10 Things to Do When Feeling Down

10 Things to Do When Feeling Down

10 things to do when feeling down

There are many degrees and shades of not feeling good, from bad mood to serious depression. The latter requires professional treatment, but there are many things to do when feeling down in the ‘common’ way, and considerably improve one’s state of mind. This article explores a variety of ways to come out of those low states.

Explore a Variety of Techniques

We are all different and that’s why I have selected a range of different techniques and approaches, so you can choose a technique that resonates with you. I would recommend exploring all the techniques, comparing their effectiveness, and decide what works for you best. I use a mixture of all these techniques, according to a specific situation.

Feeling Depressed for No Reason?

It’s hard to count how many times in the past I asked myself: “Why do I feel depressed for no reason?” Generally, I perceive myself as a joyful person with almost childlike curiosity about life and fascination by the beauty of creation, but because I can reach such internal highs, feeling truly ecstatic, I can also get seriously down, to the point of self-destructive thoughts. And often there is no clear reason for such states.

I have long acknowledged and accepted this fact about myself, but I have also decided to work on it. I’ve made myself a promise that if I find myself feeling low, I won’t feel guilty for having these emotions, but I will make an effort not to stay in such states for long. I want to systematically work on strengthening my emotional resilience. That’s why I have researched many different ways that would help me spring back from the dark places very fast, and which I could then share with others.

Below is a list of ten techniques or concepts that I have found helpful, and which I frequently use to feel good and keep the low states of mind at bay. I hope that you will find some of them helpful too.

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martial_arts

1) Change Your Physical State

There are many ways to improve our emotional state by changing our physical state. In this section, I will describe four different approaches.

When I feel generally low and demotivated for no obvious reason, I follow the techniques that the ‘motivational guru’ Tony Robbins often uses during his talks and seminars.

These techniques are meant to change your physical state, alter your brain chemistry, and consequently improve the way you feel. You’ll basically trick your brain into thinking that you’re happy when you feel the very opposite. Your brain will then release some feel-good chemicals, which will result in improving your mood, and your day may be saved from being a near-failure into a day with a new perspective, filled with inspired, meaningful action and sense of connection with everyone.

Tony Robbins

Tony Robbins

It takes some will to get yourself to do anything when you’re miserable, but there’s nothing more rewarding than knowing you’ve overcome your worst self and conquered your own mind. Just like The Buddha said –

“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles.”

angel statue

Strike Some Power Poses

Our posture and body language affect how others perceive us, but – and much more importantly – it also affects how we perceive ourselves. Tony Robbins believes that assuming a confident posture even when we don’t feel confident can increase feelings of confidence in the present moment, while in the long run it positively impacts our chances for success.

To sum up:

Our physiology can change our minds.

Our minds can change our behavior.

Our behavior can change our outcomes.

These points have been a subject of many studies, including a Harvard University study conducted by Dr. Amy Cuddy, whom Tony Robbins often quotes during his talks and events.

The following two simple techniques that Tony Robbins shows in the video further down are known as ‘Power Poses’. They’ve also been explored in Dr. Cuddy’s academic paper published in Psychological Science.

The first Power Pose is done by standing straight with your shoulders back, and placing your hands on your hips, and remaining in this resolute, ‘Wonder Woman’ posture, for up to two minutes.

This should help you feel more clear-minded and decisive.

wonder woman

The second technique is based on the theory that making an expansive posture helps people (and animals!) feel more powerful. Expand and raise your arms upwards as is you were shouting “Hooray!”

expanding_pose

In fact, saying “Hooray” to yourself can make the technique even more effective. (Even if you start with a genuinely sour, resentful face!)

Do this three times and notice how you feel afterwards.

This is one of my favourite techniques, because if I’m feeling low or grumpy and try to do this, the sheer absurdity of it makes me laugh, and I know I’m on my way from my misery.

You can check one of Tony Robbin’s motivating mini-lessons on breaking your negative thinking here:

You can also visit his website and glance through all his personal and professional development programs here: https://naturegrooves.com/tony-robbins-programs.

rebounder

Vigorously Move Your Body

A very simple and effective way to improve your state of mind is to move your body. This will change your physical state instantly. Dancing is one of the best ways to trigger joyful, liberating feelings and diminish the bad ones.

Whenever I think of dance as a way of freeing the mind from all troubles, it makes me remember several poignant scenes from Zorba the Greek. However, for most people, it’s impossible to force themself to dance when they’re feeling low (unlike Zorba, who was able to transform any misfortune, deep grief included, into a wild dance).

If dancing is the last thing you’d think of when you’re in a miserable place, I’d highly recommend getting a rebounder and try some jumping instead. I find it incredibly helpful when I feel down; the flying movement, without having to develop much effort, always lifts my mood.

Or, if I feel angry, jumping helps me to get rid of excessive energy. It feels as if I am literally shaking all the bad thoughts off. After all, we are made of energy, and emotions are just various forms of energy. Energy sometimes over-accumulates or gets stuck, making us feel out of sorts, but fortunately we can influence energy by movement. (Hooray!)

Jumping on a rebounder gets the lymph moving, which helps remove toxins from the body, toxic thoughts included.

getting a back massage

Have a ‘Spinal Flush’

Spinal Flush is a simple, but very effective massage technique that I’ve learned from Donna Eden, the renowned energy medicine practitioner and teacher. It is based on pressing the areas about an inch outward from your spine, in a downward movement.

Massaging your body can considerably improve both your physical and emotional state, and Spinal Flush reduces a large amount of your accumulated stress and emotional tension by ‘flushing’ the built-up toxins away.

This technique can be a very welcome treat for women experiencing PMS, and for anyone who feels down in the dumps or is simply tired. I can guarantee that after several rounds of Spinal Flush you will feel considerably relaxed and rejuvenated.

I have described the Spinal Flush in more detail in the article Two Simple Techniques for Deep Relaxation, where you can also watch a video of the charming Donna Eden and her husband David Feinstein demonstrate this technique. It’s very well worth learning if you want to give your partner or friend a big treat!

donna-eden-holding-neurovascular_points

Donna Eden and David Feinstein

Hold the Neurovascular Points on Your Forehead

You can change your physical state and shift your emotions with the following simple technique, also taught by Donna Eden. It involves holding the two frontal eminences on your forehead. They are known as the neurovascular points.

When you are stressed, a large amount of blood flows into your muscles to help you ‘flee the enemy’. Your brain doesn’t know it is only a stressful thought. Holding your neurovascular points will cause the blood flow back to your head and restore calm.

The technique is simple: Put your one hand over your forehead and the other hand over the back of your head, while thinking of something that bothers you.

By doing this, you will be redirecting the blood flow back to your brain, because the electromagnetic fields of your hands can influence your blood flow and draw it towards them. Bringing the blood back to the head will teach the ‘fight or flight’ system of your brain to respond in a calm way, rather than perceiving your every stressful thought as an emergency-trigger.

You can watch a video of Donna Eden showing this technique in my article How to Relieve Stress and Anxiety. You may also try the fun kinesiology-based experiment with lifting the kettle, described in the article. Children love this experiment!

contentment

2) Internalise That You Are Enough

When I notice that my confidence and self-esteem are plummeting, and my mind is haunted by images from my youth when I felt bullied or belittled by some of my peers, I listen to the renowned British psychotherapist Marisa Peer (pun purely coincidental). She has developed a unique method partially based on autosuggestion and hypnotherapy, which can ‘rewire’ your mind to free you from old patterns of self-sabotage and negative thinking.

In her talks and workshops, Marisa Peer highlights the following three points:

1) The common denominator of all our emotional issues is that we don’t feel good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, wealthy enough, talented enough…in short: We don’t feel we are enough.

2) The major cause of depression are the harsh, hurtful words you say to yourself.

3) Your own praise is more effective than praise from anyone else.

The main aim of Marisa’s work is to us fully implement the belief that we are enough. Under her guidance, many people have experienced deep healing from the grip of their subconscious mind and limiting beliefs.

If you’d like to learn more about her method, you can watch her free masterclass.

I Am Enough Marisa Peer

3) Observe The Voice in Your Head

I often notice that there’s a voice in my head which is making a list of all the things I should worry about. However, the very fact that I manage to notice it is good news. In the past, I would not actively notice the voice; I used to think that I was the voice – and that had caused me to feel bad far too often.

As soon as you learn to recognize the anxious, negative self-talk, you are on your way to freeing yourself from it. You will be able to savour the present moment and become a much more content person.

This concept forms a large part of the teachings of the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, the author of The Power of Now, which has been crucial for helping me gain better control over my thoughts and emotions.

His teachings, closely related to Zen Buddhist philosophy, are based on realizing that the constant voice in our head, which is often negative and criticising, doesn’t have to control the way we feel. He teaches how to recognize this ‘background noise’, observe it, and act from the point of conscious presence and stillness, so the judgmental, self-criticising inner banter no longer controls your emotional states.

Eckhart often talks about the liberating power of the present moment. When we are fully present, we cannot be really worried, stressed or anxious because these emotions are caused by ‘too much future’ in our heads. Likewise, when we are fully in the Now, we can’t be wallowing in guilt, regret, past grievances and resentments.

Realising this has been groundbreaking for me. Whenever I feel overcome by worries, I read a few paragraphs from his book, or listen to his talks.

Here are a few of my favourite qutoes from Eckhart’s teachings:

“Focus your attention on the Now and tell me what problem you have at this moment.”

“Do not be concerned with the fruit of your action – just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come on its own accord.”

Negativity won’t survive in your conscious presence.”

“Anything you accept fully will take you into peace.”

“You cannot have an argument with a fully conscious person.”

You can find out more about Eckhart Tolle on the page Resources, where, along with his book The Power of Now, I list some of his teachings and talks, available as audio downloads. This includes Enlightened Relationships, Transmuting Suffering into Peace, The Joy of Being, or The Great Western Classics – Eckhart’s reflections of the writings of famous philosophers and mystics.

Remember: Try to not to lose yourself in the voice in your head. Instead, be aware of it, don’t feel bad about having it, just observe it like you would observe someone else. And from that position, have compassion towards ‘that person’, pause for a second and become aware of the stillness and space of the present moment.

If you practice this awareness and presence, you will start experiencing a sense of deep inner peace, and won’t be thrown by external circumstances as much as before. You’ll be building your internal foundations on a rock, and not on the sand, as described in the famous parable from the Gospels.

juggling

4) Take some ‘Kwik’ action

Whenever I feel that I need to improve my memory, think more clearly, or boost my overall productivity and motivation, I listen to podcasts of the ‘brain coach’ Jim Kwik. Jim is a memory expert, who has taught memory techniques and learning strategies to thousands of people, including top personalities in sports and entertainment, such as Will Smith, Jim Carrey, Oprah Winfrey, or Richard Branson.

Despite all his achievements, Jim remains a humble, incredibly nice person. I love his approach and warmth. I have attended several of Jim’s courses and coaching live calls, and every time I’ve done so, things have move forward in my life. This is because Jim motivated me to take the required action.

His personal story is very touching. As a child, he suffered a head injury which left him with learning difficulties, especially in the area of memory and reading. He was called by one of his teachers ‘The boy with the broken brain’.

However, because of his love of super-hero comic books, his ‘inner warrior’ didn’t allow him to waste his life away, wallowing in self-pity. He took his handicap as a challenge, and he decided to develop a learning method – not for what to learn, but how to learn. 

Will Smith with Jim Kwik

Now Jim speaks in front of thousands, teaching memory-improving methods to learn and retain information. He can memorise over one hundred names or numbers and repeat them backward. He doesn’t do these ‘super-brain’ feats to show off, but to demonstrate that if a ‘boy with a broken brain’ can, then everyone else can radically improve their cognitive abilities.

Jim is discussing his learning methods and strategies in his book ‘Limitless’, which I highly recommend. The book is available from Amazon where you can read the first few chapters for free in the Look Inside’ section. It includes the moving story of his childhood.

Learning New Skills Increases Happiness

Now back to the title of this section. By ‘taking Kwik action’ I mean several things that Jim recommends to make us feel better about ourselves, while improving our cognitive abilities. One of them is learning new skills, which creates new neurological connections in the brain.

Learning a new skill will naturally make you feel better about yourself. That’s why I’ve included this section in this post as one of the strategies to overcome low states.

One of Jim’s favourite activities to keep the brain sharp is learning to juggle. Absolutely anyone can do that – because even I have learned it. All it took was following a step-by-step tutorial and a bit of consistency.

jim kwik juggling with lemons

Jim Kwik

In my article ‘Learn to Juggle for Your Brain Health’, I’ve included a short video of my first juggling attempts (needless to say, rather laughable), but the same video shows a considerable improvement a few weeks later.

The article also includes a step-by-step video tutorial by a professional juggler Coach Bob. To me, it is one of the most comprehensible tutorials for beginners. I learned to juggle by following the video in about two to three weeks.

I highly recommend you give it a go – it’s so uplifting to realise how easy it is to learn something new if we practice just a little, but frequently. And, to get back to the main point of this article, when you fully focus on doing something, you can’t feel miserable at the same time!

Meditating Frog Garden Statue, 6 Inches

5) Meditate

I used to view meditation as a practice for highly spiritually evolved people only. When I went to India as a volunteer in 2004, I tried it there, but I just couldn’t concentrate. I made the conclusion that my mind was too busy for this kind of thing, and forgot all about it.

Only years later I began to learn about the many benefits of meditation, such as slower process of aging, lower levels of cortisol, better sleep and needing fewer hours of sleep to feel fully rested, increased sense of well-being, becoming much less edgy and reactive…the list goes on.

After learning about all these benefits of meditation, I decided to give it a go again, and I am so glad I did! Meditation has been one of the best things I’ve ever committed to as a regular practice. I’d thoroughly recommend it to everyone.

Recharging with meditation15 Minutes!

Regular meditation practice can make measurable changes in our brains, resulting in greater emotional resilience and feeling of contentment and inner peace, even if our life circumstances are unstable or adverse.

Research has shown that deep meditation can cause our brains to release a number of highly pleasurable neurochemicals. One of them is anandamide, a neurotransmitter also known as ‘the bliss molecule’ because of its similar effects to THC – the active ingredient in cannabis. 

As we keep cultivating these pleasurable states on a regular basis, they eventually become traits. We won’t just experience short term-happiness which is dependable on external circumstances, or other people making us feel good; the positive changes will be hard-wired into our brains, becoming stable and long-lasting.

You will find out that more people are drawn to you because your peaceful presence will make them feel good. And this can be seen as a gift to others – you are contributing to the world by spreading good vibes.

You can read more about meditation, and my own experience with it, in my article ‘The Physical and Psychological Benefits of Meditation’. It includes a description of how to meditate, and a video of a meditation teacher’s talk at Google’s headquarters. Yes, meditation is becoming a productivity tool as well, apart from just a ‘bliss-drug’!

sitting silhouette at sunset

6) Practice Visualisations

The founder of the online learning platform Mindvalley, Vishen Lakhiani, teaches a visualisation technique which is believed to increase our levels of happiness, and improve multiple areas in our lives. He speaks of six areas that are important to have, in order to live a balanced and happy life:

  1. Love and Compassion
  2. Gratitude
  3. Peace
  4. Vision
  5. Sense of control
  6. Feeling supported

Vishen has implemented all the six areas into a visualisation technique that he calls ‘The Six-Phase Meditation”.

I prefer to call it a visualisation rather than meditation, because the type of meditation that I practice is based on doing nothing with my mind, not engaging in any mental activity, including visualisations. This gives my body a deep, healing rest, and all the other benefits mentioned in my article about meditation.

However, I do practice Vishen’s visualization technique daily – usually after I’ve done my deep meditation. It is a powerful technique that is well worth trying and observing its effects during the day.

The visualisation reflects the six areas mentioned above, and is divided into six parts. The goal of the visualization is to enter a state of mind that allows you to clearly see and feel each area, such as gratitude or forgiveness. This should lead to improvement in multiple areas in your life, including better relationships, increased productivity, clearer goals, and gaining new insights that may help with manifesting your dreams.

The Six-Phase  Visualisation comprises of:

  1. Compassion
  2. Gratitude
  3. Forgiveness
  4. Visualising our future
  5. Visualizing our day ahead
  6. Blessing

Let’s look at forgiveness as an example.

A famous quote says:

“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

Getting rid of negative charges you have inside you towards other people who may have wronged you is a highly important act to heal multiple areas in your life. It’s really like getting rid of the poison in your body. You may even experience physical healing after you have profoundly forgiven someone.

Vishen Lakhiani has studied, taught and successfully practiced the ‘Silva Method’, which is a technique developed to get your brain into an Alpha state, and which is said to improve your performance and productivity. Vishen claims that when he used to work as a salesman, that after actively practicing the Silva method, his sales had doubled.

I have not tried the Silva method yet, but I believe that by practicing the 6-Phase Meditation (or visualisation) you can also enter an Alpha state.

I fully recommend watching Vishen’s interesting and witty talk he gave in Dublin. It’s called  ‘A 15 Minute Mind-Hack to Massively Enhance Your Brain Power and Emotional State’, and in this talk, he addresses the whole Six-Phase Meditation in detail. You can watch it here:

7) Try EFT Tapping

EFT is an abbreviation for Emotional Freedom Techniques. It is also known as Tapping, or ‘acupressure for the emotions’. In clinical use, it is referred to as ‘energy psychology’.

Tapping can often rapidly release the emotional impact of stressful or traumatic life events. It has been used by a considerable number of clinical psychologists and therapists who apply this method when treating war veterans and people with various kinds of trauma or phobias.

Although EFT is still an unknown method for many, it has been successfully used by a huge number of people all over the world, and it is perceived by many as one of the most successful psychology self-help techniques ever. Thousands of people have shared how EFT has helped them with issues like stress, anxiety, fear, anger, depression, trauma, or even physical pain.

The process of EFT is done by tapping your fingertips on specific pressure points on the body which are connected to the meridian lines (energy pathways). This sends signals to the part of the brain that controls stress, and leads to restoring emotional balance.

Three EFT Experts to Learn From

One of the best researchers in this field is Dawson Church, Ph.D., the author of The EFT Manual. The book is based on Clinical EFT, a method validated in dozens of scientific studies. More than 100 clinical trials of EFT have been published in peer-reviewed medical and psychology journals.

You can read a free sample of the EFT Manual in Amazon’s ‘Look Inside’ section.

The clinical psychologist David Feinstein, Ph.D. (who you might have noticed in Point 1 with Donna Eden) is another therapist who has been using EFT for years. He is the author of The Healing Power of EFT & Energy Psychologyco-written with Donna Eden and Gary Craig, the actual founder of EFT.

the healing power of energy psychology by david feinstein, donna eden, and gary craig

The third EFT specialist worth mentioning is Nick Ortner from the The Tapping Solution’. He and his sister Jessica are the presenters of the ‘The Tapping World Summit’, an annual online event where they interview dozens of EFT experts, neuroscientists, and holistic healing practitioners.

Nick Ortner is the author of the book The Tapping Solution for Pain Relief, which got endorsed by Tony Robbins, Dr Christiane Northrup, De Wayne Dyer, Jack Canfield, and many more. 

the tapping solution for pain relief

I have devoted a whole section to EFT tapping for pain relief in my article ‘How to Relieve Chronic Back Pain’, which includes a video of Nick Ortner demonstrating the tapping process. If you suffer from any physical pain, I do recommend watching the video and give tapping a try.

Apart from helping people relieve their physical pain, Nick Ortner has also developed special tapping programs dealing with specific areas of life that are often the major cause of feeling down or depressed, such as a bad financial situation or problems with weight.

You can download Nick Ortner’s eBooks dealing with these topics and try the tapping process yourself.

If you’d like some guidance with removing limiting beliefs about money and success, and experience how tapping works at the same time, download Nick Ortner’s eBook and try it out:

103 Disempowering Beliefs About Money and Success and How to Eliminate Them – Free eBook

Or, for tapping for weight loss and body confidence, which is an area governed by a whole scale of emotions, you can try the following guide:

103 Disempowering Beliefs About Weight Loss and Body Confidence and How to Eliminate Them in Minutes – Free eBook

8) Use Essential Oils

Apart from their well-known abilities such as decongesting respiratory system, cleaning and nourishing complexion and hair, or even repelling insects, essential oils can have a noticeably uplifting or calming effect on your state of mind.

organic lavender oil

This is because our sense of smell, known as an olfactory system, is closely linked to the part of our brain that regulates emotions.

Lavender is known for its calming, relaxing effect, rosemary improves concentration and sharpens the mind (it is great for studying or writing articles!) and frankincense can act as a mild antidepressant.

For a large range of 100% pure, therapeutic-grade essential oils, you can visit Ellia’s Essential Oils, where you will find single note essential oils, essential oil blends, carrier oils, roll-ons, aroma diffusers and more.

relaxation calming blend of essential oils

You can search for your ideal oil by its characteristic – e.g. calming, comforting, energising, grounding, motivating, etc. Or by scent – e.g. citrus, mint, floral, or herb & spice.

Learn About The Ayurvedic Use of Essential Oils

If you would like to gain a deeper understanding of how your olfactory system works on your mind, emotions, and biorhythms, you can attend a free 60-minute online workshop with a renowned botanical expert, David Crow.

The Ayurvedic Use of Essential Oils Event with David Crow

In his free video event, David talks about essential oil healing methods based on Ayurvedic principles.

You’ll learn about the different Ayurvedic energy types, and how to determine the best essential oils for your body type.

You’ll also learn about specific ancient recipes for enhancing and relaxing your mood, as well as strengthening your immune system and help with skin problems or respiratory issues by decreasing inflammation.

shrimp risotto dish

9) Balanced Diet – Eating Well, And Enjoying it!

Being happy with your body leads to good self-esteem and feeling good in general. Having a balanced diet with sufficient nutrients fuelling our body is crucial for the way we feel. I don’t know anyone who would fuel their car with the wrong type of fuel, but I know quite a few people who regularly do this to their bodies, which backfires on them by having low energy and excessive weight. Many of them try to lose weight with all sorts of diets, only to regain it all soon after the diet’s end.

I’m not a fan of this approach. I am happy with my body, and I never feel I am restricting myself in my diet. In fact, I can get quite indulgent while still keeping my ideal weight.

I’ve recently come across an interesting weight loss and nutrition program with a fun name ‘Losers Welcome’. Their approach resonates with me, because it represents my own approach to food: Include high-quality nutrients in my meals and make them fully enjoyable at the same time.

Losers Welcome - Weightloss and Nutrition Programme

What’s interesting about ‘Losers Welcome’ is that their meal plans are inspired by technology derived from NASA. Check out their welcome video where the fitness trainer Victor Costa explains the following: In order to be happy with your body and reach the desired weight, you don’t have to go on a drastic diet and forget about your favourite foods.

With Losers Welcome, you enter your favourite foods (even pizza or ice-cream!) and based on this information, the team will create a nutritionally balanced menu including your favourites. You’ll also get access to an online fitness training program, including yoga classes if you wish.

This non-restrictive approach really appeals to me, and if I start gaining more weight, I’ll definitely sign up with their program. If this is something that might interest you, visit Losers Welcome page for more information.

Buddhist gift store Buddhagroove

10) Give an Inspiring Gift

It may sound very simple, but it is a well known fact: The act of giving increases our levels of wellbeing. It helps us to defocus from our own issues and seeing someone else happy (especially because of us) will increase our own happiness.

Here are my favourite quotes about giving:

“No one has ever become poor by giving.” ―Anne Frank

“Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.” ―H. Jackson Brown Jr.

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” ―Winston Churchill

“For it is in giving that we receive.” ―St. Francis of Assisi

Give an inspiring gift – to someone else but also to yourself – and you’ll notice that perspective of your day will be enhanced with new meaning. A ray of light will shine through your soul, and your inner colours will gain a warmer tint. (At least this is how I feel after giving a present!)

Lavender Sachet Trio, Made in the USA

Buddha Groove Gift Store

For inspiring gift ideas, you can visit my article about Buddha Groove, an online gift store with stunning gemstone jewellery and decor, home and garden accents, and many other soul-uplifting items such as Tibetan singing bowls. The page includes a 6-minute video from Nepal with a fascinating demonstration of the healing properties of singing bowls.

The cute meditating frog near the section about meditation (point number 5) also comes from Buddha Groove. A great smile-generator to be placed in the window!

Buddhist gift store Buddhagroove

Inspiring Books and Audio, Courses and Events

If you would like to give an inspiring book, CD, online event, or even a retreat, visit Sounds True, a multimedia publishing company whose mission is to spread spiritual wisdom. You can browse through their large store of books, eBooks, audio, video, courses, trainings, and even spiritual retreats. Amongst their authors are Michael Bernard Beckwith, Wayne Dyer, Donna Eden, Marianne Williamson, Eckhart Tolle, Pema Chödrön, Mooji, Caroline Myss, and more.

The topics include psychology, health and healing, yoga and movement, conscious parenting, mindfulness, meditation, or shamanism.

sounds true publishing

Another website worth visiting is BetterListen!, where you can browse through a large number of inspirational audio downloads divided into categories such as health, wellness, relationships, psychology, personal growth, philosophy, spirituality, or science.

Featured authors include Marianne Williamson, Mark Hyman, Thich Nhat Hanh, Ram Dass, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Bernie Siegel, Jack Canfield, Bob Proctor, etc.

logo of betterlisten audio publishers

Experiment and Share

Now you can explore these techniques, choose your favorite ones, and apply them according to your needs. I hope you will find some of them helpful and beneficial as I have done, and that you will share them with others.

Questions or Comments?

Should you wish to ask about anything in this post or contribute with any other tips, do leave a comment below. I’d love to hear about your experience with these techniques, and any others that have worked for you.

BY LUCIE DUN

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The Physical and Psychological Benefits of Meditation

The Physical and Psychological Benefits of Meditation

Meditating Frog Garden Statue, 6 Inches

What comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘meditation’? A lot of people see it as a way of spiritual discipline, but have you ever heard about the psychological benefits of meditation, such as increased productivity? Or physical benefits like better sleep? Or, have you been, like me, rather unclear on how to meditate, and why meditate in the first place?

In 2016 I was going through a stressful period caused by my worries about Brexit and my uncertain future in the UK as an EU citizen. I went to see the doctor about my anxiety and panic attacks, and she ‘prescribed’ me a guided meditation app. I gave it a go and quite enjoyed it, but I felt I was too fidgety to be able to practice it regularly; my mind was just too busy to fully utilize this tool. I thought I had to slow down the stream of my excessive thoughts in order to enter that deeply relaxed state of my mind, and although I wanted to, there was never the right time and space to do that.

Affiliate Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. If you make a purchase through my links, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. The full disclosure can be accessed here.

Why We Don’t Meditate

To my mind, the most common reasons why people don’t meditate are the following two:

1) They are simply not interested – they don’t have a reason or don’t feel the need to meditate. (If they realised what they were missing, I suspect it would be a completely different story!)

2) They are interested but are convinced that they wouldn’t be good meditators, because they are either too busy and don’t have time, or they can’t force themselves to sit still and empty their minds. I belonged to this category.

What’s Changed My Concept of Meditation

My first closer encounter with meditation was through the rock legend Arthur Brown, when I played keyboards in his band, ‘The Crazy World of Arthur Brown’. (More in the article ‘My Musical Journey‘.) During one of our in Germany, he told me about his meditation practice. The idea that meditation and rock’n’roll could complement each other was not new to me – take George Harrison or Donovan, for example – but knowing a meditating rockstar personally motivated me to learn more about the ancient practice. This wild man, who could set a stage on fire (sometimes literally) was always full of incredible energy and inner radiance and needed to sleep less than the rest of the band. I was starting to see that his regular meditation practice somehow played a part in this, although I couldn’t yet fully figure out how exactly.

One of our wild gigs with Arthur Brown, 2009

My second (and most important) encounter with meditation happened in November 2019, when an upbeat New Yorker, a former Broadway actress Emily Fletcher, appeared in my Youtube playlist. She was giving a presentation at Google, with a provocative title ‘Why Meditation is the New Caffeine’.

The way she spoke about meditation was different than what I’ve seen around so far. To my surprise, she was describing meditation as a productivity tool rather than a monk-like discipline, best done in quiet temples or caves.

I was intrigued by the fact that a woman with an air of a highly driven entrepreneur and looks of a catwalk queen was so passionate about meditation, and that she wasn’t delivering her talk at a hippie retreat, but at Google headquarters.

The meditation technique Emily teaches is called ‘Ziva Meditation’ (Ziva is a Sanskrit word for ‘bliss’ ), and it is designed specifically for high achievers.

Her clients include executives at global corporations like Google or Barclays, NBA players, Oscar winners, CEOs, entrepreneurs, busy parents – simply anyone who wants to boost their productivity and gain more hours in the day while having more energy.

One of the things that caught my attention was when Emily mentioned that meditation gives your body with rest which is from 2 to 5 times deeper than sleep. This sounded a bit far-fetched to me at first, but when I noticed her work has been praised by a number of neurobiologists, I became more open to what she had to say. Sleep was exactly the area of my life that needed improvement; I had never felt fully rested and refreshed if I had less than nine hours of sleep, so I decided to explore her work further.

When Emily said: “We meditate to get good at life, not to get good at meditation“, I got curious: How exactly could meditation be affecting one’s life?

I thought meditation was ok for temporary relaxation, to make one feel a bit better for a while, perhaps with the help of a mindfulness app or the calming sound of Tibetan singing bowls, but how could it improve things in one’s life in general?

As I checked Emily’s website and read through the testimonials of her students,  I realised that I was about to discover something powerful. Her meditation technique seemed to improve people’s lives on multiple levels.

One testimony title, written by a financial expert, read:

‘It’s like a shot of espresso without the anxious jitters and the crash.’

Another, by a nurse practitioner:

‘If I could prescribe ONE thing to every single patient who walks in my door it would be: Learn meditation.’

And finally, from a pen of CEO:

‘Ziva blows all other meditation trainings away.’

 Emily’s talk ‘Why Meditation is the New Caffeine’

Harvard University Research

I checked what other sources said about meditation and found out that in the 1970s, medical researchers at Harvard University began studying the effects of meditation on human body.

They discovered that during the practice of meditation, a process called ‘the relaxation response’ starts happening in the body, and this is what gives the body deep rest that is deeper than the rest we get from sleep.

They also found that through regular meditation that deep rest accumulates in our body over time, and this deepening reservoir of rest results in the many benefits of meditation, including stronger immunity, decreased stress, healing from old traumas and a sense of inner wellbeing.

What Is (And What Isn’t) Meditation

First of all, let’s clarify what meditation isn’t, and this might surprise (and hopefully encourage) quite a number of people:

Meditation is NOT about trying to clear one’s mind or stopping one’s thoughts. In Emily’s words, “the mind thinks involuntarily in the same way your heart beats involuntarily”. Having involuntary thoughts during meditating is a completely natural part of the process; in fact, the more effortless it is, the better.

So what IS meditation? Meditation, as Emily Fletcher defines it, is accessing a verifiable fourth state of consciousness.  It is a state which is different than waking, sleeping or dreaming, and which can be verified (measured) by EEG equipment.

When practiced regularly, meditation will start removing long-term accumulated stress from your system, strengthening your body and mind. What’s particularly nice about meditating is that soon after you get into the state of surrender, you’ll be able to feel your body flooding with a whole range of bliss chemicals. 

Get High on Your Own Supply

Amongst these main pleasurable neurochemicals, providing you with elevated emotions and higher states of mind, are:

Dopamine

When people use cocaine, it is not the actual drug that causes the instant high. It’s because cocaine causes a build-up of dopamine—which then gives rise to euphoria and creates a rush of energy, which at that moment seems eternal.

Similarly, THC, the main psychoactive component in marijuana, stimulates neurons in the reward system, causing them to release high levels of dopamine, which causes the user to feel euphoric.

Serotonin

Serotonin causes a feeling of euphoria, happiness, and well-being. This feel-good hormone binds with the same receptor as psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms.

Both serotonin and dopamine are alkaline in nature, and an alkaline body can repair itself more quickly. It is also a well-known fact that cancer thrives in an acidic environment, and can’t survive in an alkaline and well-oxygenated environment – both of which meditation provides.

Nitric oxide

Nitric oxide is a molecule responsible for vasodilation – widening of the blood vessels, which increases circulation and lowers blood pressure – the best protection against a stroke!

Anandamide

The name derives from the Sanskrit word ananda, meaning ‘joy, bliss, one of the highest states of being’. Anandamide makes me recall the name of the legendary yogi Parahamansa Yogananda. (The name consists of Yoga = Divine union, and Ananda = Bliss.)

Yogananda is the author of ‘Autobiography of a Yogi‘, a spiritual bestseller held dear by many – i.e. Elvis Presley, George Harrison, or Apple’s former CEO Steve Jobs, who ordered 500 copies of the book for his own memorial service.

Anandamide, a neurotransmitter also called the “bliss molecule” for the role it plays in happiness and mental well-being, is one of the most important endocannabinoids in our body. Endocannabinoids are biochemicals produced within the body, and they bind to cannabinoid receptors.

THC, the main psychoactive component in marijuana, also binds to these same receptors, and can induce feelings of unity with all that is, elation, pure happiness and peace – but we can induce the same feelings by own internal production of anandamide.

You can increase anandamide by exercising, spending time in “the zone,” (when you are in the workflow, experiencing that slight trance sensation) eating high-quality chocolate (such as my favourite Ombar), and, of course, meditation.

Oxytocin

Also known as ‘bonding hormone’, oxytocin is a naturally occurring compound that acts as both a hormone and neurotransmitter.

It stimulates the production of the bliss molecule anandamide, so by increasing oxytocin, you’ll also increase anandamide.

Oxytocin is naturally released during giving birth, increasing the mother’s bond with her newborn baby, or sexual climax.

On a daily basis, we can increase production of oxytocin by physical touch, hugs, massage, yoga, and meditation.

Why Do People Take Drugs?

The answer couldn’t be simpler – people take drugs to feel better.

Too many of them don’t realise that they can get intoxicated with their own internal neurotransmitters and hormones.

They can evoke those high states in their brains by releasing all these highly pleasurable neurochemicals, without the side effects of addiction and physical and mental damage.

Meditation can save you both the cash and health. You’ll notice that once you’ll start meditating and experiencing all these elevated emotions, you’ll soon become less reliant on external substances to give your mood a boost.

You’ll find yourself gradually cutting down on sweets, cigarettes, coffee, alcohol etc., without making you feel restricting yourself in any way. The reduced need for all these will come completely naturally. In my case, I’ve experienced a surprisingly reduced need for caffeine and alcohol, the two substances that were such an important part of my daily life for years.

I wish all this would be taught in schools one day. The compound noun ‘high school’ would gain a new, more attractive meaning, if we learned about all the exciting neurochemistry which we can access for free.

The ‘Side Effects’ of Meditation:

Your Health Will Improve

Meditation can have a powerful effect on your physical and mental health. It is proven to reduce stress, anxiety, inflammation and help you detox your body while improving immunity, resilience, and emotional wellbeing.

Harvard researchers estimate that 80% of doctor’s visits are related to stress. And while getting stressed short term may not be too harmful to you, staying stressed is.

Adrenalin and cortisol are the main stress chemicals, which, if accumulated in your body, cause premature aging, depression, and a whole range of diseases including autoimmune diseases and cancer.

While stress causes premature aging, meditation is slowing down the premature aging of your body. This is because your body will be receiving a deep, healing rest, removing large amounts of stress, stored in our cellular memory over the years. People who meditate regularly tend to be healthier, and often look younger.

Emily likes to compare a brain to a computer. If we are using too many programs at once and running out of the storage at the same time, we will start losing our computing power. But if we clean and defragment the computer from all the trash, old files and applications, we will regain computing power again.

‘Defragmenting’ our brain and detoxing our body through meditation has the ability to facilitate healing from long-term illness and old traumas, up-levelling your overall performance and improving the quality of your sleep, which will become deeper and more effective. (Emily’s students have reported a 90% success rate with getting rid of insomnia.)

You may also, rather conveniently, notice a decrease in the hours you need to feel fully rested; I can confirm this from my own experience with The Ziva Technique. Before I started meditating, I needed at least 9 hours of sleep, while now I wake up completely rested, without an alarm clock, after 7 hours, sometimes even just 6.5. And at the same time, I have stopped experiencing those afternoon energy slumps! I’m still in a state of amazement over this fact. If any of you reading this is having doubts about meditation (like I was), please do try it for a few weeks and you’ll see for yourself!

Increased Productivity and Creativity

You will experience increased creativity as well as more focus and alertness, which will lead to better decision making and surprising growth in your productivity. Again, I can confirm this from my own experience with The Ziva Technique.

 

Improved Mental Wellbeing

As already mentioned, one of the most common reasons for people not to meditate is a lack of time in their already jam-packed life. But meditation shouldn’t be looked at as a spa treatment for your brain. In Emily’s words, it is ‘the most important piece of mental hygiene’ you could ever practice.

I also like her provocative statement that ‘leaving your house without meditating should be considered as rude as leaving your house without brushing your teeth.’

This might be hard to understand by people who have never experienced the positive physical and psychological effects of meditation, but for the ones who have, (and I hope that one day you’ll be one of them ) it makes complete sense. If you commit to a regular meditation practice, you can look forward to the following benefits:

Meditation will start shifting things for you internally. You’ll gain adaptation energy which will give you the ability to handle life’s challenges with more ease and grace, and you will be surprised to observe that you are becoming less reactive to people or situations that would previously drive you mad or make you fall to pieces psychologically.

You’ll experience more of the ‘Power of Now’ moments, as described by Eckhart Tolle in his book (one of the best books on modern-day spiritual enlightenment I’ve ever read).

More Time in Your Day

There is really no better usage of your time than the time you take to meditate. You will start to see this return on time investment in your life very soon after committing to regular practice. Meditation actually creates more time in your day! You will find out that one you have prioritised meditation, you will have more hours to play with.

Mindfulness Versus Meditation

It is very important to point out that mindfulness and meditation are not the same. Many people who have been listening to various ‘meditation apps’, thinking they were meditation, have actually been practicing mindfulness instead.

So what is the difference between mindfulness and meditation?

Mindfulness

When practicing mindfulness, we are directing our focus. This could include:

Drawing your attention to the present moment, directing your focus on your five senses, being aware of your breath, doing guided visualisations, feeling your body centered and grounded etc.

Both mindfulness and meditation have long been a topic of neuroscientific studies. An interesting fact has been observed during brain scans of people separately practicing mindfulness and meditation.

When they’re practising mindfulness (i.e. drawing your attention to the present moment, directing your focus on your body, etc.) a small part of the front of the brain – the Prefrontal cortex – lights up very brightly.

This reflects the fact that practicing mindfulness improves our clarity and focus, which makes us good at focusing on our tasks, reading, decision making, coming up quickly with ideas and solutions, navigating, etc.

It also helps to deal with stress in the present moment, which is very useful for staying calm during emotionally turbulent situations, from arguments or missed flights to viral pandemics.

But most of us find long practices of mindfulness almost impossible. Either boring or too challenging to keep focusing one’s attention for too long. There is a reason for this: Mindfulness has been designed for monks!

Not too many people are aware of this. Mindfulness requires discipline and concentration, and it makes sense that a modern-day person with a constantly busy mind can find it challenging to practice it for longer than a few minutes.

So that’s the very reason why many people who try to mediate eventually quit. They’ve been simply confusing meditation with mindfulness!

So once again: Mindfulness is great for dealing with stress ‘right now’, i.e. in any situation where we could potentially ‘lose it’.

Meditation

When practicing meditation, we are entering a different state of consciousness by surrendering, letting go, simply doing nothing. The only thing that we ‘do’ is to have a mantra (a specific word or a phrase) which we use as a gentle anchor for our wandering mind. This means peacefully acknowledging all those constantly arriving trains of thoughts, and replacing them with our mantra.

This process of gently replacing thoughts with the mantra will be happening many times during a single meditation, and it is completely normal. It’s important to remember that we are NOT trying to stop our thoughts: Meditation is the very opposite of actively directing our focus (as during mindfulness).

I really like the analogy of slowly submerging into a hot bath after a long day. Imagining this helps me enter my meditation more effortlessly. And as you slowly and gently give in to the ‘cosmic bath of your consciousness’, things will start happening on a neurochemical level, inducing a state of deep peace and harmony with all that is.

When you connect your brain to an EEG machine during waking, sleeping, and dreaming state of consciousness, it shows that your right and left hemispheres are functioning separately.

But in the state of meditation (i.e. thefourth state of consciousness’), the right and left brain hemispheres start to function in unison.

This is important because your left brain is in charge of your critical, analytical thoughts and your concepts of past and future, while your right brain is in charge of your creative, intuitive thoughts, your ‘right now’. So when we’re meditating, our right and left hemispheres are communicating with each other.

In the deep state of meditation, when the mind just lets go of everything and drifts away, brain scans reveal that the whole brain lights up (instead of a small part of the brain, as in mindfulness).

The light is not as intense as during mindfulness (which we need ‘here and now’ for those cancelled flights), but it lights evenly across the whole brain area, which causes an increase in neuroplasticity – the ability of the brain to change itself. It also increases neurogenesis – the brain’s ability to generate new brain cells.

Your right and left hemispheres are connected with a bridge called Corpus Callosumand brain scans have revealed that this bridge (or connection) is visibly stronger with regular meditators, allowing both hemispheres to communicate better. You will experience that creativity and intuition of your right brain will start to get in harmony with the logical, analytical part of your left brain.

For instance, when we suddenly get a creative idea, we won’t just critically dismiss it (as we would when our two hemispheres act separately), but take some inspired action. We will experience more presence and a sense of inner wellbeing, which in turn will allow us to act without the negative, self-deprecating thoughts that often prevent us from mobilising our inner drive and achieving our goals.

Highlights:

1) Mindfulness and meditations are two different things.

2) Mindfulness is a focus-based mental technique good for improving your concentration and helping you stay calm and grounded in any given moment.

3) Meditation induces brain cohesion and gives the body deep, healing rest to get rid of stress from the past. Meditation can almost feel like a mini-nap, from which you will come up physically refreshed and energised.

4) Both mindfulness and meditation are beneficial – that’s why Emily incorporated both practices in The Ziva Technique, which I’ll be mentioning further down.

What’s the Best Way to Learn to Meditate?

The best way to learn to meditate is by meditating.

How Often and How Long For?

To fully benefit from all the amazing effects of meditation, it is advisable to commit to a 15-minute session twice a day – one in the morning and the other in the afternoon or early evening.

The benefits are well worth it, and as soon as you’ll start experiencing them as I have done, you will look forward to your 15-minute sessions and won’t feel awkward about asking people around you to consider this. I’ve learned to let others know about my discipline. Even during a busy family visits, I don’t compromise on my 15 minutes twice a day, and it is rewarding for me as well as everyone around me, because as a result, I’ll have more energy and patience. Once I was meditating on a rush-hour train with my mum next to me, or with my little nephews running around in the room – they knew that their aunt was ‘recharging’ and would have more energy to play with them afterwards!

Choosing Your Mantra

The Sanskrit word mantra means ‘mind vehicle’ (man = mind, tra = vehicle), and it is a word or a short phrase that you silently repeat (by hearing it in your mind, not saying it) during your meditation. It can be any word, sound, or short phrase you like. Some people chose the word ‘One’, as it can symbolise unity with everything.

Your mantra can also be chosen according to your religious tradition. “Maranatha”, “Shalom”, (Christianity/Judaism) “So Hum”, Sat Chit Ananda”, “Aham Brahmasmi” (Hinduism), “Insha’Allah” (Islam), “Om Mani Padme Hum” (Buddhism), etc.

Preparing for Your Meditation

Sit in a comfortable position. You don’t need to sit cross-legged or in a lotus posture. Your hands can rest on your thighs, or be folded in your lap.

Close your eyes, and take several long, deep breaths to get to the relaxed state. Try to make your out-breath twice longer than your in-breath.

Then focus on your senses – the light you can see through your closed eyes, the sounds around you, and any bodily sensations, and energy flowing through your body. If you think you can’t feel any energy, try this experiment: Look at your hand and then close your eyes. How do you know your hand is still there? Because you feel its energy.

All the above is a mindfulness practice which makes you more conscious of your body and its energies, and prepare you for the actual meditation.

Entering Your Meditation

Then you gently enter the actual meditation state. I always imagine that I am slowly submerging into a ‘cosmic bath’, surrendering to the most relaxed state, letting go of all my preconceptions, and allowing the wisdom of my body to take over.

Now, with the eyes still closed, start mentally repeating your chosen mantra.

Important: Do not say or whisper the word, your mouth and jaw should be completely relaxed. You’ll only repeat that word by ‘hearing it in your mind’. This should be done with relaxed ease, and if any of your thoughts interfere with the mantra, simply acknowledge them and gently return to the mantra.

But why have I mentioned that your mouth and jaw should be relaxed? There’s more behind relaxing your mouth than one would think. There is an important nerve in your tongue called the hypoglossal nerve. Thus nerve flows into the vagus nerve, which then sends relaxing signals to every major organ system in your body. So holding your tongue completely relaxed on the floor of your mouth has the power to calm your whole body. It’s good to remember this ‘trick’ while getting into meditation, and it can equally useful in any situation when you feel stressed, anxious, angry etc.

As You Are Meditating…

Slowly repeat your mantra (in your mind) in a simple, effortless way for about 15 minutes.

As you repeat your mantra, plenty of other thoughts will appear, which is absolutely natural. Do not try to stop them or get frustrated. When you ‘try to make meditation happen’ it will diminish the benefits of meditating, and it could even give you a headache. The key to meditating is to do nothing.

Instead, when thoughts do come, gently return to thinking your mantra in a relaxed, effortless way. I tend to visualise two clouds – one is my mantra, the other contains my thoughts. This image helps me to switch back to my mantra when I find myself inside the ‘thought cloud’.

When you have finished meditating, rest for a few minutes. Never come out of a meditation abruptly.

How Soon to Expect the Benefits

Avoid looking for immediate experiences or signs of progress because that hinders meditation. Just be confident that by ‘doing nothing’ you will start to notice the benefits of meditating during your day soon or later.

You may be generally happier, feeling more at ease, having more drive and focus, getting along better with others, and sleeping better.

How soon will these benefits show depends on how regularly you do your twice-a-day 15-minute session. Some people notice the benefits within days, others in a few weeks’ time.

The best thing is to just get in the habit of meditating regularly and making it non-negotiable. But have compassion with yourself – if you stop meditating for a day or two, just go back and start meditating again.

The meditation procedure described above is a combination of techniques I’ve learned from several different teachers, such as Emily Fletcher, Dawson Church (author of ‘Bliss Brain’ and  ‘Mind to Matter’), Deepak Chopra, or Arthur Brown. If you are serious about getting clear and lasting benefits from meditation, I would really recommend following an experienced teacher, such as Emily Fletcher, who teaches the ZIVA Technique. This is what I practice and what has given me some very real results (mentioned further down).

What Is ZIVA Technique

Ziva Technique is a meditation technique based on ancient meditation practices, but designed for people with busy minds and busy lives.

You won’t have to ‘clear your mind’ in order to be successful at meditation and start to experience all the amazing benefits soon. But The Ziva Technique is not only about meditation – it is a powerful combination of mindfulness, meditation and manifesting.

The mindfulness portion is like the appetizer course, consisting of techniques to immediately draw your awareness into the present moment. (This is what most people have tried already – it is what most apps and YouTube videos walk you through.)

But the meditation portion – the ‘main course’ in Ziva Technique’ – is where the real magic happens: your metabolic rate slows, your breathing gets shallower, and you drift into a rest that is 5x deeper than sleep.

Your brain and body will flood with all the bliss biochemicals mentioned above, and you will be getting rid of the life-long amount of stress you have saved in your nervous system on a cellular level.

Last but not least, the ‘dessert’ portion is manifesting, which means getting really clear on your dreams, goals or desires so you can begin to make active choices in your waking state to transform those dreams into reality. You’ll notice that synchronicities will start happening and that you will draw specific people and situations into your life which will help with fulfilling your dreams.

Stress Less Accomplish More

Soon after watching Emily’s talk about meditation and caffeine, I got her book Stress Less Accomplish More. ‘What a non-meditative title..!’, I thought. But perhaps that was the reason I bought it.

The book is based on deep research and years of experience of meditating and meditation teaching. It is written in a warm, personal, and often charmingly witty way. I highly recommend it. You can read a free chapter in the ‘Look Inside’ section.

I learned a lot from the book, and it ignited my desire to experience being taught by Emily in her 15-day online course.

I enjoyed every day of it, and around day 4 or 5 I started noticing visible changes. It was around that time when I started requiring less hour to sleep and getting into the ‘flow state’ during the day a lot more than before.

My ZivaONLINE certificate

Impact of Meditation on My Life

I can easily say that ZivaONLINE has been one of the most life-impacting courses I have ever taken.

I have gone through a number of transformations while noticing  the following:

– Deeper, more restful sleep (decreased need of 9 hours to 7, sometimes even 6.5), and no afternoon energy crashes

– More energy, focus, and clarity of mind, reading with more focus and retaining information better

– More tasks accomplished in the day (which now feels longer), and with less effort, experiencing more states of flow

– Less need for reactivity and getting into arguments, staying more present in tense situations

– Feeling more connected to others, releasing negative feelings more quickly, and forgiving more easily

– A huge decrease of involuntary negative thoughts and inner critical commentaries

– Almost zero need for stimulating my body with caffeine, or relaxing it with alcohol

I can still have both if I want, but I’ve noticed that their effect on my body is much stronger since I started meditating. So if I still feel like having a coffee or a beer, I’ll have it in a much smaller quantity and still enjoy it. I also think that the fact I require less sleep can be attributed to my reduction in caffeine and alcohol intake.

– An annoying habit of biting my nails stopped (I used to do this when I was nervous and edgy, especially when affected by caffeine)

The Ultimate Portable Device

I sincerely hope that this article has helped you clarify some common misconceptions about meditation. The myths which prevent a majority of people from one of the best things they could be doing for themselves and others, by having so much more to offer by literally recharging themselves with meditation.

Who wouldn’t like to have more energy, a new zest for life, increased creativity, and the ability to handle demands and stressful situations so much better than when ruled by stress?

I am convinced that if everyone knew how easy it is to meditate and what powerful effect it can have on our lives, the whole world would be meditating by now, and that, in Emily’s words, ‘coffee shops would be replaced by meditating stations’.

So go ahead and try the ‘ultimate portable device’.  You will soon start to notice some very interesting things happening in your life as I’ve seen in mine.

Learn More About the Ziva Technique

Here are a few things you could do to learn more about this transformative meditation technique:

– Check out Emily’s book ‘Stress Less Accomplish More’.

 A quote from the book’s introduction:

‘This book is dedicated to everyone who has “tried meditation” and felt like a failure. You are not a meditation failure; you just haven’t been taught yet. This book will teach you.’

I recommend reading the first chapter (for free, by clicking on ‘Look Inside’) which includes the foreword by Mark Hyman, M.D., and preface by Andrew Huberman, Ph.D., so you can have an idea what sort of treats are in store for you.

– Find out more about Ziva Technique online course.

Taking this course has caused me to start thinking about my life as ‘before meditation’ and ‘after meditation’

– Watch Emily’s talk about meditation for Mindvalley:

– See what Russel Brandt has to say about meditation:

Let’s finish with the words from the director of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, Mark Hyman, M.D.:

‘I encourage everyone to check out the Ziva Technique. I can honestly say I can’t live without it. Now I don’t have time not to meditate. “Stress less, accomplish more.” It’s for real, trust me.’

Any questions or comments about your own experience (or non-experience) with meditation are very welcome.

BY LUCIE DUN

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Buddha Groove – Feed the Spirit, Inspire the Mind

Buddha Groove – Feed the Spirit, Inspire the Mind

Buddhagroove
This post is about my recent discovery of the buddhist gift store Buddha Groove. I am always on the lookout for things that inspire the mind and feed the spirit, and finding Buddha Groove has covered both aspects more than well.

I’ve always felt drawn to the mystical beauty and healing vibes of crystals and gemstones. Over the years I have collected a large number of semi-precious stones and they never stop fascinating me.

Not every town has a store with a large variety of gemstones, unless you happen to live near Covent Garden in London. When I used to live there, those ‘metaphysical hubs’ were my favourite places to spend my time after work, especially ‘The Astrology Shop’ in Neal Street, or a Buddhist store with an amusing name ‘Buddha on a Bicycle’ in Endell Street.

The Astrology Shop, 78 Neal Street, Covent Garden, London
Buddha on a Bicycle, 27 Endell Street, Covent Garden, London

Apart from a mountain of healing crystals and some splendid gemstone jewellery, both shops offer a great variety of items for spiritual practice, Tibetan singing bowls, temple bells, Buddha statues, incense, essential oils, books, and all kinds of fair trade gifts. I could easily spend a whole afternoon between these two stores and rarely return home empty-handed.

Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. This means that if you make a purchase through my links, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. The full disclosure can be accessed here. Thank you for your support!

The Online Garden of Earthly Delights

When I moved out of London, I was missing these places and everything they had to offer. Especially when I needed to choose a present for someone. To me, things like this make the best presents, being personal, meaningful and pleasing to the eye.

So I embarked on a search for online stores with a similar line of products, and I came across an online store called Buddha Groove. I have to say, it has superseded my expectations. The store has a remarkable range of tasteful products for meditation practice and Yoga lifestyle, and for anyone who simply seeks inspiration in beautiful items.

Spiritual Jewellery, Crystals & Gemstones, Singing Bowls, Tea Ceremony, Mala beads, Buddha statues…

Buddhagroove

I was hooked after just a few clicks through their site, because they had exactly the kind of things that used to be the object of my pilgrimages to Covent Garden. I went through their entire gemstone jewellery collection and kept discovering more and more sophisticated and dangerously inviting items of adornment.

I also love the collection of Tibetan singing bowls, Tingsha bells, and Prayer Wheels. I’m seriously considering getting the ‘Three-in-One Hanging Brass Prayer Wheel’, which can be mounted on the wall (you can see it in the photo slider above).

There is also an intriguing collection of statues, ‘Zen garden’ items and home accents.

I had to stop browsing through their pages after a while because I caught myself visualising half of their stock in our house. Every other click would be accompanied by a gasp of amazement. I’ve already managed to compile a mile-long list of people and their matching gifts.

The only department which left me rather indifferent was the section ‘Inspirational jewellery’. Compared with the awe-inspiring sterling silver and gemstone collection, the pieces from this category seem less impressive to me. (This is obviously a matter of personal preference.) I’m a big fan of quotes and affirmations, but I don’t feel the need to wear pendants that say ‘I love yoga’, or ‘No mud no lotus’ – although I do find the latter witty, and I can see the wisdom behind these words.

Find Your Favourite Sections Easily

You can use this table of contents to find your favourite sections. My wish is that scrolling through this page will provide you with an uplifting, esthetic experience, similar to visiting a gallery. Once you’ve found a section of your interest, click on the gallery thumbnails to enlarge them, so you can fully appreciate the textures and shapes of the beautiful items, feeling fully present with their essence.

Gemstone Jewellery and Healing Crystals
Amethyst
Citrine
Clear Quartz
Labradorite
Lapis Lazuli
Moonstone
Pyrite
Rose Quartz
Sodalite
Sterling Silver Jewellery
Singing Bowls (including a video demonstration)
Tingshas, Cymbals, Bells and Chimes
Zen Home – Zen Garden
Prayer Wheels
Gifts
Clothes and Accessories
Recommended Sections

Gemstone Jewellery and Healing Crystals

These are my favourite sections of Buddha Groove’s store. To me, browsing through the pages of such gems (literally) feels like walking through a mythological palace filled with treasures. I find the combination of beautiful shapes and proven healing properties of the gemstones truly spellbinding.

In the gallery below you’ll see a sample of Buddhagroove’s range of gemstone jewellery and decor. You can access all the listed items in Buddhagroove’s sections Gemstone Jewellery and Healing Crystals.

Before purchasing a piece of gemstone jewellery it is useful to know a little about a particular gemstone’s properties, to make sure it will resonate with you. Like us, and everything else in nature, gemstones emit electromagnetic fields of various frequencies, and some of them may fit us better than others – depending on where we find ourselves on our life’s journey, or what aspect of our life we’d like to improve.

It is similar to our favourite colours, especially the ones we wear. It’s not just the visual impact of a colour that makes us decide whether we want to wear it it or not; we get equally affected by the colour’s physical vibrations.

There was a time when I was wearing black only. I was also prone to feeling gloomy quite a lot in that period without any obvious reason. Then a friend – healer made me aware of the likelihood of the colour’s frequencies on my states of mind, and I noticed a considerable change as soon as I ‘lightened up’ my wardrobe.

Realising that colours can effect our emotions has helped me a lot. If I was holding a long-term negative charge towards some people, I would not only visualise forgiving them and sending them love, but I would also start wearing rose-quartz jewellery and carry rose-quartz crystals in my pockets, as this gemstone is known for supporting forgiveness and unconditional love.

Similarly, when I have to tackle a big project and need to strengthen both my confidence and willpower to accomplish the task, I tend to surround myself with the golden-hued Pyrite.

Which Gemstone May Help You Right Now?

Below is a summary of the main properties of gemstones featured in this post. May it help you chose the right gemstone for yourself or someone you care about.

Amethyst

Amethyst

Amethyst is a healing gem associated with spiritual growth, wisdom, tranquillity, and protection against negative energy. It is associated with the 7th chakra (the Crown chakra), and it is believed to open and activate the chakra, strengthening our connection with the higher realms.

All the items shown below are available at Buddha Groove’s store under sections Amethyst and Amethyst Jewellery.

Citrine

Citrine

Citrine is associated with the Third chakra (Solar Plexus), positively affecting mental focus, endurance, and self-esteem.

Known as the ‘Merchant’s Stone’, this sun-like gemstone emanates warm, positive energy, and it is believed to bring its owners good luck, success and prosperity, while filling them with generosity and joy.

Visit Buddha Groove’s Citrine section to find your own sign of good fortune.

Clear Quartz

Clear Quartz

Clear quartz is deemed one of the most powerful stones due to its ability to purify and dispel negative energy and bring clarity. Frequently used in energetic healing, it is often called ‘a master healing stone’.

Associated with the 7th chakra (The Crown chakra), its energy focus is on enlightenment, cosmic consciousness, energy drawn from higher spheres, and perfection. Clear Quartz is great for balancing all seven chakras.

You can locate any item listed here in the store’s sections Clear Quartz and Quartz Jewellery.

 

Labradorite

Labradorite

Recognised as a gem of magic and mysticism, Labradorite is famous for its ability to strengthen intuition and psychic power by connecting to the 6th chakra (The Third Eye chakra), connecting us with higher realms of consciousness.

The gemstone with its characteristic subtle rainbow effect is a powerful guide on your journey of self-discovery, spiritual awareness, and inner transformation.

You may find all the items listed below at Labradorite and Labradorite Jewellery sections.

Lapis Lazuli

Lapis Lazuli

A gemstone of truth, self-discovery, and spiritual growth, Lapis lazuli is associated with the 6th chakra (The Third Eye chakra) promoting spiritual awareness, psychic power, and intuition.

Standard of Ur Lapis Lazuli

Lapis Lazuli was an ‘obsession’ of ancient Sumerians. The ‘Standard of Ur mosaic from 2500 BC, found in royal tombs of Ur (present Iraq) in the region of southern Mesopotamia, is made of Lapis Lazuli, Red Limestone, and shell.

Enter the sacred realms of ancient Sumeria through the portals of Lapis Lazuli and Lapis Lazuli Jewellery.

Moonstone

Moonstone

Connected to the cycles of the moon, moonstone promotes inner balance and harmony filling you with ‘Yin’ (feminine polarity) vibes and helping you draw peace from cycles and rhythms of nature. Moonstone is a gemstone associated with the Third Eye chakra which governs intuition and development of psychic powers, as well as the Solar Plexus chakra which in a centre of self-awareness and personal identity.

Any of the gems below are obtainable from the store’s sections Moonstone and Moonstone Jewellery.

Pyrite

Pyrite

Giving an impression of being armed with intergalactic gold, Pyrite is known as a powerful auric shield, protecting you from negative energies and decreasing the harmful effects of environmental pollution. It is often used in energy medicine when working with the aura, i.e. for repairing tears in your aura and thus supporting your physical and emotional wellbeing.

It is also said to strengthen willpower and confidence, so it is a great stone to have near you when you need to accomplish important tasks.

The gallery items listed below can be found at the store’s section Pyrite, or, once you enter the store, by typing the item’s name in the search bar at the top of the page.

Rose Quartz

Rose Quartz

The tender, pink-hued crystal is known as a gem of love, compassion, trust, and harmony. It encourages forgiveness and unconditional love and promotes deep inner healing. It is associated with the 4th chakra (the Heart chakra). It is an excellent gem to have when we’d like more peace with others, and – of equal importance – with ourselves.

You can find any of the items below either under the store’s section Rose Quartz, or, once you enter the store, by typing the item’s name in the search bar at the top of the page.

Sodalite

Sodalite

Sodalite is recognised by its clarifying and strengthening vibrations, and its ability to open the gates to inner wisdom.

The gem is associated with the 5th chakra (The Throat chakra), supporting truthful self-expression, so it is a great gemstone for improving confidence and self-esteem.

Its metaphysical properties are logic, intellect, and efficiency, and it is also said to strengthen a sense of community in groups. (A good gem to have in a place of work!)

You can access the items displayed in the gallery here.

Sterling Silver Om Ring for Men and Women, Size 7-12

Sterling Silver Jewellery

Buddhagrooves’ range of sterling silver jewellery in pure form or with a combination of gemstones is vast, spanning well over 20 pages. If you like any of the items from this small sample, go to the general Jewellery section at Buddhagroove store and type in the name of your desired item in the search bar at the top of the page.

Singing Bowls

Singing bowls have long been used by Buddhist monks in meditation practice. When played, the bowl vibrates and produces a humming, expanding sound. The effect is created by striking the side of the bowl with a tool known as a mallet or striker, and then running the tool along the bowl’s ridge. This produces vibrations which we perceive as the characteristic deep tones, and which provide a profound relaxation effect.  

Set of 12 Tibetan Singing Bowls

I have recently seen a fascinating video from Nepal, where a sound healer and singing-bowl master Sudeep Lamsal demonstrates how to use the powerful frequencies of singing bowls to treat back pain, headaches, depression, and for chakra balancing.

When you fill a singing bowl with water and start circling the rim of the bowl with the stick (maintaining contact with the rim), the water will start ‘dancing’. Particles of water will react to the sound’s vibrations.

As we consist of about 70 percent of water, the singing bowl’s frequencies can have a powerful healing effect on our body. I highly recommend watching this 6-minute video.

Enjoy walking through the gallery of these ancient instruments that can bring harmony to your home and keep you healthy. You can find each of them at Buddhagroove’s store under the section Singing Bowls. 

Lucky Fish Ritual Tingsha Chime with Striker

Tingshas, Cymbals, Bells and Chimes

Tingshas are circular chimes joined by a leather string, often used in mindfulness and meditation practice to help focus the mind. When struck, the chimes make a bright, ‘celestial’ sound that keeps on resonating for a surprising length of time. Most of the bells and chimes below are available under the section Tingshas and Bells, and a small number of them are from the category Accents.

Zen Garden Cairns

Zen Home – Zen Garden

So far I’ve only encountered the sweet, gravity-defying pebbles stacked upon each other in pictures with inspirational quotes. I used to think they were just temporarily glued together for the effect. What a nice surprise it was to find out that these formations are actually made to stay in this soul-lifting shape.

The candleholders and the cast-iron pagoda wind chime are also hard to resist. You can start designing your own Zen space by visiting the section Garden Accents.

Three-in-One Hanging Brass Prayer Wheel

Prayer Wheels

Enjoy viewing Buddhagroove’s alluring collection of Buddhist Prayer Wheels, which you can access by following this link.

Lavender Sachet Trio, Made in the USA

Gifts

Buddhagroove has such a large choice of gift ideas that I really found it difficult to stop adding more and more pictures to this gallery. You’ll see for yourself when you visit the Gifts section.

Here are some of my favourites. I can guarantee my little nephews will want the frog to live in their garden! (See image no 18.)

Clothes and Accessories

The store also has an Apparel section, where I spotted these ‘Messenger Style Monk Bags’ in traditional monastic colours, which brought back memories of my time in Dharamsala and MacLeod Ganj.

Simple yet practical, the bags are made of 100% cotton, have interior and exterior pockets, and a practical zip-up closing.

You can find them in the section Accessories.

Monk Bags 100% Cotton

The lovely ‘Fair Trade Sheer Lotus Scarf’ from the same section has also caught my attention. I think it would go very well together with some Rose Quartz jewellery. I love wearing natural fibres, and this scarf is made of 60% cotton and 40% silk, so that’s yet another item on my wish list, I’m afraid..!

Fair Trade Sheer Lotus Scarf

Conclusion

Apart from a small number of items which have not resonated with me, Buddhagroove offers such a huge choice of high-quality, thoughtful products, that it’s already become one of my favourite online stores.

I have two reasons for saying this:

It is a true haven for finding deeply personal and meaningful gifts for everyone (myself included), and it fills me with pure delight of simply looking at beautiful things.

I hope you’ll find visiting Buddha Groove as uplifting and inspiring as I have.

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10% discount - code: Nurture

A Note for Customers Outside USA and Canada

Buddha Groove are a USA based company and offer free shipping within USA & Canada. If you are an international customer, you may find that once you get to the check out, you can only select from those two countries. That’s what happended to me, causing my heart to sink for a few moments, until I found out that, fortunately, Buddhagroove accepts international orders as well. They’re just handled on ‘order by order basis’, i.e. by email.

The best way is to place an international order is as follows:

– Place your items in the shopping cart

– Copy the product’s title and item code from your cart (as shown in the screenshot)

Buddha statue

– Email the customer service at cs@buddhagroove.com

– Let them know your products’ selection, delivery address, and your phone number.

They will then respond with the shipping charges and you’ll be able to place the order. (Hooray!)

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Any questions or comments are very welcome – just leave a message in the comment section below!

Buddhagroove

BY LUCIE DUN

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My Musical Journey

My Musical Journey

On tour with Arthur Brown and Focus (Thijs van Leer)

This page contains a selection of music videos, a list of recordings I’ve participated in, and a gallery of photos from my colourful musical journey largely based on coincidences and synchronicities – at least in my eyes.

I’ve always been intrigued by the phenomenon of synchronicities, especially since reading the intro to the I-Ching (‘The Book of Changes’) in my late teens. The intro was written by C.G.Jung, who, alongside his theory of the collective unconscious, personality types and the dream theories, devoted a large number of his studies to synchronicities or ‘meaningful coincidences’.

In the intro to the I-Ching Jung describes a synchronistic event experienced by him and one of his patients. The patient was telling him about her dream from the previous night, where she was given a golden scarab, and as she kept describing the dream, Jung heard something gently tapping on the window. It was a scarabaeid beetle Cetonia aurata, whose gold-green colour resembled that of a golden scarab.

Since reading this story I’ve been looking out for synchronic events in my life, and, interestingly, since the time I had consciously focused on this phenomena, they started to happen more frequently. Or – they had been happening all the time, but I simply started paying more attention to them.

I’ve long stopped counting all the events that paved my musical path without me ever having to plan anything. One of such events was walking into a random music club during my very first time in London, and meeting a group of magical people who had come to this club for one purpose that night – to look for a keyboard player. The group was Instant Flight – my soon-to-be band.

Another coincidence: The outrageously talented leader od my new band, Marco Magnani (previously a member of the Italian band Gli Avvoltoi), and his back-then wife and a really cool drummer, Ai Niikura, introduced me to the album’ The Crazy World of Arthur Brown’. It became one of my favourite albums after hearing just a couple of songs. I loved Arthur’s voice and expression, and the Hammond organ by Vincent Crane cast a spell on me. I couldn’t get the haunting sound out of my head.

About two weeks later I was busking with my keyboard at Monument Underground station, and who else wouldn’t pass by then Arthur Brown. I immediately started playing his smash hit ‘Fire’ (I’ll take you to burn!). This somehow caught his attention, and just a few weeks after this semi-surreal encounter I was hammering ‘Fire’ with Instant Flight at our very first gig with Arthur. 

Last, but not least: My favourite place to busk with my keyboard was Kings Cross. I developed an interest in psychogeography of London, Kings Cross in particular. One day, a friend invited me to come to an evening dedicated to William Blake, one of my favourite poets. I wasn’t very well that night but decided to go nevertheless. There was a poet reading a poem with the topic of my great interest – the psychogeography of Kings Cross. Listening to the poem made my evening, but I was too shy to approach the tall, rather enigmatic author. I would have never imagined back then, that a few years later, through a string of strange synchronicities (of course…) this poet would become my main musical partner, as well as marry me at St Pancras church, where else than in Kings Cross. It can prove useful to read books’ prefaces.

Biog

Lucie Rejchrtová (Dun) is a UK-based pianist and keyboard player, born in Prague. Classically trained and influenced by her father’s love of jazz and gospel music, she enjoys playing different styles including jazz, blues, rock, ambient/electronic and her own compositions.

Shortly after her arrival in the UK (2000) she started busking with her keyboard, accordion and blues harmonica in the London Underground and in the streets of London and other UK and European cities such as Berlin or Amsterdam.

In 2001 she joined the London-based psychedelic rock band Instant Flight and recorded two albums with them.

Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links, as described at the disclaimer at the end of the page.

Lucie, Tommy Kanai (bass), Ai Niikura (drums), Marco Magnani (guitar, vocals & all compositions)
In 2003 while busking in the tube, she met the 60’s icon Arthur Brown, who skyrocketed to fame in 1968 with ‘Fire’ (The Crazy World of Arthur Brown). Lucie, together with Marco Magnani and their band Instant Flight, became a part of Arthur’s band and played all across the UK and Europe, including ‘Hawkfest’, where they shared the stage with Hawkwind, ‘Summer of Love’ with Country Joe and the Fish (the star of the 1969’s Woodstock festival with his anti-war song ‘Vietnam’) or in Spain, Andalucia, together with the psychedelic legends The Pretty Things. Both Lucie and Marco are mentioned in Arthur’s biography, The God Of Hellfire: The Crazy Life And Times Of Arthur Brown (2006), by Polly Marshall.

They have toured extensively and shared the stage with bands like Eric Burdon and the Animals, Yardbirds, Focus (Thijs Van Leer), Country Joe and the Fish, Hawkwind, Procol Harum, Pentangle, or Art Wood (The Artwoods). They’ve performed at festivals including Glastonbury, ‘Ray Davies’ Meltdown’ in London, or ‘Legends of Rock’ in Poland.

Lucie has also played with Joe Carnation, the guitarist of the legendary Czech underground band ‘The Plastic People of the Universe’, celebrated by Tom Stoppard in his play ‘Rock’n’Roll’.

Other musicians/bands she has gigged or recorded with include Phil Shoenfelt, Eggnoise, Mark Steiner, Tony Rose (Two Dollar Bash), Jimmie Bozeman (Lazy Pigs), Cleanhead Phil – Big Daddy Blues, Philip R. Holmes, Oskar Petr, Eva Turnova, Florence Joelle, The Lysergics, Milla Gems, Federico Zig (My Juliette), Victor Peraino, Paul Martinez, or Steve McNerney (The Pleasers).

Since 2009 she’s been working with the poet Aidan Andrew Dun known as ‘Voice of King’s Cross’, with whom she plays compositions influenced by Debussy, Stravinski, and Satie, but even nu-jazz and hip-hop. Aidan’s poetry reflects influences by e.g. Arthur Rimbaud or William Blake. He has toured the States and met the key poets and writers of the Beat Generation including Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti or Michael McClure. In 1995 his epic poem Vale Royal was launched at The Royal Albert Hall, where he performed alongside Allen Ginsberg and Paul McCartney.

Aidan and Lucie have performed at Ledbury Poetry Festival, Ruigoord – Amsterdam, Dimbola Lodge on the Isle of Wight, German Gymnasium and The British Library in London, Shakespeare & Sons in Prague, and many joint events with other fellow poets, such as Niall McDevitt, John Crow Constable, Philip Wells’ The Fire Poet’, Jay Ramsay, and John Gibbens.

They’ve released two albums – ‘Psychogeography’ and ‘Honeyland’ and they’re currently working on new joint projects.

Video

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown play The Bridge from the Tantric Lover album. Jim Mortimore – Baritone Guitar, Sam Walker – Drums, Lucie Rejchrtova – Keyboards. Recorded at Zu Studios 9/9/10. Watch out for the ending! 🙂

A legendary footage of Arthur setting a stage on fire with his fire helmet! Filmed at ‘Legends of Rock’ festival in Poland. We shared the stage with Eric Burdon and The Animals that night. They were glad to have left their instruments on stage during our set; my keyboard was covered with fire-extinguishing foam! Watch out for the most hilarious moment – the stage catches fire just as Arthur screams the words ‘Oh no, oh no…!’

Another electrifying performance by Arthur Brown, starting with ominous growling…Do not miss his spellbinding intro to ‘Fire’! (4:08) And from about 7:20 you may witness some interesting Arthur/Lucie interactions, including a leg on the keyboard…if you dare.

A rare footage of Arthur Brown, Phil May (The Pretty Things), our band Instant Flight, and more, playing at The London Astoria in 2005. Notice at all the mad characters on stage. The evening, called ‘Arthur Brown’s Otherworld’, featured Arthur Brown’s Kingdom Come, The Pretty Things, Instant Flight, Captain Sensible, Howard Marks aka Mr. Nice, Lene Lovich and others. My dream of sharing the stage with The Pretty Things came true that night.

Arthur Brown, Jim Mortimore (guitars/bass), Sam Walker (drums) and me on keyboards at The Albert, Brighton, 2010. Watch out for Arthur’s hilarious build-up to ‘Fire’ halfway through the video, as well as our interactions towards the end, when I almost sink under the keyboard in the presence of The Almighty! 🙂 

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown play ‘Spontaneous Apple Creation’ at ‘High Voltage’ festival, London 2011. The gig, full of Arthur’s quintessential antics, has been recorded and released as ‘Live at High Voltage’ (see section ‘Recordings’ further down).

‘Celebrate’, one of my favourite songs from our album ‘Endless Journey’. Listen out for my ‘cinematic’ outro with a brass sound. Working with Marco Magnani has always been extremely inspiring – he influenced my own musical creativity, especially in the field of arrangements. You can listen to samples of the whole album in the ‘Recordings’ sections further down.

I enjoyed taking part in this witty 15-minute musical collage by Marco Magnani, called ‘Musical History Tour’, a tribute to the bands of the 60’s and 70’s. This recording, which has enlivened many parties, features Marco Magnani (vocals, guitars & bass) James Ovens (drums), and me on keyboards and backing vocals.

Singing and playing keyboards on this nostalgic love song ‘Will You Think of Me’ by Instant Flight. Music and lyrics by Marco Magnani.

With Instant Flight Live @ the Underworld, London, Camden, 2005. Playing ‘Her Mystery’ with my church organ intro, as well as the flute melody in the song’s instrumental part (3:28).

My composition ‘Manchild’ from the album ‘Psychogeography’, created with Aidan Dun. The lyrics (by A.D.) are based on The Old Testament’s Book of Job. Listen out for the wailing, climbing guitar parts, which probably came to me as a result of listening to both jazz and hard rock. Check the whole album out in the ‘Recordings’ section.

Absolutely loved playing this gig with Arthur at Komedia, Brighton, 2012. The vibe was particularly joyful that night. This 26 minutes’ footage includes Kites, Fire, Angels, That’s How Strong My Love Is, I Put A Spell On You, and All The Bells. There’s a hilarious moment (9:50 onwards) when Arthur reacts to an over-excited fan’s shrieks during a peaceful song. He addresses the howler with the kind of sophisticated humor that proves to have more effective than any clichéd rock-star over-reaction.

A clip from The Ronnie Wood Show, where Alice Cooper describes what happened to him when he first heard Arthur’s ‘Fire’! Ronnie Wood also mentions playing bass on the hit. (He’s referring to the BBC session on 8 April 1968, not to the Track Records studio album, where Vincent Crane uses Hammond organ bass pedals.)

Arthur performing ‘Fire’ as a guest at Alice Cooper’s show in Alexandra Palace, London 2011. I remember that day very well because we were just on tour with him in Scotland, and Arthur had to leave us for a day to join Alice’s gig. When he returned, he was ON FIRE!

Recordings & Releases

golden string

Gilden String (2021) Released with Bandcamp

Listen to my tune if you’d like to get moving.

Stream or Download

meridian-wheel-affirmations

Meridian Wheel (2022) Released with Bandcamp

Affirmations inspired by the ancient wisdom of the body’se nergy channels

Stream or Download

LuRay Hit the House

Hit the House (2021) Released with Bandcamp

Listen to my tune if you’d like to get moving.

Stream or Download

Sugarhill High (2022) Released with Bandcamp

A joyful and wacky tune!

Stream or Download

A collaboration with the poet Aidan Andrew Dun, this album could be described as a cross-genre venture in electronica where nu-jazz and two-step collide with dub, hip-hop and ambient. 

Stream or download

 

Impressionistic settings of Aidan Andrew Dun’s poems to piano, with early 20th century influences.

iTunes / Apple Music
Amazon US / Amazon UK

A limited-edition of ‘Colours & Lights’ by Instant Flight, (2004) the best of UK New Psychedelics wave, featuring a very special guest Arthur Brown. He sings on the tracks ‘Kites’ and ‘Freeway’, which he ends with his ominous ‘God-of-hell-fire’ shrieks! There’s also ‘Will You Think of Me’, sang by me (see the ‘Video’ section).

Amazon US / Amazon UK

A well-received album by the psychedelic legends Instant Flight. It includes the track ‘Celebrate‘ (see the Video section) and an upbeat ‘Get Away‘ where I play harmonica, or the divine Gentle Waves of Sound, which makes one wonder whether Marco Magnani is really from this planet.

iTunes / Apple Music
Amazon US / Amazon UK

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s album ‘Zim Zam Zim’, (2014) (inc. some of my keyboards and backing vocals) is full of intriguing textures and rhythms, and, of course, staggering vocal range of the one and only Arthur Brown. Most of the keyboards on the recording are by the amazing Sam Walker, but I took over those parts when playing live.

iTunes / Apple Music
Amazon US / Amazon UK

Live recording from ‘High Voltage’ festival in London, 2011, including the version of ‘Spontaneous Apple Creation’ (see the Video section). 

iTunes / Apple Music
Amazon US / Amazon UK

‘Blue Skies Opening’, a classic by ‘Mark and the Clouds’ (former Instant Flight), where I played the keyboards. It also features the wonderful Fabio Serrone (bass), who’s very sadly no longer with us. Listen to my favourites Blue Skies Opening, or For All Diamonds to Shine. This song ‘sends shiver down my spine’, to quote the great Nikki Sudden who described Instant Flight’s music with these words.

iTunes / Apple Music
Amazon US / Amazon UK

Cumulus, a 2017 by ‘Mark & the Clouds’ (former Instant Flight), where I played keyboards. Check out Marco Magnani’s Bert Jansch-esque guitar playing and beautiful vocals on I’m Stopping Here, The Endless Road, Take My Sky, and more.

iTunes / Apple Music
Amazon US / Amazon UK

A multi-genre album by the Prague supergroup Eggnoise, where I made a guest appearance playing keyboards on the track ‘Leaving’, together with ‘Big Daddy Blues’ Cleanhead Phil.

iTunes / Apple Music
Amazon US / Amazon UK

Influences

I listen to any kind of music that resonates with me, but the following selection shows albums that particularly influenced my early keyboard playing. I only started playing keyboards in my twenties; until then, I played the piano – mostly classical, or a bit of jazz and blues. I had always wanted to play in a band, so listening to these albums and learning the songs helped me to make my ‘on stage’ visions true.

A cult album by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Vincent Crane and Drachan Theaker, including the no 1 hit ‘Fire’!

iTunes / Apple Music
Amazon US / Amazon UK

A true gem of UK psychedelia – S.F. Sorrow by the Pretty Things. My old dream of sharing the stage with them came true thanks to Arthur Brown and my band Instant Flight.

iTunes / Apple Music
Amazon US / Amazon UK

The best of the world’s progressive rock manifested via the Dutch band Focus, with Bach’s reincarnation Thijs van Leer. The albums includes the mega-hit Hocus Pocus, with Thijs van Leer’s incredible yodling ventures, as well as the ecstatic track Sylvia.

iTunes / Apple Music
Amazon US / Amazon UK

The iconic first album by Pink Floyd, one of my earliest influences.

iTunes / Apple Music
Amazon US / Amazon UK

Kuře v hodinkách (Chicken in the Watch), released in 1971, is considered one of the best albums of Czech rock history. It is the only studio album of Czech fusion band Flamengo from 1972. One of the best Czech poets, Josef Kainar, participated in its creation as a lyricist.  The communist regime in former Czechoslovakia played a huge role in the fact the album did not reach international recognition back then.

iTunes / Apple Music
Amazon US / Amazon UK

Arthur Brown’s masterpiece of progressive rock from 1971. A unique album full of dark prog moods, psychedelic auras, plenty of wild guitar work, killer organ, and of course, Arthur’s otherworldly voice. I was over the dark side of the moon when Arthur suggested to learn ‘No Time’ and ‘Gypsy Escape’ for our 2013 tour. It was a big challenge for me, (hours of deciphering all the crazy keyboard parts by ear), but I did it, and we kicked ass with these tunes. In the words of one reviewer: “In case anyone listens to this album for the first time I warn you that you may suffer severe brain damage.” (But the ones of us with brains already out-of-sorts should be safe.)

iTunes / Apple Music
Amazon US / Amazon UK

Recommended

Cassandra Lied
CASSANDRA LIED

Described as ‘Ein kleines Meisterstück’, Phil Shoenfelt’s latest album ‘Cassandra Lied’ has been causing a stir since its release in in January 2020. The layered, atmospheric sound of the album is coloured by trippy guitar effects including Kristof Hahn’s lapsteel guitar, the sound of which has been compared to ‘banshees wailing in another dimension’. With songs like ‘Ionian Dream’ or ‘Ghost Song’, you’ll find yourself wandering through virtual forests of other-worldly realms, not wanting to return back to earth for quite a while – or at least for the length of the album!

℗ 2019 Fuego © 2019 Phil Shoenfelt

Amazon US / Amazon UK / Amazon DE
iTunes / Apple Music

Golden Vanity
GOLDEN VANITY

A legendary album by two underground icons of the U.K. / European rock’n’roll scene, recorded in Berlin in 1998 and released in 2009. Nikki Sudden’s Dylanesque, lyrical vocals complement Phil Shoenfelt’s beautifully unsettling vox profundis with hints of Lou Reed and Ian Curtis. Listen out for the rock’n’roll gem ‘Hanoi Jane’, tense and dynamic ‘Cloak of Virtue’, nostalgic ‘Waiting for You’, or a raw  punk-rocker ‘Teenage Sheets’.

© 2010 Easy Action (Recorded in 1998)

Amazon US / Amazon UK / Amazon DE
iTunes / Apple Music

Find out more about Phil Shoenfelt’s work here.

Gallery

A set of pictures from my musical life, including my blues piano beginnings in Prague, my first UK band Instant Flight, various stage antics with Arthur Brown, and hanging out with some wonderful people, such as Thijs van Leer (Focus), Sky Saxon (The Seeds), or Mani Neumeier (Guru Guru). 

BY LUCIE DUN

Ditto Music
muziker audio and other equipment

This site has been (very happily) built with DIVI, by Elegant Themes.

Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links. This means that if you decide to make a purchase through my links, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. The complete Affiliate Disclosure can be accessed here. If you’d like to learn more about affiliate marketing, check out my favourite platform for online marketers. Thank you for visiting!

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Learn to Juggle for Your Brain Health

Learn to Juggle for Your Brain Health

I perceive myself as a fairly inquisitive person. I like reading and learning new things, but my big problem has always been concentration and long-term focus. Often, reading one book would take me weeks, sometimes months, and I wouldn’t usually remember much afterwards. I wanted to change this.

The Most Brain-Specific Exercise

A few years back I saw a video of a doctor who called juggling ‘the most brain-specific exercise, and who got all his medical students to juggle. According to the students, juggling helped them gain better concentration and relieve stress at the same time.

Affiliate Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. If you make a purchase through my links, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. The full disclosure can be accessed here.

I’ve never been interested in juggling, considering it only as a party trick or a circus-specific sport, but this video stirred my curiosity. If juggling could improve concentration, I thought to myself, it might help me to improve my reading and learning skills in general.

Studies on Effects of Learning a Visual-Motor Skill

An interesting quote from an article called “Changes in Gray Matter Induced by Learning” states:

Recently, activation-dependant structural brain plasticity in humans has been demonstrated in adults after three months of training a visuomotor skill. Learning three-ball cascade juggling was associated with a transient and highly selective increase in brain gray matter in the occipito-temporal cortex comprising the motion sensitive area hMT/V5 bilaterally.

An Oxford study claims that learning a new skill such as juggling creates more white matter in the brain. White matter are the nerve strands that help different parts of the brain communicate with each other, and an activity such as juggling can boost the connection between different parts of the brain.

Thanks to all these studies, programmes are now being put in place for people with brain injuries (such as stroke victims) to be taught to juggle in an attempt to increase their brain functioning.

Benefits of Learning to Juggle

Juggling encourages the brain to work in a crossover pattern, which can be beneficial for children and adults with dyslexia, as well as anyone who would like to improve their reading skills.

Complex learning tasks, juggling included, provide multiple benefits, such as:

– Relieving stress

– Sharpening focus and concentration

– Increasing dexterity and coordination

– Diminishing food cravings

– Assisting in the cessation of smoking

– Prevention or delay of Alzheimer’s disease

Jim Kwik

One of the people talking highly of juggling is a renowned ‘brain coach’ Jim Kwik,  a world expert in speed-reading, memory improvement, brain performance, and accelerated learning. For over 25 years, Jim has worked with students, seniors, educators, athletes, as well as many of the world’s leading CEOs and celebrities such as Will Smith.

Will Smith and Jim Kwik

Jim considers juggling one of the most important exercises for the brain. He says that movement such as juggling helps our brain build new connections and thus it’s one of the best tools for improving our learning skills. In his own words, ‘As your body moves, your brain grooves’.

I’m a great fan of Jim Kwik. He is one of a few whose fame hasn’t gone to their heads. I love his warmth and humility. It was he who really inspired me to learn to juggle, which has considerably improved my reading skills, focus and memory. I’m immensely grateful to him.

I find his personal story very moving – as a child he suffered from a serious brain injury, after which he found it extremely challenging to learn anything, especially reading. One of his teachers even called him ‘the boy with a broken brain’.

However, Jim perceived it as a life challenge in the best possible sense and created strategies to dramatically enhance his mental performance, which got him to where he is today – helping others to maximize their performance, unleash their potential and find true meaning in life. He is also the author of the 2019 bestseller ‘Limitless’.

Jim says that we’re not practicing juggling just for the sake of it. He views learning to juggle as a metaphor for embracing challenges in our life. When you’re learning to juggle you are forced to develop certain discipline, which will benefit all areas of your life.

As Jim says: “If you’re able to create one new habit, what else will you be able to do? Possibilities will open up because you’ll be in the habit of creating empowering habits.”

The Treasure You Seek…

Here are a few great quotes that Jim often uses. I particularly like the last one which is rather subtle, but so true! That thought-provoking sentence was a revelation to me – I recognized myself in it at once, and the realisation has completely revolutionized my workflow.

– If an egg is broken by an outside force, life ends. If broken by an inside force, life begins. Great things always begin from the inside.

– First you create your habits and then your habits create you.

– Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right. (Henry Ford)

– How you do anything is how you do everything.

–  The difference between a normal person and a champion is that a champion is willing to push past the pain period.

– The treasure you seek is found in the task you’re avoiding! 

My Own Juggling Adventure

After having read all the good things about juggling and its effects on one’s brain, I decided to learn to juggle.

I’ve documented a part of my learning journey here. Get ready for my juggling feats but do not necessarily follow everything I do there…!

The tutorial I’m mentioning in my video is, to my mind, one of the clearest, most beginner-friendly juggling tutorial I’ve ever come across. The guy who teaches it, ‘Coach Bob’, is a real juggling pro (do check his and his wife’s website full of their crazy juggling acrobatics).

His instructions are super-comprehensive, step-by-step, not like the usual three-step instructions that come with the box of juggling balls, or some other Youtube tutorials which don’t always seem to empathise with a real beginner’s mind.

Coach Bob breaks his tutorial into eight steps, and each step must be learned properly before moving on to the next one.

I’m happy to say that thanks to Coach Bob’s video I finally learned the three-ball cascade. As you can see in my video above, I’ve reached my goal of juggling for one minute.

Below is Coach Bob’s training step-by-step. If you follow this tutorial and practice a little bit every day, then you should be able to juggle in less than two weeks’ time, if not earlier!

Go Slower, Arrive Sooner

‘If you can tie your own shoes you can learn how to juggle’.

This is how Coach Bob introduces his tutorial.

He is adamant that YOU can learn to juggle as well, because he taught a wide range of people to juggle: Between the ages of six and eighty!

The coach Bob method is an 8-step process.

I’d recommend to watch the video and follow the points written here step-by-step. You don’t have to read all the notes – rather use them as a reference.

It is really important to remember this:

If you go slower, you’ll arrive sooner. Take the time to master each step before going to the next one.

Juggling Balls

Before you start learning, make sure you have suitable juggling balls that don’t bounce all around, because it would drive you crazy. Don’t use tennis balls or anything that bounces. The best type is a so-called ‘beanbag’, and you can get a set of three for almost nothing on Amazon. (And if you cannot wait before they arrive, you can always resort to rolled-up socks! 🙂

 

Learn to Juggle Three Balls – a Tutorial for Beginners by Coach Bob

 

Step 1 – Basic Throw with One Ball

(1:10 at Coach Bob’s video)

The first step in learning to juggle three balls is a one ball drill. This gets you used to the basic throw you’ll use in three ball juggling.

Bend your arms in the juggling position.

You need to imagine a rectangular box in front of you.

The box has its lower corners in line with your bent elbows, and the upper corners are a bit above your head.

Start with your hands pointed slightly inwards (which will form the lower two corners of the box) and then throw the ball towards to opposite top corner of the imaginary box. This should be slightly higher than you head is.

The technique of the throw is also important: Don’t throw it fast in a jerky way – the throw should be more of a scooping motion.

When the ball reaches the opposite top corner, then you just let the ball fall straight down to that bottom corner, and catch.

Then repeat the process with your opposite hand (which is usually the weaker hand, so this is going to need some extra practice), and again, throw the ball up towards the opposite corner, let it fall, and catch it.

The sound of this basic pattern is:

1) Throw

2) Catch

Do this until it becomes comfortable. Keep your chin up to help you get the necessary height – the ball should peak above your head.

Also, make sure the throws are consistent, i.e. that the ball always reaches the same height in those imaginary top corners.

Now go ahead and practice the Step 1 until it becomes really comfortable and you are reaching the same height.

Step 2 – Adding a snap of the fingers (Throw – Snap – Catch)

(2:41 at Coach Bob’s video)

We’re going to continue with one ball, and we’re going to add a snap of the fingers before you catch the ball.

You’re going to throw with your right hand (or whatever hand you start with), and when that ball hits the peak, that’s when you snap your fingers before catching it.

The sound of the technique is:

1) Throw

2) Snap + Catch

Do the snap just as the ball peeks, (or maybe a little bit after).

If for some reason you can’t snap your fingers, you can replace the snap with a slap of your thigh.

If you’re throwing too low, you may not have time to get that snap (or slap). The higher the throw is, the more time you have to snap (or throw another ball as we’ll see in Step Three).

Step 3 – Throw – Throw – Drop – Drop

(3:50 at Coach Bob’s video)

For step three Bob recommends to find a table, or a bed, or anything that will keep you from having to constantly bend over and pick up the juggling balls when you drop them – because now we’re going to start dropping quite a bit!

In step three we’ll be using two balls. Start with the more confident hand, and throw one of the balls up to the opposite corner of the imaginary box.

When that ball hits the corner, instead of snapping (which we did in Step 2) you’re going to throw the other ball to the opposite corner.

And because you hopefully have something like a table or a bed in from of you, you shouldn’t worry about catching the balls. Instead, you should keep your full focus on the throws.

When the ball peaks, throw in the second ball.

The sound of this pattern is:

 1) Throw

2) Throw

3) Drop

4) Drop

You should hear FOUR distinct beats:

“One – two – three four, one – two – three – four”.

Also, notice where the balls are landing, because that will tell you whether you are on the right path.

If you have a table in from of you, notice where on the table the balls are landing – they should land right in front of you.

Or, if you weren’t using a table, they should by your feet, but not much further.

Spend a lot of time practicing this until you become really confident with this technique. It will make learning the next steps much easier.

Also, teach both your hands, right and left, to become confident with that first throw.

For example, if you do:

1) Right

2) Left

3) Drop

4) Drop

Then also practice:

1) Left

2) Right

3) Drop

4) Drop

Don’t go on to the next step until the technique in Step feels very comfortable. It’s worth waiting for a few days, focusing just on this technique. Your patience will pay off – you’ll see for yourself soon.

Step 4 – Throw – Throw – Catch – Catch

(5:27 at Coach Bob’s video)

Step four is this most difficult step in the eight step process, and this is where most people quit learning to juggle – but not you! YOU CAN DO IT. Now I have to admit something here: I tried to learn to juggle a year ago, but, shamefully, after about a week of trying and not getting it right at all, I quit. It was too frustrating and I didn’t like to see myself like a loser, so it was easier to just forget it.

The one excuse I have is that I didn’t find a tutorial video which would suit my pace and my way of learning. I’m pretty sure that if I found Coach Bob’s video back then, that I wouldn’t quit.

So hopefully this tutorial (together with his demonstration in the video), will save you plenty of time of searching for a comprehensive, thorough tutorial, and also save you from that frustrating feeling of being stuck on your learning way and doubting yourself.

Now, let’s get on with Step 4:

We’re going to start with two balls again, like in the previous step. But instead doing:

1) Throw

2) Throw

3) Drop

4) Drop,

we’re going to do:

1) Throw

2) Throw

3) Catch

4) Catch

While doing this, keep those catching hands quite low down – don’t be tempted to catch them too high up in th3e air. We need the throws to be quite slow, and we achieve this by creating some distance between the ball and the catching hand.

Also, watch for consistent height on the throws.

This is going to be difficult at first, but stick with it. This is a crucial step to learn before going on to the next step. As Coach Bob says, using a witty quote, ‘Everything is difficult until it becomes easy.’

Once again, there should be four distinct

beats: “One – two – three four, one – two – three – four…”

when you are doing the “Throw – Throw – Catch – Catch”.

Remember to change the starting hand, so both your left and right hand are confident at doing the starting throw. Basically, both your hands should be equally trained to do the starting throw, in order to hit the same height of the opposite corners in that imaginary box.

So, practice this pattern:

1) Right

2) Left

3) Catch

4) Catch

And then:

1) Left

2) Right

3) Catch

4) Catch

At this point you shouldn’t do a continuous juggle, (a loop) although it may be tempting; a lot of people will try to keep two balls in the air in a frantic loop, but at this point, we are just practicing in order to give our future juggling precision and good rhythm, so these throws should not yet be continuous.

Instead, it should be just one part:

1) Throw

2) Throw

3) Catch

4) Catch

Then stop, take a deep breath, and only after a pause do another repetition of this pattern. (And remember to give both hands a chance at the starting throw)

Also, don’t worry about speed, just get that four distinct beats down and you should start improving. If you find it too difficult, go back to Step Three, and work on the “Throw – Throw – Drop – Drop” pattern.

Don’t forget to keep a consistent height of those throws.

What might help you is to keep your chin slightly lifted, so you can throw the balls a bit higher and still be in control.

All this we’ve been doing in this step is going to take a lot of practice – don’t rush through this step. It will really pay off if you are patient and stick with the practice. Coach Bob closes this part of the tutorial with another highly relevant quote – ‘Go slower, arrive sooner’!

Step 5 – Throw – Throw – Snap – Catch

(7:08 at Coach Bob’s video)

For step 5 we’re going to stick with using two balls and doing the “Throw – Throw – Catch – Catch” pattern, but we’re also going to add a snap of the fingers.

The snap will be done by the hand that has thrown the first ball. And it will be done in the moment when the second ball is falling from the top corner, just about to land in that snapping hand.

The sound of the pattern will be:

1) Throw

2) Throw

3) Catch

4) Snap + Catch

The hand that throws the first ball will be the one doing that snap just before catching the second ball, so it will sound like this:

1) Right

2) Left

3) Catch

4) Snap (with right hand) + Catch (with right hand)

Or, if we start with the left hand, the pattern will sound:

1) Left

2) Right

3) Catch

4) Snap (with left hand) + Catch (with left hand)

To describe the steps with even more detail, so you can fully visualise these patterns in slow motion and then try it for real. It’s really useful to rehearse these movements in your imagination, because the brain registers it anyway, and, rewarding you for the mental work, it will make the real life situation easier for you later on.

Let’s imagine we are starting with our right hand:

1) Right hand throws the first ball

2) Left hand throws the second ball

3) Left hand catches the first ball

4) Right hand snaps, and then catches the second ball.

And vice versa, if you want:

1) Left hand throws the first ball

2 Right hand throws the second ball

3) Right hand catches the first ball

4) Left hand snaps, and then catches the second ball.

If you can’t snap, you can slap the side of your thigh instead, or whatever feels comfortable, and which you can do with ease just before catching that ball.

You may be wondering why bother with that snap at all?

It’s because eventually that snap is going to be another throw when you are using three balls.

So before we attempt the three-ball juggling, you should get used to doing something with that space between the two catches (because soon there’s going to be a throw between them, instead of the snap).

All the exercises we have done so far are very important.

Here is a recap of the patterns we’ve learnt so far to practice:

1) With one ball:

1) Throw

2) Catch

2) With one ball:

1) Throw

2) Snap + Catch

3) With two balls:

1) Throw

2) Throw

3) Catch

4) Catch

 

4) With two balls:

1) Throw

2) Throw

3) Drop

4) Drop

 

5) With two balls:

1) Throw

2) Throw

3) Catch

4) Snap + Catch

 

You should be able to do about 10 to 20 of these in a row without dropping, starting with either hand, before you go on to the next step.

Aim for consistent heights and consistent throws, and try to stay relaxed when you’re doing this. Relaxed focus is the best state for successful juggling!

Step 6 – Throw – Throw – Catch – Catch (with three balls)

(8:30 at Coach Bob’s video)

Now we finally get to start working with 3 balls!

We’ll start with having two balls in one hand, and one in the other hand. The first throw will be done with the hand that has two balls in it.

It can be either right or left hand, whichever feels more natural for you. But for this example, let’s say you’ve opted for the right hand as the starting one.

Put two balls in your right hand; one ball will sit in your palm (and will stay there without moving during the whole Step 6 practice.)

Then you make a ‘peace sign’ with your index and third finger, and extend your thumb as well, and grab another ball with these three fingers. 

You always start juggling with the hand that has more balls in it.

For this practice, we will start with the right hand. (Although you can start with any hand.)

Now, keeping the first ball in the palm of your right hand without throwing it, we’ll do the pattern from Step 4:

1) Throw

2) Throw

3) Catch

4) Catch

Once again, remember that at this stage you should be juggling with two balls only, keeping the third ball passively sitting in your palm.

You only have three fingers available (thumb, index and middle finger) to throw the other ball, while the first one is resting in the palm of the same hand. 

You’ll need to get used to throwing the ball using those three fingers only, and at the same time keep the other ball in the palm of your hand. It may feel a bit clumsy at first. 

And as you do the “Throw – Throw – Catch – Catch” pattern, you’ll be using those three fingers for throws as well as catches, while always holding that third ball in your palm without throwing it.

This way you will gain enough practice in order to move on to the next steps.

Let’s go through the process again, starting with the right hand:

1) Throw

2) Throw

3) Catch

4) Catch

 

That is:

1) Right

2) Left

3) Catch

4) Catch

 

Or, described with even more detail:

1) Right hand holds two balls, and throws the one further from the body, using three fingers only.

2) Left hand throws

3) Left hand catches the ball thrown by the ‘three fingers only’ from the right hand

4) Right hand, which has been clutching the third stationary ball, catches the ball thrown by the left hand.

Try to visualise this in slow motion, you’ll be training your brain, creating new neural connections, (brain loves novelty and learning!) and it will later reward you for this by making the whole learning process easier.

Repeat the “Right – Left – Catch – Catch” process several times.

But don’t try to attempt any loops yet, always pause after each set:

“Right – Left – Catch – Catch – STOP,

Right – Left – Catch – Catch – STOP” Etc.

Once this pattern becomes easy, you’re going to put the set of the two balls in your left hand, and start working on the opposite side:

1) Left

2) Right

3) Catch

4) Catch

 

You should be able to do 10 to 20 repetitions (with PAUSES) without a drop before going on to the next step.

Work on that and you’ll be properly juggling in the next step!

Step 7 – Three Throws = Juggling!

(10:05 at Coach Bob’s video)

 At this step you have officially become a juggler!

We’re finally going to be juggling three balls.

Hold two balls in your right hand, and one ball in your left hand.

The first throw will be done with your right hand which is holding two balls, and it shall be the ball which is further away from your body. (The one held by your fingers, not the one resting in your palm.)

The sound of the pattern will be:

1) Throw

2) Throw

3) Throw

4) Catch

 

That is:

1) Right (throw the ball that is further away from your body)

2) Left (throw the ball and get ready to catch the ball you’ve thrown at point 1)

3) Right (throw the ball that was in your palm and then catch the ball from point 2)

4) Catch (another ball lands in your left hand, where you’ve already been holding the ball thrown at point 3)

 

If you do it right, the two balls that you were holding in your right hand before you started, will now be in sitting your left hand.

The throws should be reaching a consistent height – don’t throw the next ball until the first ball hits its peak.

The rhythm and tempo of the juggling is very important. People often tend to throw too fast, throwing multiple balls in the air, but the correct juggling technique requires that only one ball means to be up in the air at a time. Juggling is slower than most people think!

 

The goal of this step is to manage three throws:

1) Right

2) Left

3) Right

4) Stop

If this is difficult for you, go back some steps, for example when we do the snap (Step 5). You will be replacing that snap with another throw, so it’s useful to first practice the snap.

Don’t worry about juggling in a loop, for now just do three throws and stop.

Once you get good at this pattern (starting with your right hand holding two balls and doing the Right – Left – Right – Stop), then you can start with two balls in your left hand, and do ‘Left – Right – Left – Stop’ pattern.

(I’m referring to the right hand as your dominant hand, but if you’re left-handed, then obviously start with your left hand.)

You have just mastered the basics of juggling. If you can do three throws and catch three throws, you are a juggler.

In the next step, you’ll learn how to increase from three throws to any number, so you can do the proper juggling loop.

 

 

Step 8 – Continue the pattern

(12:16 at Coach Bob’s video)

Now, as a new juggler, you should be able to do the “One – Two -Three – Stop” pattern easily. Try it at least ten times in a row (but still with stopping after each three throws).

Make sure you are comfortable with starting (holding the two balls) with either hand.

Once you find this easy, you’re ready to go on to the fourth throw.

The fourth throw is simply another throw instead of the ‘Stop’ (as in the previous step, when you caught the two balls in your hand and rested).

So for example, if in step 7 you did:

1) Right

2) Left

3) Right

4) Stop

You’ll be doing:

1) Right

2) Left

3) Right

4) Left

5) Stop. 

Watch the movement of Coach Bob’s hands (I’ve found this especially helpful) between 12:43 and 13:02 in the video.

Once four throws become easy, you could add one more throw at a time, until you get to about 20 and then you’ll be able to just keep the pattern going.

 

Things to keep in mind:

– Consistent throws

– Catching low (let the balls come down into your hands)

– Relaxed focus

 

All this takes a lot of practice, but juggling is completely learnable. As you’re practicing, remember the five P’s:

1) Positive

2) Practice

3) Patience

4) Perseverance and…

5) Pass it on!

Now go and teach somebody else how to a juggle!

A Nice Gift Idea:

You can place the juggling balls in one of these lovely cotton drawstring bags. They are just a perfect size to fit three small juggling balls such as the ones I have been using.

 

Drawstring cotton gift bag:

Find on Amazon

 

A set of three juggling balls:

Find on Amazon

BY LUCIE DUN

This site has been (very happily) built with DIVI, by Elegant Themes.

Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links. This means that if you decide to make a purchase through my links, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. The complete Affiliate Disclosure can be accessed here. If you’d like to learn more about affiliate marketing, check out my favourite platform for online marketers. Thank you for visiting!

   Let’s keep in touch:

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The Best WordPress Theme of 2024

The Best WordPress Theme of 2024

A few years ago, when I started this website, I was determined to find the best WordPress theme to suit my ways. It had to be simple to use, but highly flexible, with a lot of options for customising the page.

I asked my online business coach Alex Sol, who had a cool-looking website, what theme he had built his site with. He told me he was using DIVI by Elegant Themes and sent me a link to his review of Divi as well as Elegant Themes’ website. I am grateful to Alex to this very day!

front-end design with Divi

Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links, as described at the disclaimer at the end of the page.

 

I started using Divi in 2018, but when someone asks a question “What is the best WordPress theme in 2024?” I’m pretty confident I know the answer.

I had tried a few free WordPress themes before, but I never liked the fact I was not able to customise them as much as I would like. The inflexibility of most of them was impacting my enthusiasm for building websites, as well as slowing down my online business learning process.

I trusted Alex’s personal choice, and after watching a few videos and experimenting with designing a page in the Divi ‘live builder’, I could see how user-friendly and flexible the whole interface was and decided to invest in the Divi theme.

Divi by Elegant Themes

I’m happy to say that I haven’t looked back once since purchasing Divi. This incredible theme has turned my often frustrating work in standard WordPress editor into creative play with no limits to my imagination.

Also, it was soon after rebuilding my website with Divi that I earned my first commission from my affiliate marketing.

Examples of pages built in Divi

Below are a few samples of pages I’ve built in Divi’s Visual Builder – by simply dragging and dropping elements on the page. Each of these images leads to the live version of the page, so if you want to view any of these websites and get the feel of Divi in real life, just click on any given image and it will open in a new tab.

Note that I’ve built all these websites from scratch, without using a template. Although Divi comes with a whole sea of beautiful templates, it’ so simple (and fun!) to build a page in Divi’s Visual Builder, that you’re more than likely to end up designing everything by yourself.

Old School Players
amabel clarke storyteller
Swell Maps website
https://aidanandrewdun.com/
https://aidanandrewdun.com/
https://lesstweb.com/
https://lesstweb.com/works/
Naturegrooves

What Makes Divi So Special?

The Divi theme is actually much more than just a WordPress theme. It’s a complete web design platform that replaces the standard WordPress editor with a far more advanced visual editor. 

The process of building a page is really flexible: You can still build the standard way, (on the back end), but you can also build on the front end, in Divi’s Visual Builder, where you can see what your published page will look like while building it. No need for the constant switching from standard WordPress editor to preview your pages. This is what’s made all the difference for me.

The Visual Builder - building a page on the front-end

To have an idea of what I’m talking about, have a look at the following video by the Divi team, where they’re introducing one of the previous software updates. (By now Divi’s upgraded to version 4, with yet more great updates such as the WooCommerce modules, but this video will give you a good general overview of Divi’s features and potential.)

As the Divi developer in the video (who for some reason seems to remind everyone of Nicholas Cage) says: ‘The new visual builder allows you to make changes on your website on your actual website. There is no need to preview your pages because everything is happening right in front of your eyes.’

Everything is totally customisable on the actual page. Shapes and sizes of your building blocks, fonts, images, etc. It feels as if you are painting directly on the canvas, rather then trying to control everything from behind the painting. If you want to add a block of text, an image, a video, a gallery, etc, just add it on the front end and that’s it.

Premade Templates

Divi comes with a huge number of beautiful premade layouts, so if you want something ready-made (but still fully customisable), you can choose from 1183 (!) really cool templates. 

When you want to build a page, you have three options:

1) Build from scratch

2) Choose an existing layout

3) Clone an existing page.

Three ways to create a page

Sections, Rows, and Modules

If you want to build from scratch like I do, Divi has a range of building blocks called sections, rows, and modules. With these you can build anything from a minimalist room to a baroque cathedral.

You have complete freedom to chose the number, size, and placement of these elements.

Here is an example of the three basic building blocks:

Section, Row and Module

Here are the three building blocks in ‘real life’:

Section, Row and Module
Section, Row and Module

The Three-step Procedure of Building a Basic Structure

1) First, you’ll create a section (think of a section like a big, outer container or a box, inside which everything else fits.

2) Then you’ll create a row (an ‘inner container’ – the box with a green border) inside the section.

In the two images above I’ve only used a single row, but, as you can see from the following screenshot, you can select a row with as many segments/columns as you like, and these can be of different widths. (There are even more combinations possible than in this screenshot).

Rows and their variations

3) Finally, you insert a module. A module can be: A text, an image, a gallery, a map, a shopping cart, etc. Basically, all the various content inside your page.

This is what inserting a module looks like:

Inserting a module

In the following example I’m using a row with four segments/columns, and into each column I have inserted a module called ‘blurb’.

A blurb module is a combination of an image and text, as you’ll see in the second example below:

A row with four segments (or columns)
Section, Row and Module ('Blurb')

Try and Build a Page Right Now!

Would you like a little ‘live builder’ experience? Try the ‘Drag and Drop’ Page Builder for free here. (Click on Divi / Live Builder Demo.) You can take a short tour first or start building straight away. Enjoy!

Divi Builder Live Demo - From the menu, go to: Divi / Live Builder Demo

An Overview of Divi Modules

Here is Divi’s generous list of the modules:

Divi Modules
Divi Modules

Examples of Modules

Here are several examples of different modules. 

The Gallery Module

You can add captions and descriptions to your thumbnails, or hide them as I’ve done here. Click on an image to enlarge it.

You can experiment with customising your gallery’s background, adding a border to the thumbnails, make the border’ corners rounder, etc.

The Slider Module

Another great, fully customisable module to showcase your / your client’s products or art. This is a ‘real life’ slider I’ve created for an online store ‘Buddha Groove’.

The Blog Module

This is one of my favourite features of the Divi theme. You can use Divi’s blog module to customise the appearance of your blog page and organise your posts and categories. You can insert a blog module on any page you like (even on multiple pages) and control how your blog excerpts will display. 

Here’s an example of how I’ve used the blog module:

Instead of the traditional blog-page layout, (which Divi offers as well) I’ve chosen a grid layout, which gives my blog-page more of a magazine look.

The Blog Module: Grid layout

You can also go really minimal, hiding the featured images:

Hiding featured images in the blog module

Here’s the more classic look of a Divi blog module from my coach Alex Sol’s ‘Extra Paycheck’ blog. (Check out his podcast devoted to online entrepreneurship. I’m grateful to this guy for so many things, his great articles and podcast being just the tip of the iceberg.)

Extra PayCheck blog - Alex Sol

The Blurb Module

This is one of my favourite modules. Below is an example of a fully functioning Blurb module (i.e. two Rows with four Blurb modules in each), borrowed from my article about the online store ‘Buddha Groove’. First I created a Row with four sections, and then I inserted the modules. After that, I duplicated the first Row. You can have a lot of fun designing the Blurbs; you can create the ‘on-mouse hover’ effect by selecting a desired degree of transparency; you can also create rounded corners, or choose from various animation effects.

The Email Optin Module

The Email Optin – an essential module for anyone in online business. Fully customisable as well.

Email Optin module
Email Optin module

The Social Media Follow Module

The icons inserted through the Social media Follow module will lead your website visitors to your social media platforms. The icons are also customisable – you can keep them as they are or make them transparent to fit your page’s design.

Here’s the standard look of the icons:

And here are a few examples of my playing with the design:

Social Media Follow module
Social Media Follow module

The Contact Form Module

Contact forms are also highly customisable. In the second example, I have used partial transparency in the form’s fields.

Contact Form module

The WooCommerce modules

Another bonus of the 2019 update is Divi’s WooCommerce Builder, which includes 16 Divi’s WooCommerce modules. These allow you to create custom product templates, and amazing product pages. You’ll be able to build your own product listings anywhere on your website. 

Divi WooCommerceBuilder
Divi WooCommerce module example
Divi WooCommerce module example

You can activate all the Divi WooCommerce modules by first installing the common Woocommerce plugin, and then activating Divi’s Woocommerce Builder. I am not using this feature yet, but you can view live demos and tutorials on Divi’s WooCommerce modules on Elegant Themes website under Divi WooCommerce Modules.

Great Plugins – Free with The Divi Theme

The fun certainly doesn’t stop at all the modules or the WooCommerce Builder. When you purchase Divi, you’ll also get a whole package of bonuses including some really cool plug-ins mentioned in this list:

The Plugins that come with Divi
Monarch - Social Sharing plugin

Monarch – Your Social Sharing Plugin

The first one well-worth mentioning is Monarch, a social-sharing plug-in, rated as one of the top social media plug-ins on Google.

For instance, Bloggingwizard.com rates Monarch as the second best in his 2020 review of 11 Best Social Sharing Plugins For WordPress, right after the extremely popular plugin Social Snap.

Shoutmeloud.com places Monarch in the fourth place, while, interestingly, he also rates Social Snap as first. By any means give Social Snap a try, as it does look and sound great, but remember that if you decide to invest in the Divi theme, you will get Monarch for free.

Manage the location of your social sharing icons

You can manage the placement of your social sharing icons in several ways, as seen from Monarch’s interface.

You can place them vertically on the side of your page, or  ‘inline’ your page or post. (That means above, anywhere within, or below your post). They can also ‘pop up’ or ‘fly in’.

 

Monarch plugin - settings

As you can see in the ‘Manage locations’ screenshot, I’ve ticked ‘Sidebar’ and ‘Fly in’. The sidebar icons are fixed, and the ‘Fly in’ will appear once you scroll all the way down the page.

You can see how it works on this very page.

Examples of Social Share Icons’ Placements

Here’s a common placement of the social share icons in the sidebar:

Monarch's social share icons in the sidebar

In the next example, the icons are ‘inline’, straight after the end of a blog post, in the middle of the page. You can arrange the icons both vertically or horizontally.

Monarch's social share icons inline
Monarch's social share icons inline - clcik to view the actual page

And here is the ‘Fly in’. If you want to see it flying in real time, just scroll all the way down this page…and click on it. 🙂

Monarch's Fly-in social share icon

You can also choose on which pages or posts you don’t want the icons to appear.

Monarch provides you with the social follow icons as well, so you can experiment with these, as well as the icons from the ‘Social Follow’ module.

Bloom - Email Opt-in and Lead Generation plugin

Bloom – an Email Opt-in Plugin

Another plug-in that comes free with Divi is Bloom, an Email Opt-in plug-in, which integrates with subscription services such as MailChimp, Aweber and others.

Bloom helps you grow your email list. When you insert a Bloom email opt-in form to your page, it will connect to your email marketing or email newsletter software. When someone signs up using the Bloom opt-in form, they get added to your email list.

You can choose from many customizable templates and even upload your own image. You can also decide where on the page you want the form to appear, and whether you prefer it static, or as a fly-in or a pop-up form.

Below are two examples of a simple subscription form. You can click on the second one to view it on a real page, where I’ve placed it under the post.

Bloom email optin - subscription form
Bloom email optin - subscription form

You can find out more on Bloom’s general overview page, or check out plenty of Bloom demos and tutorials which you can access here.

Extra - Magazine Theme and Visual Page Builder

Extra – the Magazine WordPress Theme

I haven’t tried it yet because I’ve been having so much fun with creating my own designs with Divi, but you can learn more about Extra from the general overview on Elegant Themes website, as well as from their tutorials and articles.

Extra by Elegant Themes
Extra by Elegant Themes - Features

Divi Demos and Tutorials

Back to the Divi Theme: Do check out the great library full of articles, tutorials and demos.

Here are all the links:

Live Divi Builder demo – try building a page with Divi! 

Divi Overview

Divi tutorials and articles

Excellent Customer Support

The customer support team from Divi / Elegant Themes are always super helpful. They’ll be there for you 24/7, answering any of your questions.

Plus, apart from the direct support team, there are some great Divi-devoted forums, groups, and individuals. I’ve learned a lot from a cool guy called Josh Hall, a real pro in Divi. He’s got many of his own tutorials on Youtube, his website, and his own Facebook group called ‘Divi Web Designers‘. I highly recommend joining the group.

'Divi Web Designers' Facebook Group - Josh Hall

You can also join Divi’s official Facebook group called ‘Divi Theme Users‘ where you can get any of your questions answered by many experienced Divi enthusiasts.

Join Divi / Elegant Themes

Pricing

If you decide to invest into Divi, you can choose from two options:

A yearly subscription ($89 a year) or Lifetime access for $249 one-off payment. I got Lifetime access from the very start as it was clear to me that I would be using Divi long-term. Remember, when you buy Divi, you are not getting just one separate theme, but a complete package of themes, plugins, and 24/7 support. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that you’re getting the ultimate web design toolkit.

I am currently offering a 10% discount on the complete Divi package. You can get to this limited-time offer via this link, or by clicking on the countdown timer below.

Remember that signing up with Divi / Elegant Themes is risk-free. You’ll get a 30-day money-back guarantee, and if for any reason you feel Divi (and all that comes with it) is not for you, you’ll get a full refund.

10% Off The Complete DIVI Theme - Get It While It Lasts!

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Conclusion

I hope you have enjoyed this Divi walkthrough and that it has helped you see the incredible potential of this theme. As you’ve probably guessed, I swear by this theme and would recommend it to everyone. But you should always make your own decision. I’d highly recommend comparing this theme against other WordPress themes. There are plenty of free WordPress themes, some of them with free hosting.

One such platform is Siterubix, where you can create your website for free and experiment with many WordPress-based themes. This is how I started – I was running several websites on Siterubix’s free domain for months.

So, perhaps once you’ve tried out several themes and platforms, (like I did) and still don’t feel completely satisfied, you can opt for the Divi Theme – don’t forget you can give it a try for one whole month. (A word of warning: You may not want to come back to any other theme after experiencing what Divi can do for you!)

Don’t forget to test the Divi Builder for free (via Divi / Live Builder Demo), and have a look at some of the articles and tutorials.

Let’s Talk About Divi

If you would like to ask any questions or share your opinion about Divi or any of the related plugins, do leave a comment below, and I’ll do my best to reply as soon as possible.

For those of you who have tried Divi or are actively using it, I’d be very interested to hear about your experience as well.

BY LUCIE DUN

This site has been built with DIVI, by Elegant Themes.

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