Reduce stress and read faster

You know the situation: a day has 24 hours and there are those books and texts you want and have to read. Do you know, that you most probably have not (yet) improved your reading skills since you were 12 years young? Would you like to gain free time and reduce stress for you, just by simply reading faster?

I was recently starting to gather information about Speed Reading. Luckily Richard Darell (@minervity) wrote a blog post over at bit rebels just in time. Thanks again Richard!

In short:

  • most of us are still on the same reading skill level as of the age of 12
  • our reading speed is linked to our talking speed
  • biggest brain-break is our auditory reassurance system

Integrating a few hints and dropping some old patterns did improve my reading speed already. I will dig deeper into this topic and write about my findings here in the future. Oh – and use your gained free time to relax… 😉

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How to meditate in 2010

ZEN-MEN artwork of the track I am homeMeditation can be helpful in reducing stress, making clearer decisions, staying healthy and  improving life quantity and quality. Meditation is an old and proven tool of mankind all over the planet, throughout all religions. The form and importance might vary but the core is the same: an orientation to the inner center.

Maybe there is a deeper connection between the words orient and orientation… I’m personally a fan of meditations in Buddhism and ZEN style. So why meditate? Let’s use a geeky example to explain: (de-)fragmentation

If the hard disc of your computer is too much fragmented it will slow down seek time to data access and affect your whole system performance. Basically it’s the same with us human beings. Most times we are fragmented in time and space. A part of our brain-body-soul system works in automatic mode, breathing, entry-(eyes/ ears/ mouth/ nose) and surface(skin) surveillance, food mode – beer mode. Other parts are split(or lost) in past, present and future happenings, hopes and fears. Meditation practice improves your focus, concentration and offers a better “overview”.  In many life situations you can be more relaxed, stay calmer, find solutions faster and finally be happier. How do you defrag your system?

One of the easiest version is:

  • make yourself a gift of 5 minutes of free time
  • sit upright(if possible) in a for you comfortable position – relax
  • breathe in slowly
  • breathe out slowly – count to 1
  • breathe in slowly
  • breathe out slowly – count to 2
  • repeat until you counted up to 10 – restart breathing and counting from number 1

That’s all. Try to do this for only these 5 minutes and only do this. No other thoughts, no traveling through time and space. Sit and stay in the Now, breathe – count. Easy, right? 😉

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Une table a trois and the roulette of life

cafe dans le Rue Lepic!“I wanna dig more in the meaning” asked Omar over at the ZEN-MEN facebook page, thanks for asking!

I wrote the song and the lyrics of ZEN-MEN feat. Caroline – “une table à trois” in 1997. Caroline was pregnant in her 9th month and you can hear movements of her unborn daughter in the original recordings. It’s all about relativity, duality, about hopes and fears, obvious but hidden rules of life, the illusion of time and the One.
She comes into the cafe and sits down at a table with an old gentleman. Their conversation pauses from time to time for “meta-thoughts” like “Night and day at the same time, the sun shows the time but the sun itself has no time”. She takes two pieces of sugar for her coffee, one shaped like a heart, one like a cube. The old man explains her how he shares the sweetness of his heart, how he offers it in his open palms to the world.

Elle voulait être libre. Mais qui peut apercevoir les étoiles le jour, le soleil brille toujours pour celui qui sait le voir!

“She wanted to be free. But who can see the stars at day, the sun always shines for those, who know how to see it!

They talk about the game of life. She asks him, if he ever did win. “Since I know, who plays with whom and tomorrow, today will be yesterday, yes! In this game, there are only winners.”

Un jeu sans perdant, tout est emprunt̩, a qui? A celui qui laisse les fleurs sӪ̩panouir.

“A game without losers, all is borrowed, from whom? From the one, who lets the flowers blossom.”

She does not understand why he is talking about three persons all the time. In the story, she did not know yet that she was pregnant already. (So obviously, the story plays at least 9 months before we did the recording 😉 )

Yin and Yang, black and white, what is bad, what is good. The duality changes with the viewpoint of the observer. Both can be “wrong” and “right” at the same time. If we are stuck in a 2D view, we might miss the 3rd dimension. Some say there is a 3rd eye which might open a kind of over-view over duality. Mankind uses the (fixed) binary approach since a long time, “the earth is flat, the earth is the center of the universe, man is the crown of creation. Is this normal?”

Les jeux sont faits, rien ne va plus, la roue se met à tourner.

“Les jeux sont faits, rien ne va plus, the wheel starts to turn.” You could name it Karma or fate, sometimes it seems, when you spin the wheel of life, make a decision, drop the ball – at the end, it will land on black or red and maybe even on your lucky number… or on the One. In green.

… to the lyrics of  ZEN-MEN feat. Caroline – “une table à trois” in french
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Alltop and Opera Mini

and 
This is a good day, the best just got better! Alltop is a wonderful tool for me to read, organize and discover great content on the web. Most times I read MyAlltop page on the iPhone, it’s like my personalized newspaper. With the Opera Mini browser the reading experience just got a fun and quality kick! Switching between MyAlltop page and blogs, articles is really fast, tabbed browsing, zooming – just great!

Yes, it works also with Safari: click, browser window opens, click on an article, browser window minimizes, scrolling to a new browser window (if you have already a few open, enjoy the slideshow…), maximizing new browser window, opening URL, yawn…

So thanks Opera for making this mini browser with maxi value and thanks Apple for accepting it in the app store!

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The relativity of Time

Time is relative. Very. In an accident seconds pass by like in slow motion, the minutes you wait for the ambulance to arrive extend to eternity. You see people with green trees on their cars and you think; is it already Christmas again? On your 30, 40, 50, 60th birthday you wonder how did all this years fly by? Sounds familiar?

A look at my Sinn watch shows me time is ticking away, one second after another, precise, unimpressed by my worries not to have enough time. It’s just ticking, tick, tick, tick. Is it real? Do you know the days, when you fight against windmills, nothing seems to move on or works properly. Other days everything is in the flow; you, life, time – all fine. What’s the difference?

Maybe it’s like rafting on the river of life. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast. Wild and weird – peaceful and clear. When our course in life needs a correction, we are lucky to have friends which help us to paddle back on our track. Stones might show us the way, water flows like tides of time – a.way.

All the world is changing. Life is, to traverse a particular time, a certain space, and with a little luck, to leave a few traces behind.
Elie Wiesel

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Eckhart Tolle Findhorn Retreat

book cover of Eckhart Tolle's Findhorn retreatEckhart Tolle‘s Findhorn Retreat was held in spring 2004 at the Findhorn foundation in Scotland. Luckily it was recorded. The result is a wonderful gem consisting out of two DVDs with two hours footage each and a lovely tiny book with the essentials in written form accompanied with some favorite nature photos taken by Eckhart himself. The four hours retreat is like a journey through mankind, histories, humor and stillness. In a very clear and easy way Eckhart Tolle helps us to understand the normal confusions and illusions we are normally trapped in. If we live too much in the world of forms, attach our wellbeing or luck to forms, it gets obvious that we drive on the suffer highway with full speed. Forms come and go, maybe we succeed to get all forms in order for a short time and can finally be happy – but – its just a matter of time and forms decay and chaos comes back in our life. In addition, most of us(including me), are often stuck in the past or the future. The narrator in our head keeps on telling us our stories which happened in the past, which might happen in the future. Our history gets so important for us, that it sometimes feels like we are at the Oscar awards each day. Day in, day out.

How can we find stillness in all this? Rock’n’roll, baby!

Let me explain. Be a rock, practice some Zazen meditation or just sit on a chair. Do nothing. At least try it. Maybe you manage to experience the gap between two thoughts. Find the gap – mind the gap in the London tube…
Roll it. Imagine your life, your histories from past to future written on a scroll of parchment. Now roll it together from each side, what happens? You land in the present moment, welcome to the NOW!

Yes I know, it sounds all so easy if you write or talk about it. When neuronal thunderstorms once again hit my head and heart, for me, Eckhart Tolle’s Findhorn Retreat is a great tool to brighten up my brain and being. And it’s even funny!

Amazon.com Eckhart Tolle’s Findhorn Retreat: Stillness Amidst the World: A Book and 2 DVD Set

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the value of emptiness

Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching about the value of emptiness.

Thirty spokes connect to the nave,
The emptiness between creates the wheel.
The potter shapes clay into vessels,
The emptiness therein creates the utensil.
Windows and doors are cut out of walls,
The emptiness inside creates the housing.
The visible constructs the form of a work.
The in-visible makes up its value.

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let it sync

Let it sync. Recently I felt a bit stressed and bumped into a friend who asked me about my world. That day I had, once more, the illusion I might not have enough time. I told him about my worries and that I am aware I dropped into the time-trap again. He only said: Let it sync.

It made me ponder for a while – those mini happy moments when all is synced: my Google Calendar, Contacts and Mail via an exchange server to my iPhone, the iTunes music library, my bank account, my blog, my life. Perfect!
And then, in a fraction of a second, chaos is back. Like the Buddhists say, chaos and decay are the natural state of things. What about inner and outer pressure? Would it help to let it sync? How?

For me being blood type 0 positive, thats another story, I found a good mixture out of meditation, tea and sports. Add a good talk with a friend to it in any mixture and I can easily let it sync. How do you sync?

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Power-Naps by ZEN-MEN


Today it is Saturday here in Germany. Maybe you have had a stressful week, feel tired and now are trying to slow down over the weekend. This seems kinda unfair to me, using much of my free time to recover from the week. A while back I started to create Power-Naps by ZEN-MEN. The music and the woven-in brain tones are designed to bring you the relaxation level of a normal two hours sleep in 15 minutes. My friends have already asked me for a sleep-in only version of those Power-Naps, and I am working on that as well.

In Asia naps are widely accepted by society, it’s a sign that the person having a nap is looking consciously after his/her body and health. Latest developments even brought nap-shells to airports and official offices here in Germany. Use naps as an addition to a good normal sleep and actively transform a small amount of downtime to a 15 minute ritual for your body, mind and soul. Please share your experiences in the comments. Thank you!

FREE download via the ZEN-MEN video podcast at iTunes

Due to public requests more FREE download options:

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ommwriter

ZEN-MEN for ommwriterOmmwriter is. ZEN is. Together a unique timeless tool which helps you to import your creative nuclear fusions of thoughts. Lightnings become writings. Typing with Ommwriter transforms time into space, induces wideness into your maze. The mind settles down, light and profound.
Ommwriter is currently in beta v2 and available free for the Mac OSX/ SL platform.

ZEN-MEN did create a special theme for Ommwriter consisting out of a new background, antique typing sounds and an 8 minute version of the special ZEN-MEN “AlphawaveZ” music track. A short “manual – how to” is in the free downloadable ZIP file. Enjoy!

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