noticed I was actively processing my environment, my mind was reflecting and contemplating. Then, as you do when you are alone on a beach for some time, I began to think about life. About my family. About my work and career. About my health and fitness. I was able to reflect and think very strategically about all aspects of my life.
I had shifted from a stress mindset (as I was climbing down the rocks through the trees) to a calm and reflective state (once I settled down on the beach). That place, situation, and scene helped me activate the alpha waves in my brain.
Alpha brainwaves, which measure at 8 to 12 cycles per second (Hz), tend to come about during acts of reflection and metacognition, which is when we are aware of our own thoughts. This can happen when you are tuning into yourself, checking in on your views and feelings, thinking about your thinking, perhaps musing over an idea or event—or staring out at an amazing scene in nature.
The state of reflection (also known as “metacognition”) is a crucial mindset for us to practice if we want to take control of our health, performance, and our lives.
Learning to be reflective is an essential skill if you want to contemplate, gain insights, learn, and gain perspective on your life. If you can pause for a moment, change your mental state, and open your mind to greater awareness by reflecting on your experiences and strategizing how to move forward better, you can alter the course of your life, perform at a higher level, and improve your mental and physical health all at the same time. With that greater perception, you set yourself up to continuously learn new things. But how do you do it? We’ll discuss the four keys that can help you make the shift.
Today’s Words of Wisdom: Kunal Gupta on Mindful Leading and Living
Kunal Gupta is the founder and CEO of Polar, a global technology company transforming the digital media publishing landscape and working with close to 800 publishers around the world, including Huffington Post, USA Today, and GQ. Kunal is also a speaker and blogger who explores mindfulness, leadership, and finding focus and calm in a modern era.
“About 7 years ago I got to a point where I wasn’t sleeping well, I had stomach cramps from stress, and I was feeling mentally very challenged. At one moment, I was like, ‘This is getting to be a lot, and I’m not sleeping.’ So, I took email off my phone, and the next day I felt a lot better. In fact, I finally slept. That became my new normal. Then, a few years later, I started to practice mindfulness, which helped me deepen my conviction to use technology rather than being used by it. Now, I have lots of practices for mindfulness, awareness, and being careful with technology.
Awareness cuts through everything. It’s hard to be mean to someone with the awareness that you are being mean. It’s hard to feel angry toward someone when you are aware there’s anger happening. Awareness is an important ingredient to live by. Once we’re aware, we know why we’re doing things and it changes all of our actions and interactions.
To cultivate awareness, I meditate quite a bit. It’s become fully ingrained in my lifestyle. It’s like keeping your home tidy or taking out the kitchen trash before it gets smelly. I do it every day. Then, on a weekly basis, I do a longer meditation or a group meditation. That’s like getting my place organized. Then, monthly or quarterly, I go on retreats to give my space a deep scrub. I’ve been doing this now for almost four years, and I feel it’s sustainable and has given me a very strong grounding.
Retreat is a really useful tool to cultivate awareness. I started with structured retreats—yoga retreats or meditation retreats. When someone else is looking after your stay and food and schedule, you can go deeper inside and really process your thoughts. Recently, my retreats have evolved to be more self-retreat. I basically take 3 to 4 days over a long weekend, once a month, and disconnect from every person in my life. It gives me space to really go deep inside.
I wrote a blog post recently titled ‘Why Some Experiences Should Not Be Shared.’ In it, I explained that I went skydiving a few years ago and didn’t tell anybody. What I was exploring, and have since come to firmly believe, is that when we experience something, if we share it right away, we stop experiencing it. We experience other people’s reaction to our experience versus the experience itself. We lose the connection to what we find meaningful in the experience. I advise people to go have experiences with friends, family, or alone and learn not to share them. You’ll find even more meaning from them.”
Today’s Call to Action: Time Shifts - I have Minutes to Recharge
Refer to the Time Shifts on page 24 in your Rest, Refocus, Recharge Workbook. There are some ideas on how you destress and refocus if you have minutes to recharge before a big event, presentation, or exam. Again, you might find that some of these ideas resonate with you more than others. That’s okay - these are just some ideas for you to think about, but you might find there are other techniques that help you to de-stress during times of high pressure. You can write down what works for you in the Notes section on page 25 of the Rest, Refocus, Recharge Workbook.
Today’s Bonus: Dr. Greg Wells Podcast
Check out this podcast episode with Kunal Gupta about being mindful at work and in life.
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