Mindful Muscle

Exercise your mind to grow muscles - how you can begin a meditation practice that optimises brains and brawn together to improve your training, mood & sleep.

- Chris Williamson

Much of this article is derived from the fantastic work of Shinzen Young along with two podcasts I recorded featuring meditation experts Cory Allen and JeffWarren for the Modern Wisdom Podcast. Search “Modern Wisdom” on YouTube or any audio platform.

THE CONCEPT

Meditation for Muscle Growth? Really??

The bad news is that you can control nothing but your thoughts, the good news is that your thoughts can control everything else.

Your motivation to train, your willpower to complete that final rep, your ability to calm before sleep and your capacity to wake up and get going in the morning are all controlled by, and experienced through your mind. Directing your attention and focus where you want it is the single greatest superpower you can afford yourself. This is the benefit that a consistent meditation practice can afford you.

I Can’t Meditate

You are wrong. We are all meditating on a daily basis. We focus our attention on reminiscing about the past and fantasising about the future, all that is being proposed here is to focus your attention on observing the contents of your consciousness itself, rather than being lost within them. Instead of watching the screen of your thoughts so closely that it feels like you are living in the movie, you pull back to see it for what it is; stories arising as thoughts within the mind, just as a TV broadcasts images within a room.

Meditation Is Not For Me

You no longer need to be a Tibetan Monk in orange robes or a feral bearded man living alone in the Amazon Jungle to practice meditation, the last 20 years have seen meditation practices become curated for a modern secular world, today we are going to look at one of the most popular approaches; mindfulness.

Will It Make Me Not Feel Emotions?