Forest bathing

A walk through a forest is a multimedia spectacle. Air to breathe, an ocean of colors, a concert of fragrances, surround sounds everywhere – from your steps on the trail to the tops of the trees. Forest bathing is healthy and even free!

Recently the NY Times wrote about the therapeutic effects of forest bathing. Stress reduction, benefits for your immune system, lower pulse rate, less cortisol, lower blood pressure and much more. Somehow it’s no surprise to me, that the popular practice is called “Shinrin-yoku” in Japan. When did you do your last forest bathing? Mine was today.

In case you should not be able to take a walk or a forest bathing in “real life”, perhaps you might like to try at least a virtual forest bathing in Chakryn forest, which is a wonderful place in the virtual world of Second Life. Sure, it will not have the same impact like a real life forest but it might reduce some stress. You will find me in Second Life under my user name ZEN7MEN Mannonen. Happy bathing!

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Words Of My Perfect Teacher

Sometimes you don’t need many words to describe something:

If he’s enlightened, why doesn’t he act like an enlightened being? … That’s a reasonable question, isn’t it?

Words of my perfect teacher is not only a movie, it’s also a journey inside your heart and soul. Much too often we try to fulfill somebody else’s expectations, we try to follow the rules. On our trail back to real happiness, we either will have to break some rules or  we might lose our-self. Choose wisely!

Amazon.com Words of My Perfect Teacher – DVD

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How to install iOS4 the relaxed way

Christmas comes early this year, the iPhone 4 is near! With the iPhone 4 comes the operating system update now called iOS 4, which will also bring new features for iPhone 3G(s) and the latest iPod touch generations.

Since I am waiting for a white iPhone 4, I thought in the meantime, let’s upgrade my iPhone 3G to iOS4. Let me take you on a trip! 🙂

First of all, relax – get some tea, beer, … whatever you like and free some time to do the upgrade. Depending on your iPhone (iPod touch) model, your connection speed and available download bandwidth from the Apple server, plus your data size, it will take about from 30 minutes to 2 hours.

Go into airplane mode, take a manual backup via iTunes, save your settings, call your mum, sync all, export your sales from the iPhone into the library, have a tea, click slowly. Then hit the update button to install 4.0. Click through the windows, accept here and there and be happy when it starts. Now might come the tricky part, if the upgrade makes again a backup, and the progress bar hangs for over 30 minutes at two bars, hit cancel. Start again and in the 2nd round, it worked here. Be patient with the progress bar, if you have e.g. 12GB data installed, that will take some time… Time for another tea.

After a while your iPhone will reach its blackout point, wants to be activated again, enter your sim code, when it wants to be plugged into iTunes, unplug the cable, drink some tea, and plug it back in. When the backup starts to rebuild the data, simply wait, the iPhone might reboot and then start to rebuild also all your personal data…

One minute after I connected to the mobile network, I got a SMS from the German Telekom telling me it wants to upgrade the phone driver, hit upgrade. In the settings I read Carrier T-Mobile 7.1 (was 7.0 before).

The new folders are good Feng Shui, cutting down my home pages to only 3 (was 10+). Happy upgrading!

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The movie of your life

Imagine you are at the cinema, you have a fine place in a relaxing armchair, the lights slowly go out. Luckily we are intelligent beings and even find the coke and our popcorn in the dark. The dark side is strong, we all know this since Star Wars, but especially in a movie theater it would be very boring to sit in the dark for two hours. With one push of a button, the projector lights up and the movie starts rolling…

Most times when we go to the movies we preselect what movie we like to see. Our decision might be based on recommendations by friends, current mood, passed workday or the media. Something moves us to choose. Let’s have a closer look to the involved elements of our movie experience:

  • Without a room – no movie
  • Without a projector – no movie
  • Without a movie – no illusion
  • Without you – no experience

The room and the projector are neutral so to say. It’s the movie and your relation to the movie which charge your emotions and thoughts. The movie wants to light up neuronal thunderstorms in your brain, that’s what it’s made for, but at the end – the trigger is in your hand or head.

What kind of movies do you select for your life? Happy, depressing, action, drama, fear, horror, romantic, trashy or do you simply feel Lost? When you watch a movie, how often do you take your eyes off the canvas or the screen? If you suddenly feel like an actor in your own life, maybe it’s time to pause the movie for a while, step back mentally and remember that the movie of your life is your choice!

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Breathe to relax

Chris Remspecher breathingWelcome to a short breathing exercise to relax.
The good news is, we have a great tool built in – so let’s use it!

Sit comfortably in (half) lotus position or simply in your chair. Put your left hand in your lap. Close your right nostril with your right index finger and breathe deep and long through your left nostril. Keep your eyes closed. Practice for 1 to 5 minutes, maybe setup a timer with your mobile phone or iPhone. Please ask your doctor if this exercise is suitable for you, if you are in doubt.

How do you feel now?

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How to hoover in 2010

Buddha wearing Sennheiser PMX80 Sport II headphonesRecently I was practicing some active Feng Shui, also known as hoovering. Suddenly the doorbell rang, I paused the iPod, opened the door and looked into the surprised eyes of my neighbor (Hi Bettina!).
She: “What are you doing? Listening to music while hoovering?”
Me: “Yep.”
She: “Now that’s a cool idea!”
Me: 🙂

For me the sound of a vacuum cleaner sounds stressy but with fine music and great equipment you can turn the hoover act into a hovering performance. With the Sennheiser PMX 80 Sport Series II headphones I finally found for me the perfect companion. A full sound, very convenient to wear and a fancy design!

Very practical for hoovering, perfect for sport like trail running, elevating during a walk into nature (especially with ZEN-MEN music 😉 ). Happy hoovering!

Amazon.com Sennheiser PMX80 Sport Series II

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Cheng Hsin and how to relax under fire

book cover of "Cheng Hsin: The Principles of Effortless Power" by Peter RalstonEffortless power – what would you do with it? Spice up your cooking skills, strengthen your conversation methods, boost your office work, enlighten your education or build a foundation for martial arts?

A while back I wrote about the book Zen Body-Being by Peter Ralston. By Peter’s suggestion, I red Cheng Hsin: The Principles of Effortless Power. So what is Cheng Hsin?

The Chinese characters cheng and hsin (pronounced “cheng shin”) offer us images which communicate the nature of “truth” and “being” — an appropriate title for a body of work that involves increasing consciousness on all levels of “being.”

Human beings tend to see and feel things separate of each other. Let’s do a short recall: where do we physically come from, who delivers our food, where does gravity pull us to – you might have guessed it, the Earth. It would be even logical to Mr. Spock to increase the focus on our connection between our body center and the Earth. If we allow our body position/ our spine to “fall” properly along gravity, we save energy and reduce stress.

A relaxed body and mind will give suitable answers to situations, while a uptight body and disturbed mind can only react.  The book will help you to find and keep your balance, to explore the core of your center and to encourage you to empty yourself. Imagine – an empty you, a relaxed mind, an open and free heart – suddenly, there’s nothing to protect… So if you are in danger or under fire, move! (… and get the book)

Amazon.com Cheng Hsin: Principles of Effortless Power

UPDATE: I wrote Peter Ralston an email about this blog post and asked him to optimize the content if needed. Here”™s another friendly reply of him:

Chris,

Thanks for the mention. Looks fine. It occurs to me from what you say and looking at your blog that you might be interested in what I consider my real work (what allowed the body-being and effortless power to emerge as they did) and that’s to be found in The Book of Not Knowing. I didn’t know you were interested in Zen and such, but it figures. This book is a big undertaking, and represents my life-work, but you can get a lot from simply the first few chapters. I think you might find it beneficial.
Be well,
Peter

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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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Enjoy a mini break


OUT NOW! ZEN-MEN Medi-X videos are chillaxing for eyes and ears.
These modern short meditations help you to focus whilst you enjoy mini breaks during the day. Experience the here and now and create refreshing moments for your brain and your being.

All 12 full versions of vol.01 are in high quality and have a length of 5 minutes each. (Even higher than on YouTube!)
For example here: http://bit.ly/ZEN-MEN_iTunes
More information about the Medi-X project can be found here.
Audio from: Medi-X vol.001+101
Video locations: Mauritius, South of France, Finland

To celebrate the release, I am giving away 100 FULL videos for FREE! Just write me an E-mail, include your name and country and which one of the 12 videos you would like to get and I will send you an E-mail with your download link.

Thank you!

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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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