Speaker 1: Does the very thought of meditating make your brain hurt? Well,
Speaker 1: You're not alone. Even though meditation is scientifically proven to
Speaker 1: boost emotional wellbeing, slash stress, improve sleep, and enhance memory,
Speaker 1: so many of us still struggle to actually do it.
Speaker 1: Myself included. I've said it before on this podcast Meditation,
Speaker 1: and I just don't seem to click no matter how
Speaker 1: badly I want to do it. That's why I was
Speaker 1: genuinely excited to sit down with Ariel Gartens, neuroscientist, psychotherapist, entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: and absolute trailblazer in the world of brain tech. Ariel
Speaker 1: is the brilliant mind behind Muse, the EEG powered headband
Speaker 1: that helps even the most distracted minds learn to meditate
Speaker 1: and sleep better. Her work has been featured in Forbes, CNN,
Speaker 1: and The Wall Street Journal, and if anyone can make
Speaker 1: meditation work for the rest of us, it's her. In
Speaker 1: this episode, we explore what to do when you can't
Speaker 1: sit still for even one meditation session, and how meditation
Speaker 1: can finally help you beat procrastination. Plus, Ariel shares her
Speaker 1: simple strategy for balancing big goals, family time, and work
Speaker 1: without burning out. Welcome to How I Work a show
Speaker 1: about habits, rituals, and strategies for optimizing your day. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, doctor Amantha Imber. You may or may not
Speaker 1: have heard of news, but if you haven't, I wanted
Speaker 1: to start with Ariel explaining exactly what it is.
Speaker 2: So MEWS is a brain sensing headbound that helps you
Speaker 2: improve your brain health. It comes with a sweet of
Speaker 2: experiences that you use to improve your brain health, like meditation,
Speaker 2: sleep and neurofeedback training and also tracking the oxygenation to
Speaker 2: your profrontal cortex.
Speaker 1: Something I was so excited to ask you is to
Speaker 1: understand what is your specific routine using MUSE And I
Speaker 1: want to get specific on it. So tell me what
Speaker 1: does a typical day look like?
Speaker 2: Oh that's a fun question, Okay. So mus has evolved
Speaker 2: a lot over the years. We first came out in
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen, and then at that point it was a
Speaker 2: meditation tool that could track your brain during meditation and
Speaker 2: give you real time feedback to help you meditate. So
Speaker 2: that's actually how I learned to meditate in the first place.
Speaker 2: I was somebody who tried meditation, knew it was good
Speaker 2: for me, sucked at doing it because my brain bounced
Speaker 2: all over the place. And it was through the process
Speaker 2: of building news and using it that I finally was
Speaker 2: able to establish my practice. So that's kind of like
Speaker 2: stuck with me. And as mus has evolved into multiple
Speaker 2: forms of different meditators, so there's a heart, brain, breath, body,
Speaker 2: I've continued to explore them. For me. My current meditation
Speaker 2: practice is waking up in the morning and starting with
Speaker 2: a guided meditation. We have hundreds of guided meditations and
Speaker 2: I do that super early before the kids come in
Speaker 2: and wake up and jump on my head and all
Speaker 2: those things, all those delightful things which I love. And
Speaker 2: then we have this new feature with the f Year's device,
Speaker 2: which is tracking the prefrontal blood flow and it allows
Speaker 2: you to actually train your prefrontal cortex to use more
Speaker 2: oxygen and engage more strongly. So I've been doing our
Speaker 2: Athena session. So Athena is our latest device. We have
Speaker 2: this awesome experience with an owl where you focus on
Speaker 2: it and up regulate the activity of reprefrontal cortex and
Speaker 2: it makes the owl fly faster. So that's what I've
Speaker 2: been doing in the afternoons. And then I'm a super
Speaker 2: good sleeper, so I don't tend to use our go
Speaker 2: to sleep features because I just close my eyes and
Speaker 2: I fall asleep. But in the evening I'll often do
Speaker 2: a meditation, sometimes even with my kids, and it is
Speaker 2: a beautifully lovely day to wind down, beautifully lovely way
Speaker 2: to wind down the day.
Speaker 1: So how long are you meditating for in each of
Speaker 1: these sections of your day? If you like?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it varies. In the morning, it really depends
Speaker 2: on how much time I have before the kids wake up,
Speaker 2: So like at seven am, I know the day is
Speaker 2: no longer my own, So it might be five minutes,
Speaker 2: it might be twelve minutes, it might be seventeen minutes.
Speaker 2: That's usually the longest because they're going to jump on
Speaker 2: my head pretty soon. In the afternoon, the athena sessions
Speaker 2: are actually really short. At the provincial cortex ne our feedback,
Speaker 2: it's just five minutes. And then in the evening, if
Speaker 2: I'm doing something with the kids, it'll be five minutes
Speaker 2: because that's all they can handle. And if it's me
Speaker 2: on my own, I might even like dig into a
Speaker 2: good fifteen twenty thirty minute meditation session where I can
Speaker 2: go nice and deep.
Speaker 1: Someone me. I have always struggled to have any kind
Speaker 1: of a meditation habit, Like, where do you stop? Because
Speaker 1: to me, I'm like, man, that's three sessions in a day.
Speaker 1: I can't even manage one. So where would someone like
Speaker 1: me start?
Speaker 2: Okay, so let me start by saying, you don't have
Speaker 2: to do more than one meditation in a day. You know,
Speaker 2: this is what I do for my business and for
Speaker 2: my life, and so I'm like super invested in it.
Speaker 2: Any average person, if you can get in one meditation
Speaker 2: session in the day, you are flying, and you want
Speaker 2: to try to be consistent with it. So you can
Speaker 2: start with as little as three or four minutes if
Speaker 2: you want to just get started. Choose any time in
Speaker 2: the day that works for you. It really doesn't matter when.
Speaker 2: Just try to be consistent with it so that you
Speaker 2: can build a routine. So that's why doing it, for example,
Speaker 2: every morning or right before you brush your teeth, right
Speaker 2: after you brush your teeth, or after your snack break,
Speaker 2: you know, whenever is going to fit for you. So
Speaker 2: the first thing to remember is that meditation is not
Speaker 2: about your mind going blank. You're gonna have lots of
Speaker 2: thoughts that come up, and that is a Okay, that's
Speaker 2: how meditation works. That's how our brains work. So in
Speaker 2: the simplest meditation, you're just going to sit there. You're
Speaker 2: going to have a thought that comes up, or a
Speaker 2: feeling that comes up. You're going to notice it, and
Speaker 2: you're going to be like, yep, that happened, and then
Speaker 2: you're going to bring your attention back to your breath.
Speaker 2: So you sit there and you focus your attention on
Speaker 2: your breath. You might have another thought that's okay, you
Speaker 2: notice it, and you just bring your attention back to
Speaker 2: your breath. And as you sit there with your attention
Speaker 2: back to your breath, you are training your body in
Speaker 2: multiple ways. You're training your mind to be able to
Speaker 2: observe what's going on, and you're training it to redirect
Speaker 2: and put it onto an object of focus that you
Speaker 2: care about. In this case, it's your breath, which is neutral.
Speaker 2: In the case of work, it might be you know,
Speaker 2: the priority that you need to do. It might be
Speaker 2: the task at hand, it might be the meeting that
Speaker 2: you need to remember about that's coming up next. And
Speaker 2: as you do it, you train your brain and body
Speaker 2: to learn to be calm and self regulated in the
Speaker 2: face of these funny urges, these funny motions, these funny
Speaker 2: thoughts that happened to us as humans. You need any
Speaker 2: more inspiration as to why you should meditate? A couple things.
Speaker 2: So one study with doctor Eileen Luters looked at people
Speaker 2: as they age. She looked at their brains of meditators
Speaker 2: and non meditators, and people who meditated had brains that,
Speaker 2: on average look seven point five years younger.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's nuts.
Speaker 2: Yes, totally, And muse is used by the Mayo Clinic
Speaker 2: for multiple different conditions. They published a study in twenty
Speaker 2: seventeen with breast cancer pations awaiting surgery and improved their
Speaker 2: quality of life and decrease their stress during the cancer
Speaker 2: care process. They've published work in multiple different domains, including
Speaker 2: super busy doctors using MEWS in the middle of their
Speaker 2: day at Mayo, improving their cognitive function, improving their sleep,
Speaker 2: and their latest study on long COVID demonstrated that it
Speaker 2: reduced brain fog and improved symptoms in long COVID. So
Speaker 2: meditation's really good for you. And whenever you have that
Speaker 2: like nagging, like I don't know if I should do it,
Speaker 2: just remember all the benefits and that aging brain and
Speaker 2: what it may look like if you meditate.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me more about the athenus session that
Speaker 1: you do in the afternoon and what the purpose of
Speaker 1: that is.
Speaker 2: Okay, So we have a brand new device that's come
Speaker 2: out called Athena and it has both EEG sensors that
Speaker 2: measure the electrical activity of your brain as well as
Speaker 2: sensors frontal near infrared spectroscopy, and that is using optics
Speaker 2: and red and infred light to actually track the amount
Speaker 2: of blood flow to your brain. So in the same
Speaker 2: way that a functional MRI is looking at the amount
Speaker 2: of blood flow in various areas of your brain to
Speaker 2: see how it's consuming oxygen and whether it's active during
Speaker 2: an activity. The f NEARS also, instead of using a
Speaker 2: big machine and complicated electromagnetics, FNEARS is using light to
Speaker 2: look at the blood flow right at the blood brain
Speaker 2: barrier and to see how much oxygen your brain is
Speaker 2: using and how much oxygen your brain is demanding. So
Speaker 2: this is a brand new feature that we have in
Speaker 2: this new device, and it actually allows you to track
Speaker 2: the blood flow to your performtal cortex as well as
Speaker 2: train it to upregulate its function to work. More so,
Speaker 2: in the same way that you go to the gym
Speaker 2: to work your muscle. It's an activity that works your
Speaker 2: prefrontal cortex to enable it to strengthen its capabilities and
Speaker 2: perform more effectively, which is cool because your prefrontal cortex
Speaker 2: is the part of your brain associated with your attention,
Speaker 2: your inhibition, your planning, and so these kinds of neuro
Speaker 2: feedback sessions have been demonstrated to significantly improve your cognitive
Speaker 2: function and inhibition and attention.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's kind of like you're taking your brain
Speaker 1: to the gym in the afternoon, yes, okay, and how
Speaker 1: long does that gym session last?
Speaker 2: For so the athena sessions are short through just five minutes,
Speaker 2: because it's like it's quite a demanding to to do,
Speaker 2: just like you don't want to do squats for you know,
Speaker 2: more than two minutes. You do your little dose and
Speaker 2: it really is effective and it builds over time.
Speaker 1: Like I'm imagining your workday, like you're obviously very busy,
Speaker 1: wearing a number of different hats. What do you do
Speaker 1: throughout the day, Like if you can feel your focus
Speaker 1: whining for example.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the most interesting part of having a good meditation
Speaker 2: practice is not what you're doing during your meditation, but
Speaker 2: what you actually then do throughout the rest of the day.
Speaker 2: So in meditation, what you train your brain to do
Speaker 2: is to notice when your mind is wandering, notice the
Speaker 2: contents of that mental cogitation, and then be able to
Speaker 2: change your attention to where you want it to be,
Speaker 2: or change your attention onto the kinds of thoughts that
Speaker 2: you want to be thinking. And so throughout the day,
Speaker 2: I'll start to notice if I'm feeling stressed, if something
Speaker 2: happens and leaves me with an un pleasant feeling, like
Speaker 2: you get an email that makes you feel uncomfortable or
Speaker 2: makes you upset. In a meditation practice, you learn to
Speaker 2: observe your emotions. And so I've now become pretty a
Speaker 2: depth throughout the day of feeling when something's happening, whether
Speaker 2: that is stress, whether that is unpleasant emotion, and then
Speaker 2: being able to distance myself from it and to breathe
Speaker 2: deeply recognize that you know, that emotion that I felt
Speaker 2: about that email doesn't need to move into my next conversation,
Speaker 2: or if it starts to move into my next conversation
Speaker 2: because I'm feeling kind of, you know, crappy about it,
Speaker 2: I can have the self reflection to like to say so, like, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm coming in. I just had something hard to happen,
Speaker 2: Give me a minute, and then refocus and reregulate. And
Speaker 2: it's been an incredibly powerful tool to use both when
Speaker 2: I'm feeling emotionally justsregulated and when my attention to starts
Speaker 2: to flag. You know, you've been working on something for
Speaker 2: a while and you lose interest in it, or you
Speaker 2: notice that you're just checking emails repeatedly, and so I
Speaker 2: can catch myself stop and say, hey, what are we
Speaker 2: supposed to be doing? Back to task?
Speaker 1: Do you have certain triggers or flags that your brain
Speaker 1: is used to noticing to get you back on track?
Speaker 2: Okay? So one is the uncomfortable emotional feeling that often
Speaker 2: sometimes happens from like a colleagues's interaction, where I might
Speaker 2: feel like I've been left out of something, or you
Speaker 2: get an email about someone being mad because you didn't
Speaker 2: do something properly or something didn't work properly. And then
Speaker 2: what I do is I very quickly like kind of
Speaker 2: compartmentalize it and understand what that was. I'm actually like,
Speaker 2: this is what triggered me, And then I call myself,
Speaker 2: take a deep breath, you know, reregulate and say Okay,
Speaker 2: let's move to the solution. So how do we solve this?
Speaker 2: At take perspective, I, you know, try to understand how
Speaker 2: the other person was feeling or thinking. I then recognize
Speaker 2: that whatever I'm thinking they're thinking probably wasn't correct to
Speaker 2: begin with. But at least, you know, gets me outside
Speaker 2: of myself and gives me an insight into what might
Speaker 2: be going on. And then I try to work towards
Speaker 2: solution and propose solution.
Speaker 1: How about when you're feeling yourself procrastinating or checking email
Speaker 1: more often than you need to, or scrolling on the
Speaker 1: socials again, like, do you have methods or triggers that
Speaker 1: you use when you feel yourself straying from the task
Speaker 1: at hand.
Speaker 2: Email checking is a big one for me. When I
Speaker 2: get off task, I just go back to checking the
Speaker 2: top of my email, and then I'm only dealing with
Speaker 2: the things that are on the top of my email
Speaker 2: and not the actual things I need to work on.
Speaker 2: And so I break the habit by as soon as
Speaker 2: I notice that I'm in like mindless email mode, It's like, stop,
Speaker 2: what are you supposed to be doing? I go to
Speaker 2: the list of items that I have that I actually
Speaker 2: need to accomplish, and then I dig into the items
Speaker 2: that I have to accomplish, or I leave open emails
Speaker 2: that I know I need to respond to, and I
Speaker 2: go back to those emails. So it's the action. What
Speaker 2: I know is my bad habit. Me noticing my bad
Speaker 2: have a state is then the trigger for the change.
Speaker 2: And you need to know in advance what it is
Speaker 2: that you're going to switch to. So I recommend, you know,
Speaker 2: having a list of the important things you need to do,
Speaker 2: or having you a list of your alternates to that
Speaker 2: stupid Scully task, so that you don't even have to
Speaker 2: think about how you get out of it. You're just like, oh,
Speaker 2: doing the stupid task. Come to the alternate.
Speaker 1: I'm curious about your list and what that looks like,
Speaker 1: how you film it, where it sets. Tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it sits in a notes document. I just
Speaker 2: use the notes on my mac os. I've tried various
Speaker 2: task and productivity software notes, but I don't find them
Speaker 2: any more effective than just using the notes. And so
Speaker 2: I have a to do list. It tends to be
Speaker 2: like a running to do list for the week, because
Speaker 2: tasks carry over from day to day, and then when
Speaker 2: I get to the end of the week, or unfortunately,
Speaker 2: when I have an evening work session because I've gone
Speaker 2: over what I need to do in a day and
Speaker 2: I have to catch up at night. Then you know,
Speaker 2: is eating into the meditation time. Meditation does not happen
Speaker 2: at night when I have night work sessions. Nobody's perfect.
Speaker 2: I just have to balance your time. Then I use
Speaker 2: that night session to get the things off my list.
Speaker 1: I'm curious about your language there night work session. It
Speaker 1: sounds like you're clocking on for night shift, Like is
Speaker 1: that something that you're super conscious about, Like if you
Speaker 1: are having to work at night, I don't know, compartmentalizing
Speaker 1: that in some way? What does that look like?
Speaker 2: So when I was younger and didn't have children, the
Speaker 2: night was the most productive time for me, and I
Speaker 2: would just relish working from kind of nine pm till
Speaker 2: midnight or one am, because that's when I was my
Speaker 2: most creative. That was like pure flow. It was amazing.
Speaker 2: And then you have a life in kids and obligations
Speaker 2: and you can no longer work till one in the
Speaker 2: morning without being a miserable person. And I really value
Speaker 2: my sleep, so you know, I go to bed at eleven,
Speaker 2: wake up at seven, go to bed at ten thirty,
Speaker 2: wake up at six thirty. That's the way it is.
Speaker 2: I get eight hours. It's beautiful and clean and so
Speaker 2: so if I'm doing a night work session, that means
Speaker 2: I'm saying good night to the kids at eight thirty,
Speaker 2: and instead of doing a meditation or cleaning the kitchen
Speaker 2: or whatever else I might want to be doing with
Speaker 2: that free time, I'm on my computer chugging through as
Speaker 2: much work as I can until lights out at ten thirty.
Speaker 2: And because I'm a good sleeper, I can kind of
Speaker 2: work till ten thirty. It becomes a little harder to
Speaker 2: fall asleep because I've had You know that I'm wound
Speaker 2: up with work and I have the light in my eyes,
Speaker 2: so it takes me like an extra four or five minutes,
Speaker 2: five minutes to fall asleep. This is not normal. Most
Speaker 2: people with native lights in their eyes don't fall asleep
Speaker 2: so easily. So you know, I can manage it. If
Speaker 2: I was not a good sleeper, I would want to
Speaker 2: stop that much earlier to make sure that I got
Speaker 2: a good night sleep.
Speaker 1: We will be back soon with Ario, and when we return,
Speaker 1: we'll discuss her simple strategy for balancing big goals family,
Speaker 1: time and work, and how she overcomes the fact that
Speaker 1: she is actually very bad at prioritizing. If you're looking
Speaker 1: for more tips to improve the way you work can live.
Speaker 1: I write a short weekly newsletter that contains tactics I've
Speaker 1: discovered that have helped me personally. You can sign up
Speaker 1: for that at Amantha dot com. That's Amantha dot com.
Speaker 1: How do you go about setting boundaries for yourself, particularly
Speaker 1: from the transition from not being a mother to being
Speaker 1: a mother where you know it's like your time and
Speaker 1: the decisions that you have around how you use your time,
Speaker 1: particularly like with just the demanding role that you have,
Speaker 1: How do you set boundaries and rules for yourself?
Speaker 2: It's really hard, And you know, initially in the transition
Speaker 2: from being a you know, soul body that could do
Speaker 2: whatever I wanted with my time to then being in
Speaker 2: a marriage where you know your partner needs things from
Speaker 2: you and being a workaholic is not really appealing in
Speaker 2: the really, you know, that's the first transition. When it
Speaker 2: was just me. You know, you can dive into work
Speaker 2: as much as you want, and if you're passionate about
Speaker 2: what you do, you can just do that. For many many,
Speaker 2: many hours straight, and you can no longer do that
Speaker 2: once the obligations of life come in and I have
Speaker 2: two children, and it becomes very challenging to make the
Speaker 2: right boundaries having the proper support. In my case, I
Speaker 2: have an afternote school nanny that picks up the kids
Speaker 2: at three thirty till five, so I get that extra time.
Speaker 2: There are times when I didn't and had to be like,
Speaker 2: three thirty is it? And so we're done with work.
Speaker 2: The workday ends early, but it means that every single
Speaker 2: night I'm making up that extra hour and a half
Speaker 2: from eight thirty to ten. It also means that I
Speaker 2: don't get everything done in my workday that I want to,
Speaker 2: and so I have to let go of some items
Speaker 2: and understand how to prioritize and prioritization in terms of
Speaker 2: which client is the most you know, is the highest priority,
Speaker 2: which task is the highest priority, knowing some of them
Speaker 2: just might not get done, which when you're dealing with
Speaker 2: client relationships is really really difficult choices to make. And
Speaker 2: you know, in your own work you can say, hey,
Speaker 2: I didn't get this done. It's fine, you know it's
Speaker 2: only good enough. It's fine, but you can't let a
Speaker 2: client down, and so those are the times when it
Speaker 2: becomes much harder to set boundaries and I end up
Speaker 2: working many, many more hours than I probably should.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about how you approach prioritization. I
Speaker 1: find that it is such a hard thing for so
Speaker 1: many leaders, and I'd love to know how do you
Speaker 1: think about it? You know, I guess from like a
Speaker 1: macro view, like you know, the year or the quarter,
Speaker 1: and then more of a micro view in terms of today.
Speaker 1: How do I actually distinguish between the thing that's going
Speaker 1: to shift the dial and the thing that maybe I
Speaker 1: feel like I need to do but it's going to
Speaker 1: make me work night shift.
Speaker 2: That's a tough question. So as an organization, we actually
Speaker 2: set out an annual plan and we start that process
Speaker 2: in October. We do our annual planning, We publish what
Speaker 2: we're going to do for the year, and then we
Speaker 2: try to keep ourselves to that. And there's obviously going
Speaker 2: to be a lot of shifts that happen, and part
Speaker 2: of it is response to market demand or response to
Speaker 2: you know, buyer is the most important thing that we
Speaker 2: have to deal with. I am actually very bad at
Speaker 2: prioritization because I want to do everything, and so I
Speaker 2: will often push myself to do more rather than drop
Speaker 2: something that I think is important, which can then lead
Speaker 2: to a lot of difficulty prioritizing family, the other things
Speaker 2: in your life. And so often that prioritization goes in
Speaker 2: two places. One is who is the pain customer? Who
Speaker 2: is most likely to be the pain customer, and so
Speaker 2: we need to serve them. And two is how is
Speaker 2: this going to do the most good, the most good
Speaker 2: for the organization, the most good for myself, the most
Speaker 2: good for my family, the most good for the customer,
Speaker 2: the person using the device. And so it is a
Speaker 2: question of you know, what's going to be financially most
Speaker 2: rewarding because it's going to allow the sustenance of the business,
Speaker 2: and what is also going to achieve the highest good
Speaker 2: for these groups of stakeholders, And often those groups of
Speaker 2: stakeholders are in conflict with one another. You know, what's
Speaker 2: the most good for my family is not the same
Speaker 2: as what's the most good for my company. Obviously they
Speaker 2: both want my time, and so that's when it has
Speaker 2: to really be a value based prioritization.
Speaker 1: It sounds like really tough decisions to make. How have
Speaker 1: you found yourself making them, you know, day to day
Speaker 1: or in the moment, because I'm imagining that this is
Speaker 1: probably a daily reality for you in terms of making
Speaker 1: those choices around who gets your time.
Speaker 2: So I mean, sometimes you don't even make that decision.
Speaker 2: The decision is made for you. The kid comes in
Speaker 2: in the middle of your zoom meeting and she really
Speaker 2: wants breastfeed, and like, sorry, it's just what's going to
Speaker 2: be happening, Sorry, zoom meeting. You know, sometimes you just can't.
Speaker 2: The nanny calls them sick and so sorry, meetings have
Speaker 2: to cancel and family gets your time. Sometimes it almost
Speaker 2: feels relieving when you don't have to make the decision
Speaker 2: that's made for you. Sometimes you really do get the
Speaker 2: luxury of making your own decisions. And it's a very
Speaker 2: good question how that decision is really made day to day.
Speaker 2: You know, I could give you an answer like, oh,
Speaker 2: I do it intuitively, but I think really what that
Speaker 2: means is I try to do the best I can,
Speaker 2: and then stuff is just going to fall into line
Speaker 2: and whatever gets done gets done. You know, we're really
Speaker 2: imperfect when it comes to managing most aspects of our humanity.
Speaker 2: Stuff just happens. Time goes on, People make choices around you,
Speaker 2: They impact you. You react in some way, and we
Speaker 2: try to put a little bit of guidance towards what
Speaker 2: we hope will happen along the way.
Speaker 1: I appreciate your honesty. It is sorry hot, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think particularly is a busy founder. It's so
Speaker 1: easy to feel torn between the business and clients and
Speaker 1: then what your family needs. I definitely experience that, you know,
Speaker 1: many many times, and I still don't quite know how
Speaker 1: to navigate it. I think something I do reflect on,
Speaker 1: and I think it helps me procrastinate less, is that
Speaker 1: the time that I've got, and typically my work time
Speaker 1: is it's in front of a computer, or it's in
Speaker 1: front of clients or with my team, and I think
Speaker 1: about how do I really make those hours count, particularly
Speaker 1: when if I don't make that count, there's going to
Speaker 1: be some sort of a trade off that I'm going
Speaker 1: to have to make later in the day when you know,
Speaker 1: I'm with my daughter. I'm curious, like if you can
Speaker 1: relate to that, or if you've kind of got similar
Speaker 1: mental processes or awareness of you know, particularly when your
Speaker 1: mind is drifting or you're you know, processing emails in
Speaker 1: a way that's not the most productive. What does that
Speaker 1: look like for you?
Speaker 2: So I absolutely resonate with this, and even as you
Speaker 2: say it, I feel this sense of pressure, and I
Speaker 2: think what you have to do is recognize that it's
Speaker 2: okay to have limitation, and it's okay to only do
Speaker 2: so much in a day, and it's okay to only
Speaker 2: be able to accomplish so much in a work session,
Speaker 2: and then to make your choices accordingly. You know, I
Speaker 2: used to want to say yes to everything because everything
Speaker 2: brought such amazing opportunity, and now I unfortunately have to
Speaker 2: say yes to a lot less things, but I continue
Speaker 2: to find that those bring richness an opportunity. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: not good at saying no to things, and so I
Speaker 2: think for me, it's more about what gets my attention
Speaker 2: to say yes to it, and honestly, some of it
Speaker 2: is just luck.
Speaker 1: I would love to know you've hosted the podcast Untangled
Speaker 1: for I think you're like over five hundred episodes in
Speaker 1: or something like that, and you've had so many amazing guests.
Speaker 1: Like the risk of asking a very cliched question, I
Speaker 1: would love to know what are some of the strategies
Speaker 1: that you've heard from guests that you have applied and
Speaker 1: that have stuck with you and improved your life in
Speaker 1: some way.
Speaker 2: One and this is this is a surprise question that
Speaker 2: I'm like thinking about it in real time. So one
Speaker 2: was bj Fog, so talking about habits. Bj Fog is
Speaker 2: a habit forming specialist. He has a book called Tiny
Speaker 2: Habits and Whole Methodology. He recommends that we change our
Speaker 2: habits bit by bit in tiny steps, and you celebrate
Speaker 2: each tiny step. The most obvious examples if you want
Speaker 2: to go to the gym. Going to the gym can
Speaker 2: feel really overwhelming, so you put on your shoes and
Speaker 2: you know, once you got your gym shoes on, you
Speaker 2: celebrate it. And for most people it can feel kind
Speaker 2: of cheesy to celebrate your winds, but there's a neural
Speaker 2: reason to do that. So you know, you do something,
Speaker 2: you establish the habit, and you want to go, yes,
Speaker 2: you know I did that. That's great because then you
Speaker 2: get a flood of dopamine, oxytose and serotonin that's actually
Speaker 2: going to encourage the way that your neurons wire together
Speaker 2: and help you learn fast. Another one is David Eagleman. So,
Speaker 2: David Egleman is a neuroscientist. He's a sensory perception neuroscientist,
Speaker 2: and he talks a lot about creativity. And one of
Speaker 2: the things that I always remember from him is teaching
Speaker 2: you how to rewire your brain and to make new
Speaker 2: neural connections and to do everything with the left hand.
Speaker 2: So brush your teeth with your left hand, open the
Speaker 2: door with your left hand, and as you do these things,
Speaker 2: you train your brain to think and act in new ways.
Speaker 1: That is very cool. I'm going to try that left
Speaker 1: handed thing.
Speaker 2: It's a funny one, but it is kind of fitting
Speaker 2: into the scheme of how do we optimize ourself? You know,
Speaker 2: how do we become our best selves? The practical thing
Speaker 2: is you're moving your left hand. But the extension to
Speaker 2: that is what are the things that I'm not good
Speaker 2: at that I should start doing. They might be uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: they might feel weird, but when I do them as
Speaker 2: a practical thing to do regularly, I increase that skill. So,
Speaker 2: you know, exercise is one of those things for me,
Speaker 2: exercising a new muscle. You may not want to do it.
Speaker 2: It might feel awkward, it might feel terrible, but it's
Speaker 2: like I do it because I know it's strengthening that
Speaker 2: part of my body. If I can't remember a word,
Speaker 2: instead of like braiding myself for it and thinking about
Speaker 2: perimenopause or aging or whatever it is, I stop and
Speaker 2: I try to remember the fact, because forcing yourself to
Speaker 2: do something that you're not good at trains you to
Speaker 2: just do it better each and every time.
Speaker 1: And in terms of the future of wearables and particularly
Speaker 1: ones that have brain sensing capabilities, what does that look
Speaker 1: like over the next three to five years.
Speaker 2: So I think we're going to see more and more
Speaker 2: brain sensing devices on the market. We're already seeing these
Speaker 2: things is they get integrated into headphones and into kind
Speaker 2: of aspects of our daily life. I think there's more
Speaker 2: and more use cases for the use of EEG to
Speaker 2: help you focus at work, to help you manage your sleep,
Speaker 2: and you know, we're seeing more and more devices coming
Speaker 2: out with more and more functionality. So I think the
Speaker 2: next three to five years are going to really be
Speaker 2: an inflection point. Whereas with the fitbit, for example, you know,
Speaker 2: back in twenty ten, very few people had a tracker,
Speaker 2: and now they're everywhere. We're at the beginning of that
Speaker 2: inflection in brain sensing devices.
Speaker 1: Amazing Ariel. It has been so great to talk to
Speaker 1: you learn about how you use the muse that's now
Speaker 1: going to impact how I use mine. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for your time today.
Speaker 2: Oh it's my pleasure.
Speaker 1: I hope you love this chat with Ariel. And if
Speaker 1: you are king to get your hands on a Muse,
Speaker 1: Ariel has kindly given listeners of the show a fifteen
Speaker 1: percent discount off MEWS. Just go to choose Muse MusB
Speaker 1: dot com, forward slash how I Work and enter the
Speaker 1: code how I Work at checkout, and those details are
Speaker 1: also in the show notes. If you like today's show,
Speaker 1: make sure you hit follow on your podcast app to
Speaker 1: be alerted when new episodes drop. How I Work was
Speaker 1: recorded on the traditional land of the Warringery people, part
Speaker 1: of the Cooler Nation.