Calm Your Mind

Shift from high-anxiety and self-doubt to calm clarity and vivid alertness. Discover how to use your breath, body and biology to enjoy flow, that optimal brain state of calm, clear focus where you feel your best and do your best.  In this episode, world-class, mental fitness expert Cara Bradley and two-time New York Times bestselling author Anne Alexander share the fastest ways to get out of high-anxiety, exit the "cage" of self-doubt and enter an extended flow state to perform at your mental and physical peak.  Join Cara & Anne talking about using your breath to calm your body, calm your mind why small acts of self-compassion are so important letting go of your need to control remembering who you are as a way to dissolve your old patterns and conditioning developing your sense of presence three “flow triggers” you can use to achieve your peak mental performance how your gut influences your mind PRACTICE - at the end of the episode, Cara leads a guided meditation to increase your awareness and wake up your senses.  EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS Calm Mind Rhythm is one of the fastest ways to move from a high anxiety state into a more grounded place where you feel like, okay, I can deal with this. Five to six seconds on the inhale and five to six to on the exhale is what allows our body to get into an autonomic coherence which is the same sense of calm clarity that we call mindfulness. When we don't exhale fully, our body stays stressed. Our breath is like a direct knob into tuning the nervous system. Finding Presence When we multitask we really don't experience the vividness of what we're doing. We keep missing the moment that we're in. Meditation is becoming familiar with ourselves in different states, becoming familiar with different patterns and conditions.  We can tap back into who we are. We may use prayer, a meditation practice, a walk under the night sky or the morning sunrise.      Take five minutes every day without anything. No earbuds, no phone, just you and the earth, the sky and the woods. Getting Out of the Cage We believe we're in a cage, due to accumulated patterns and life experiences. Negative self-talk holds us back. When you feel free of doubt you are capable of anything.  Letting go of the need to figure out your life will liberate us. It takes self kindness for the cage to dissolve. I don't want to miss my life because I'm so busy doing too many things at one time. Turn your devices off. Clear Focus We can take the time to train ourselves to recognize the importance of our own existence. For 25 minutes I make myself sit and nothing else gets seen or done except writing. Have a very simple goal. The goal should be a subset of a bigger goal. Make sure that the task is not too challenging or too easy. Biology of the Biome If our gut is imbalanced, then there's going to be a sub optimal production…not feeling as motivated…and brain fog.. The serotonin, the dopamine, and norepinephrine, all of these neurotransmitters make us feel good and perform well. We can actually train our gut to be more balanced. EPISODE BREAKDOWN [00:01:00] Moving rhythmically helps our nervous system come into autonomic coherence which is the sense of calm clarity that we call mindfulness.  [00:03:43] A five to six second inhale and a five to six second exhale allows our body to become mindful. [00:04:10] When we don't exhale fully our body stays in a stressed state. [00:07:00] Repeating a mantra settles your system and focuses your mind. [00:09:50] We often feel locked in a cage. We accumulate these patterns and the patterns become the cage. Each little wire is patterns, conditioning and life experiences. [00:15:10] Take five, ten, fifteen minutes every day without anything. No earbuds, no phone, just you and the earth. [00:18:20] We're always so quick to fill our time. [00:19:41] Meditation is becoming familiar with ourselves in different states, becoming familiar with different patterns and conditions. [00:21:20] Letting go of the need to figure out your life will liberate you.  [00:23:10] We keep missing the moment we're in. [00:27:30] Explore how to live a fully alive existence and also manage a busy life and the stresses that come with that. [00:33:20] The challenge skills equation means that when we do something that is way above our pay grade, we get frustrated. We don't do it. We procrastinate. When something's too easy, too tedious and task oriented we get bored. [00:35:42] The gut brain connection: the stomach has more serotonin in it than the brain. We can actually train our stomach to be more balanced. [00:39:12] PRACTICE: High Definition Guided Meditation Practice with Cara Bradley— shine your awareness and wake up your senses.