Jason Alan Griffin :: The Blog

A year and a half ago, I started practicing breathing reduction, based on the teachings of Konstantine Buteyko. His program included this exercise that you were supposed to do every day. So, for about three weeks, I did it every day. But I soon gave it up because I was struggling to hold a control pause any higher than 8 seconds, and the teachings say that a “healthy person” should be able to easily hold a control pause of at least 20 seconds. Any less than that, they say, is a sign of poor health and an imbalance in your body. I was told that if it weren’t for the fact that I exercised so much, I would have much more disease in my body because of my poor breathing habits. Buteyko taught that an extremely fit and healthy person could easily hold up to forty second control pauses. My ego was riled. I considered myself a healthy person, at least. (and I’d even go so far as to say in excellent health and fitness) but I couldn’t even imagine holding a twenty second control pause, much l...

OK.  So, I got off track. This whole past week I was... well I... I sort of blew it.  I guess I was off in another world or something, but I didn’t do my exercises or my shopping trips, my morning routine or my nine cups a day of vegetables. In a word, I failed. But, the important thing is to be resilient and not let this become all about me failing. I can sit here and blame the snow, the power outage, the injury I had in my hand or anything, but the reality is, in the end, I didn’t do what I set out to do.  Excuses don’t change that, they only maybe help us feel better about it. So instead of excuses, I’m going to reboot and do it right this time. “You can’t fail if you haven’t given up yet.” So I'm not going to give up, I’m going to take this opportunity to go over what was and wasn’t working with my program and move forward. First and foremost, it’s crucial to re-assess my goals. Since I’m always working towards them, my goals will be changing and my ...

I am just now making my coffee, which I get to do as a reward for doing my new morning ritual. Today I woke up very sore from yesterday’s workout.  Or at least, I think it was from yesterday’s workout. It could still be residual from two days ago.  Because usually it takes about 24 hours for delayed onset muscle soreness to show up after exercise, which won’t be until around three o'clock this afternoon.  I might be in for some serious soreness then; we’ll see. I was a bit demotivated this morning because I was so achy and sleepy, but I still went into the room at my scheduled time for my morning breathing, moving and meditating ritual.  Afterwards... Now...  I’m so glad I did it! I feel SO much better.  It actually felt better today than it has felt all week.  So this is an interesting paradox: “The less you feel like doing it, the better it will make you feel when you do.” Also, it feels good to keep the habit going. I know that habits take a w...