Speaker 1: There's a magic number that so many people literally go
Speaker 1: out of their way to reach every single day. Don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about, You will in a moment.
Speaker 2: I want to know if it's important to get ten
Speaker 2: thousand steps a day or if it's just a bit
Speaker 2: of a useless goal.
Speaker 3: The fitness apps make.
Speaker 1: Us too, Yes, the ten thousand step rule. Are you
Speaker 1: one of these people who tries to reach this number
Speaker 1: every single day? We're going to dig deep into where
Speaker 1: this rule around ten thousand steps started and answer this
Speaker 1: question later on. This is the Wood Life. I'm Sam Wood.
Speaker 1: We're making health and fitness simple by answering your questions
Speaker 1: to help you become healthier, fitter, and happier. First up, though,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about something that is relatively new
Speaker 1: in my wellness routine, and that is mindfulness. In fact,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk to the person who first got
Speaker 1: me into mindfulness, and I'm so grateful she did. Let's
Speaker 1: get into it today. We are going to get into
Speaker 1: mindfulness and I'm happy to admit that mindfulness is a
Speaker 1: relatively new part of my wellness routine. It's something that
Speaker 1: I am working on and will continue to work on,
Speaker 1: and rather than me tell you about it because it's
Speaker 1: not my area of expertise necessarily. It's something that I'm
Speaker 1: learning about as I go. I've brought in someone who
Speaker 1: I have an amazing amount of admiration for. This is
Speaker 1: Jane Martino, who is the founder of Smiling Mind. Smiling
Speaker 1: Mind is an incredible meditation wellness app. It is the
Speaker 1: biggest wellness app in Australia. It has over six hundred
Speaker 1: thousand monthly users and it's a complete not for profit
Speaker 1: business that Jane founded nearly ten years ago. So welcome
Speaker 1: Jan to the WODLFE.
Speaker 3: Thanks Sam, great to be here.
Speaker 1: What is mindfulness because there's probably some of our listeners saying,
Speaker 1: are you just talking about meditation or does mindfulness go
Speaker 1: beyond that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I think you're right. It's a really important question.
Speaker 4: Mindfulness is really just acknowledging and being in the present moment,
Speaker 4: so literally being really mindful of what we are doing.
Speaker 4: So therefore that definition means that meditation is a mindful activity,
Speaker 4: but it's not mindfulness as a definition. So meditation is
Speaker 4: one very very good practice that we can do to
Speaker 4: be mindful, but there's lots of other things that we
Speaker 4: can do. In our every day to be mindful. We
Speaker 4: can as I'm sitting here, I can really listen to
Speaker 4: what you're saying when you ask me a question, and
Speaker 4: basically use all of the senses, all of my senses
Speaker 4: to really make sure that I'm paying attention in.
Speaker 3: The present moment.
Speaker 4: So that's also why the practice of mindfulness and meditation helps,
Speaker 4: almost like lifting weights build a muscle, that helps us
Speaker 4: build a muscle in our mind and in our brain
Speaker 4: to pay attention to the present moment. But actually it's
Speaker 4: a form of attention training. So what it does is
Speaker 4: it helps us train our brain to bring our attention back.
Speaker 4: So our minds wander because our minds think that's what
Speaker 4: they're born to do. We're born to think. But to
Speaker 4: be mindful and truly in the present moment, even if
Speaker 4: our minds are wandering or we're distracted, we need to
Speaker 4: bring it back to the present moment. And that's the
Speaker 4: benefit and the power of meditation.
Speaker 1: I actually love that you've used the analogy that it's
Speaker 1: similar to lifting weights or becoming a runner or whatever
Speaker 1: it might be, because I have so many people say
Speaker 1: to me, Sam, you tell me running is good for me,
Speaker 1: But I just can't run around the block. And if
Speaker 1: I said to them, we too bad, you just need
Speaker 1: to run five kilometers tomorrow and deal with it, they'd
Speaker 1: never do it. It would be a terrible, unenjoyable experience
Speaker 1: and they'd give up. And it's the same with mindfulness.
Speaker 1: You have to start small, you have to practice, and
Speaker 1: the good news is with practice you get better at it,
Speaker 1: like the physical stuff. And I think that's where I
Speaker 1: came unstuck. I didn't have the capability, particularly as I
Speaker 1: was younger, to concentrate for long enough without all these
Speaker 1: other ideas coming into my head to be present for
Speaker 1: long enough to think that it was actually doing anything.
Speaker 1: And I've got a bit frustrated by it, and it
Speaker 1: seemed to have it more of a negative impact on me,
Speaker 1: and I just sort of gave up. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: until you know, two or three years ago where I
Speaker 1: really sort of stuck at it for more than three days.
Speaker 1: I didn't really give it a good crack the first
Speaker 1: time round, if I'm being honest, but you know, stuck
Speaker 1: at it for a few weeks that I did start
Speaker 1: to feel the benefits. And it's like you say, you know,
Speaker 1: once you feel the power of that tool, and you
Speaker 1: say to yourself, damn it, I wish I'd done this earlier.
Speaker 1: Imagine what I could have achieved and conquered if I
Speaker 1: had or would have been a part of my usual routine.
Speaker 1: I think, I think that you know, that's all the
Speaker 1: more reason to do it. And then you look at
Speaker 1: the world that we live in, this crazy world, and
Speaker 1: you know, whether it's our world or our teenagers world,
Speaker 1: or our partner's world, or whatever it is, it's only
Speaker 1: getting crazier. It's only getting busier, more frantic, more information,
Speaker 1: more stress, more anxiety. It's not going anywhere. And I think,
Speaker 1: if you know, if it was hard to be present
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, it's fifty times harder now. So I
Speaker 1: hear exactly what you're saying, and I think, if there
Speaker 1: are tools out there to help us be present in
Speaker 1: this crazy world, we should be taking advantage of those.
Speaker 1: So I can I can understand why Smiling Mind is
Speaker 1: as popular as it is and growing rapidly in popularity.
Speaker 1: What did COVID do to that rise in awareness and
Speaker 1: where do you see it going?
Speaker 4: Well, COVID definitely had a huge impact. So we saw
Speaker 4: literally within twenty four hours of the first lockdown, we
Speaker 4: saw probably a five hundred percent increase in demand and
Speaker 4: usage at that day. Yes, we would always have spikes,
Speaker 4: huge spikes when lockdowns were.
Speaker 1: Announced, So that's an anxiety thing.
Speaker 4: Correct, And I think the first lockdown, if we're all honest,
Speaker 4: was where we.
Speaker 1: Were all the fear of the unknown.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 4: We didn't know what was happening, we didn't know how
Speaker 4: long it was going to go for We're feeling, you know,
Speaker 4: pretty frightened by it all and unsure. So that made
Speaker 4: complete sense. So we saw that sort of move and
Speaker 4: change throughout the last few years, but overall and on average,
Speaker 4: probably a two hundred and fifty percent annualized increase in demand.
Speaker 1: We've got a couple of questions from our Woodlife listeners
Speaker 1: that I think are really indicative Jane of perhaps people's
Speaker 1: confusion or frustration around mindfulness. So we've got a question
Speaker 1: from Page and here's what she wants to know. I'd
Speaker 1: like to know whether meditation is something that I should
Speaker 1: be trying and has actual benefits or is it one
Speaker 1: of those fads that will be gone in the next
Speaker 1: few years. So you've probably heard that before or words
Speaker 1: to that effect. What are your thoughts.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so meditation is absolutely something you should try and
Speaker 4: sam for the reasons you mentioned before.
Speaker 3: It's definitely not a fad.
Speaker 4: It's been around for thousands of years in various forms
Speaker 4: of practice. Actually, everything from prayer and contemplation to actual
Speaker 4: formal mindfulness practices and smiling mind We designed to be
Speaker 4: really agnostic and to actually just use the breath and
Speaker 4: the body, simple practices to introduce people to meditation and
Speaker 4: take away that sort of stigma and make it really
Speaker 4: much easier.
Speaker 1: Im bite sized, which I love because I think people
Speaker 1: think you have to sit on a cliff, you know,
Speaker 1: for thirty five minutes, and it's no, that's not what
Speaker 1: it has to be exactly. So two minutes in your
Speaker 1: car when you're pull into your driveway before you go
Speaker 1: in and your crazy families everywhere, you.
Speaker 3: Know, exactly.
Speaker 4: So there's also the length of practice that you can
Speaker 4: start with and work up. But also one of the
Speaker 4: misconceptions is that your mind needs to be still, and
Speaker 4: the whole purpose of mindfulness really is acceptance and just
Speaker 4: being okay with anything that is happening and letting go
Speaker 4: of the need to strive, you know where so and
Speaker 4: particularly when things are busy, and we're also geared up
Speaker 4: to be fairly competitive. We tend to strive for this
Speaker 4: nirvana experience in meditation. But what meditation is a form
Speaker 4: of attention training that's training our mind to be able
Speaker 4: to be in the present moment, which is better for
Speaker 4: our body. So to answer the question, yes, you should
Speaker 4: absolutely give it a go. You can start small, but
Speaker 4: don't put an expectation on yourself that you won't have thoughts.
Speaker 4: Thoughts are okay, they come and go, and the training
Speaker 4: will help you be aware of those thoughts and be
Speaker 4: able to move back to the practice. And in conjunction
Speaker 4: with that, the by products of the practice that you do,
Speaker 4: even if you have a really noisy meditation, which by
Speaker 4: the way, been doing it for more than a decade
Speaker 4: and still do have noisy meditations most days, practice helps
Speaker 4: your brain recognize when it's noisy and move it back
Speaker 4: to the present moment. It doesn't take it away, so
Speaker 4: I think that's really important.
Speaker 3: But also the by.
Speaker 4: Products are not just you know, stress relief and feeling
Speaker 4: better in your body, which you definitely do, but also
Speaker 4: things like you're able to regulate your emotions more so,
Speaker 4: putting space in between feeling an emotion and reacting to
Speaker 4: that emotion, which helps you in all aspects of your life.
Speaker 4: You're able to focus more and be more productive at work,
Speaker 4: so you actually can have a much more efficient day
Speaker 4: and feel inflow and really feel effective. It also helps
Speaker 4: build empathy, which is great for you know, the connections
Speaker 4: you have with other people, and particularly in a work
Speaker 4: space or at home from a leadership perspective, or connecting
Speaker 4: with your partner or your young people around you. So
Speaker 4: you know, that's why you should give it a go
Speaker 4: as well, because it's not just a stress relief.
Speaker 1: I was sold, but now I'm really sold. Now I've
Speaker 1: got a little question from Missy. We'll go to Missy's question.
Speaker 5: I've done some meditation in the past. It just seems
Speaker 5: a little bit overwhelming for me. So how can I
Speaker 5: just include a little bit of mindfulness in every day?
Speaker 1: So this is interesting because this was me and as
Speaker 1: you answered Page's question, you spoke about it's okay to
Speaker 1: not be still, that was me having the realization that
Speaker 1: that's why I never made it.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 4: I think if you step back, that's just such a
Speaker 4: common way, and I do this all the time. It's
Speaker 4: about expectation. When you put this expectation on yourself or
Speaker 4: activities you're doing, or things that you're engaging in, you
Speaker 4: set yourself up exactly for something that you just don't
Speaker 4: need to do. And so as much as possible, I
Speaker 4: always say, like, start small and go slowly, you know,
Speaker 4: and give yourself a break. And by the way, if
Speaker 4: you like people say to me all the time, oh,
Speaker 4: you must meditate every day, it's like hell no. Like
Speaker 4: just like with exercise, some days I hit the snooze
Speaker 4: button and I just don't get there. But guess what,
Speaker 4: the next day, I get back on and I'm there.
Speaker 4: Just like cut yourself some slack. So that's the first thing.
Speaker 4: The second thing is.
Speaker 3: There's actually really.
Speaker 4: Simple things you can do to bring mindfulness into you
Speaker 4: every day. So yes, a two minute practice or three
Speaker 4: minute bite size practice, which are definitely on our platform,
Speaker 4: good place to start. It's over before you know it,
Speaker 4: and you wish that it had gone longer, and so
Speaker 4: then you can move up in your time frames. But
Speaker 4: also brushing your teeth, having a shower, like feel the
Speaker 4: bristles on your gums, feel the water wash over you,
Speaker 4: what kind of temperature is it? So just find little things.
Speaker 4: If you're making a cake, like look at all the
Speaker 4: ingredients mixing together. Taste the mixture. How does it actually taste?
Speaker 4: Is it smooth when you taste it? You know, have
Speaker 4: that sense of curiosity to things and start to notice more,
Speaker 4: and that is being mindful.
Speaker 1: I'm sure all of our listeners who were a little
Speaker 1: bit dubious or skeptical or scared about mindfulness and are
Speaker 1: more educated and more likely to give it a try,
Speaker 1: which is what it's all about, taking that first step
Speaker 1: into the unknown and seeing how it can change your life.
Speaker 1: I encourage all of them to do it. And thank
Speaker 1: you so so much for your time today. It's been wonderful.
Speaker 3: Thanks Sam, been great to be here.
Speaker 1: Make sure you stick around to the end of the
Speaker 1: episode because we have a bite sized mindfulness exercise just
Speaker 1: for you. Next we're uncovering where the magic number of
Speaker 1: ten thousand steps really comes from. So there was a
Speaker 1: comment made about a celebrity Australia celebrity recently and it
Speaker 1: spread like wildfire, as these things tend to do in
Speaker 1: the media, of articles getting published claiming that the miracle
Speaker 1: drug for weight loss has been found and drum roll,
Speaker 1: the miracle weight loss. A drug was this new thing
Speaker 1: called walking, and we all know walking's not new. And
Speaker 1: the celebrity I'm talking about was none other than Rebel Wilson,
Speaker 1: who's an absolute legend, a big fan, and she had
Speaker 1: lost thirty kilos or has lost thirty kilos. Now I
Speaker 1: know for a fact that Rebel actually started training properly
Speaker 1: in the gym, resistance training with a good maide of mine,
Speaker 1: johnno up there in Sydney, and changed her nutrition as well.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure the walking was the icing on the
Speaker 1: cake rather than being the cake. But it's interesting how
Speaker 1: everyone thinks there has to be one thing, there has
Speaker 1: to be one magic thing that is the thing that
Speaker 1: you have to do in the moment. So the interesting
Speaker 1: thing here is, you know, you can't just read the
Speaker 1: headlines and think that you're getting the full picture, because
Speaker 1: if you just read those headlines, you would be thinking
Speaker 1: that all Rebel did was walk, and by the sense
Speaker 1: of things, she was walking halfway across Australia and back
Speaker 1: every single morning to get her in morning coffee. So
Speaker 1: when you read on a bit further, you see that
Speaker 1: Rebel started doing resistance training, changed in nutrition and she
Speaker 1: really enjoyed walking complimenting those things, and in fact, it
Speaker 1: was the walking that she enjoyed the most from an
Speaker 1: exercise perspective. And I love that because for me, walking
Speaker 1: with my dog Hendrix every single morning, or walking with
Speaker 1: my babies when they were babies, you know, either in
Speaker 1: the little baby carrier in the pram was a meditation
Speaker 1: for me. It was the most beautiful way to start
Speaker 1: every single morning, rain, hail, shine, no matter how hot
Speaker 1: or cold it was, and it was a great way
Speaker 1: to clear my head, great way to get my thoughts
Speaker 1: together for the day that was about to come. And
Speaker 1: you do get your steps up. And we don't move
Speaker 1: very much in today's world, you know, we sit down
Speaker 1: for hours and hours and hours in the car, in
Speaker 1: the office, working from home, whatever it might be. And
Speaker 1: it's good for us to get up and move out body.
Speaker 1: Now that's where this whole ten thousand steps thing has
Speaker 1: come from, giving ourselves a target to hit day in,
Speaker 1: day out. So interestingly, and this is where I was
Speaker 1: going to head anyway, a lease from the Woodlife community
Speaker 1: has a question about walking.
Speaker 2: I want to know if it's important to get ten
Speaker 2: thousand steps a day or if it's just a bit
Speaker 2: of a useless goal the fitness apps makers do.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it's a useless goal. We tend to
Speaker 1: think of it as a new number, or a new phenomenon,
Speaker 1: or a new goal. It's been around since the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: It was originally created by a Japanese pedometer company where
Speaker 1: they did some research and discovered that right back then
Speaker 1: and it's probably worse now, but right back then in
Speaker 1: the sixties, the average sort of steps being achieved by
Speaker 1: most people per day was around the four thousand mark.
Speaker 1: So they came up with this magic number of ten
Speaker 1: thousand as this goal for us all to strive from. Now,
Speaker 1: I did a bit of digging, a bit of research
Speaker 1: to find out why ten thousand, what's the why is
Speaker 1: it such a magic number? And it really wasn't anything
Speaker 1: other than we chose ten thousand, and we sort of
Speaker 1: stuck to it, and here we are sixty years later,
Speaker 1: still going for ten thousand. But I like it. I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of people go, oh, that sounds ridiculous,
Speaker 1: But if you're getting your ten thousand steps or close
Speaker 1: to every single day, on top of some form of
Speaker 1: resistance training and eating well, you can have a pretty
Speaker 1: good balance, and you're going to be burning some good calories,
Speaker 1: you're going to be getting outside, getting some fresh air,
Speaker 1: getting some vitamin D. And I'm all four people trying
Speaker 1: to build their way up to ten thousand steps. It
Speaker 1: is a really good number to try and aim for.
Speaker 1: And the apps actually can be a really good tool
Speaker 1: to see how close you're getting, both on a day in,
Speaker 1: day out basis and a week in, week out basis,
Speaker 1: because you can not only see your daily steps, so
Speaker 1: you can see the average of your steps, So anyone
Speaker 1: can find out how many steps that they're doing at
Speaker 1: any time. It's just there's a little health part of
Speaker 1: your iPhone. You just tap on the little heart and
Speaker 1: it opens up and it not only tells you how
Speaker 1: many steps you've done today, but how many averages this
Speaker 1: month or even throughout the whole year. So why don't
Speaker 1: I put myself on the spot. Now, I do walk Hendrix,
Speaker 1: my labrador a lot, so I should have a relatively
Speaker 1: good number here. But let's look it up something a
Speaker 1: little health heart part. Now I've done fifteen hundred a day.
Speaker 1: I haven't done much today, but my average steps is
Speaker 1: nine two hundred a day, and in twenty twenty. That's
Speaker 1: for the year so far, and in twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: I averaged over ten thousand a day. So check that
Speaker 1: out if you're wondering where you're at from a step perspective,
Speaker 1: because it's often a really good little wake up call,
Speaker 1: or it can be a really good little pat on
Speaker 1: the back because you're getting close to that number. As
Speaker 1: it might be, But like anything, you build up slowly.
Speaker 1: You might be at four thousand steps and your goal
Speaker 1: for this month is to get to five thousand steps
Speaker 1: to six thousand steps, and you build it up gradually
Speaker 1: until before you know it, it's become a really, really
Speaker 1: nice addition to your workout routine. And with walking, I
Speaker 1: would say use it as complementary, use it as a
Speaker 1: great way to get some fresh air and some vitamin D,
Speaker 1: but don't have it as your only exercise component because
Speaker 1: you do want to get some form of resistance training
Speaker 1: in there. So if you are doing two or three
Speaker 1: resistance workouts a week and lots of walking, then you're
Speaker 1: going to have a pretty good balance. I'd love to
Speaker 1: know how many steps our listeners are doing and if
Speaker 1: they are achieving increasing those daily steps, so make sure
Speaker 1: you send that in. There's always a link in the
Speaker 1: show notes, and I'd love to hear from you and
Speaker 1: make sure you stick around because we've got a small
Speaker 1: meditation from smiling mind.
Speaker 6: Welcome to this short practice designed to help you pause,
Speaker 6: check in with yourself, and then proceed mindfully. We are
Speaker 6: going to work through the stop acronym together. The S
Speaker 6: is for stop, literally putting things down for a moment
Speaker 6: and pausing. If you haven't already, I invite you to
Speaker 6: do that now. T take a few long, slow breaths
Speaker 6: gently in through your nose, expanding your chest and belly,
Speaker 6: and then exhale slowly. Extending the outbreaths slightly can help
Speaker 6: calm the nervous system. Now, oh, try observing what thoughts, emotions,
Speaker 6: and physical sensations are showing up for you in this moment.
Speaker 6: Try to notice what's showing up with openness and curiosity
Speaker 6: rather than judgment. There's no need to try to change anything,
Speaker 6: simply noticing and trying to make room for whatever is arising,
Speaker 6: and finally, p proceed with something that will support you.
Speaker 6: Ask yourself, what do I need at this moment? A break,
Speaker 6: a chat.
Speaker 1: To move.
Speaker 6: What would be a helpful response in this situation and
Speaker 6: as we come to the end of this practice, can
Speaker 6: missing to going gently and taking it one step at
Speaker 6: a time.